Lost him to Cancer today 6th Sept 2013........stared helplessly as he sighed for the last time ...... Buddy where ever you go from here, hope you have a great life...... you will always be in our memories...Always!!
Love you tons sweetheart.....R.I.P
He came wrapped in a soft cloth in a red basket on 9
th
Mar’2001, a significant date because, he was my first wedding anniversary gift,
an animal lover all my life, this was the best gift my husband could have got
me. He was, a ball of off-white fur when
he came home, a small baby, whining because he had just been separated from his
mother, but all he needed was a little pampering and he was back to his jumpy
self again.
Cerelac packets were bought and a whole vaccination schedule
worked out for him. When he was bought we were informed that he was a
Pomeranian pup, but our first visit to the vet told us that he was a Labrador
pup, and the one after that finally told us that he was a German Spitz, a name
given to a cross between a Pomeranian and any other breed ( I think)....but as
he grew up, he looked like a very handsome mongrel....whatever the breed, it
really didn't matter as he was now a part of our family and no way were we
going to let him go. We had named him Buddy, our best friend.
Suddenly there was so much life in the house; he had a
character of his own ...it felt like we had a new member in the family who had
to be included in all our plans. He hated to be out in the sun and would
retreat to the nearest shaded corner as soon as he was taken out. He soon
started teething and left his mark on everything – the dining table legs had
his teeth marks, the sofa, the bed, clothes that he could lay his hands on,
chews, toys, everything was bitten.
The first time that we had to travel out of station, we
decided to take him with us. So there he was in Delhi meeting his extended
family, my cousins, aunts and uncles, but the Delhi heat had stressed him out
and we promised never to bring him out of his comfort zone again. After that
whenever we had to go out, we would ask our maid to visit him daily and take
care of him while we were away. He had grown up to be a pretty ferocious guy,
and till today hates to be addressed as ‘kutta’ (the Hindi translation for
‘dog’). Whenever we tease him and call him kutta, he gets agitated as if he is
being insulted.
We were worried when
we were bringing our first child, Vansh, home from the hospital, I was still weak and
couldn't play with him like I did earlier and also had to take care of the baby. The day the
baby was brought home, Buddy was excited, he wanted to sniff the baby from near
which I let him do once and after that he calmed down. I had thought that he would be jealous of the
little one, but on the contrary, he became extra caring, kept himself away from
the baby as if he knew that he should not hurt the little one. When Vansh started crawling, he would keep
following Buddy around the house and at times even pull his tail, but Buddy
would patiently let him do that. And Aryan, our second child, was a terror, who
would always want to sit on Buddy and ride on him and we would be scared that
he would bite, but Buddy was a good big brother and would be gentle. He would
growl to scare Aryan off, but never bit him.
When we adopted Champ (our little daschund and the youngest
child in the family), Buddy was a bit jealous on the first day and refused to
let him come near him, but later he became his mentor and for Champ he was like
his entire support system. Champ would refuse to move out of the gate for his
evening walk if Buddy didn't accompany him. They would play together on the
carpet, in fact, Champ was the only one who was allowed to steal Buddy’s chews
and get away with it.
As time went on we saw Buddy grow from a playful child to an
aggressive youngster to a caring elder brother to my children and Champ, to now
a twelve year old. Thankfully even the boys are very fond of him and in my
heart he will always be special. Today he is an ailing patient and I am doing
all that I can to make life comfortable for him. Dogs are known to have a
lifespan ranging from ten to fifteen years and how much ever I try, I am not
able to prepare myself to let him go. Prayers, medicine, hospitals, we are
doing all we can to save him, he looks healthy except for the pain in his
bloated stomach and his arthritis that has slowed him down.
Buddy, an innocent face with mischievous eyes and a
commanding personality, today (1st Aug 2013) he is old and sick, but still keeps his terror.
He barks and limps to the door every time the doorbell rings. People in the
apartment still make way for him when he goes down for his walk and the children
are scared of him. My heart breaks to see him so weak, but all I can do is to
be with him during his illness and just pray that he is back to his normal self
soon........
Wish I could have saved him ...did everything I could, but was too late!!
