Cute aren’t they? Well only one survived. Yes it’s a heart breaking real life story. When it started? We need to go back a couple of years –
Around January 2019, five puppies started to come near our home for drinking water –
I don’t have picture of 5th one. Only 3 survived – The black one with white paws, the blonde one and the one with the spots. These 3 cute puppies, 2 females (Kallu and Bhuri) and 1 male (spotty), found out they can peacefully live near our house because there is always water and left over food was served at night.
Somewhere around December 2019 both females gave birth. Kallu had 6 puppies; they all died rather an unfortunate death. One of our neighbours put them in hole thinking that they would be safe there, the neighbour fell ill and couldn’t get out of the house for a couple of days and completely forgot about the puppies, when she remembered it was too late.
Bhuri had 4 puppies. One day me and my mother took a stroll to see where did Bhuri kept its puppies. What we saw was priceless. As Bhuri was weak due to child birth kallu and spotty were guarding these 4 different shades of brown and blond –
All 7 of them lived like any normal human family. They took shelter near our house because there no one could hit them, they could get water and food and the Man with vegetable cart always gave them tomatoes. But our spotty is a real Alpha.
Soon it started attacking the puppies and its sisters for food though he did never hurt them but he certainly scared them. After some time one of the puppies died of sickness. The 3 puppies started growing up on whatever left over we could provide them. In a few months they actually grew up to be healthy.
Then it came the age of Pandemic, nationwide lockdown declared in end of March 2020. One of puppies (Guchlu) took permanent shelter under our car, because it wasn’t going anywhere and Kallu was expecting again. Under the influence of its survival instinct, it needed more food so Kallu drove Bhuri away. The other 2 puppies also started keeping their distance because Kallu had started having a temper. No one could budge Guchlu because it was under my protection, and during the lockdown it grew up to be a full grown dog (almost).
In early June 2020 Kallu gave birth to 5 adorable black puppies in an extended section of a hut just in front of our house. From here the story of our joy and grief starts.
My mother gave Kallu Porridge (which she specially made for Kallu) and Laddu (made to overcome the weakness of child birth). It became a routine for me to check up on those puppies every now and then during my work from home period. Just after a week the owner of the hut returned from their village because of “Unlock”. My parents asked them to not to move the puppies for some time and they agreed. The hut owner had little kids so he sealed the front of the hut with sacks, left a little space so that only dogs can pass by.
One day my mother noticed a lot of ants in the hut and asked the owner to throw some powder to get rid of ants. Now the puppies were a little over 20 Days and had their eyes opened. When the owner took off the sacks to throw the powder, Kallu already had so many wounds caused by Ants and the puppies were introduced to the whole new world. Till then they had no idea that anyone else was out there. Kallu became very weak and she had to leave the puppies though kept checking on them. There was only Guchlu who was kind of jealous with these puppies because they had my full attention. Kallu’s visits became less frequent and the puppies were left on the mercy of no one. For puppies it was a new world and they wanted to explore it as much as they can without any idea of what’s waiting for them out there.
We spent our noon counting them to check if all of them are there and nights putting them back in the hut but once they were out of the hut it was hard to put them back there. It was Monsoon season, when it rained they had no idea where to go so they would just sit in front of our home and cry. I had to put them in the hut at midnight to keep them safe from rain. If I put one in the hut the other one would get out. I was so much out of my front door that I actually became aware that what the last names of my neighbors are. During the Work from home I got tan which I never had when I used to travel to office. I actually started applying sunscreen during Work from home because every now and then I had to go out in order to watch the puppies – if all of them were there?, if all of them were safe?, did they need food or water or shelter? My father even kept them inside the front gate when a JCB was running down the road. That was the shittiest half an hour my house has ever seen. I even helped my mother in cleaning it because I was afraid if she had to do it all by herself, she would never let me keep the puppies inside.
Soon these puppies became talk of the town and everyone wanted to touch them, hold them, and play with them. People from neighborhood who I never talked to before or saw before would come to just watch the puppies. Some people would actually take the puppies with them for a couple of hours.
On a July Sunday I decided to give them a quick bath.
I wanted them to be all cleaned up so that I can play with them. It was a tough job to put them together because whenever they saw their mother they ran in her direction without knowing anything about the dangers of real world. Some kids helped me to find them and these kids had all kind of questions – do you take care of these puppies? Can we come to your house and play with them? What do they eat? Etc. etc.
Somehow we managed to give them all a bath and lots of toast. They slept through the day and played through the evening. It was a delight to watch them play with each other, sleep over each other. They were such a bundle of joy.
The very next day the same kids came and told me that one of the puppies had been killed by a big dog. I didn’t believe this kid and My father went to check. He told me that it had died and kids had dug a grave for the puppy and buried it. They even put some flowers over the grave.
Next day those kids came and they asked me if they wanted to build a house for the puppies would I allow it. Of course I allowed it. At the time there is nothing I wanted more than a house for the puppies. I could not keep them inside my house because my parents are senior citizens, once this pandemic situation clears I would be spending my days at office and it would be too much for my parents to take care of puppies. The kids started building a house of cardboards which soon became their own instrument of play.
After the death of one of puppies I became more protective of them, I would go after them if they left the street for their mother and bring them back. I was afraid that they will be attacked by the same dog again. I counted them first thing after getting up in morning and before going to sleep in night. I spent one whole afternoon looking for one puppy which was found by a kid for me. Somehow I managed to train them to come back on my call; somehow I managed to keep them in front of my eyes. When I called they ran back to me on their small paws, that’s the happiness I have never felt before considering we used to have 2 dogs long back. I felt a bit relaxed because the puppies were able to found their way back.
On a Wednesday evening around 8 o’clock, I just counted them and checked my office messenger; I had to take a quick call. I was on call and heard my mother say to my father - someone has killed 2 puppies. I did not believe it, I couldn’t focus on the meeting, and I told them that I will connect later and disconnected the call. I ran outside, there I saw two of them just lying there.
One of puppies had its gut out on the road –
And the other one just died in its sleep, it wasn’t even
visibly hurt.
Someone bought a new car and decided to drive over them. I have never seen such a heart breaking sight in my life so close to my eyes. We couldn’t eat or sleep. When some of us confronted the driver about the accident he wasn’t even aware that he had killed two puppies.
Only 2 puppies left which I called chhoti and moti. The very
next day chhoti became sick, we took care of him, gave them small amount of
medicine and in a couple of days it started looking better.
Chhoti was clearly in distress while Moti was a happy go lucky. Moti wanted to play but Chhoti was sad. They wanted their mother who just knew something has happened – what or how she could not understand. Whenever she tried to keep an eye on the puppies from a distance at one of the neighbors’ front gate, our very considerate neighbor would throw a bucket full of water on her in order to get rid of her. She did not come near them because they wanted to be fed and she didn’t have any strength to feed them.
My father arranged a box for the puppies so that they won’t sleep on the road. I put it at our front gate so that I can see them from inside the house. I covered the box with plastic, umbrella and rain coat so that they didn’t have to worry about the weather. By this time our Guchlu started growling at the puppies whenever they went near him. Sometimes spotty came to check on them but he is not very fatherly.
After 3 days on Sunday, one family who used to visit before to watch the puppies adopted Moti. It was also gone. Chhoti was left alone with Guchlu who wasn’t very friendly. It was in its box (which became its house), at night when we turned off the lights, it started crying. I gave it some re-assurance, put it to sleep, came back inside and it started crying again. I took it inside, it was happy, wanted to explore the front porch, I turned off the lights went to sleep and it started crying again. I checked on it and hoped that its mother will come after hearing the cry. She eventually came and we all went to sleep. The next in the afternoon Chhoti started crying again, I had to work; I couldn’t give it company so I took it in and somehow managed to put it to sleep. In the evening it played joyfully, in the night it understood that the box was its house and Chhoti went inside the box on its own free will. Chhoti was getting used to of all of this, getting used to of us taking care of it, Guchlu growling at it, its mother running away from it. Whenever it was sleeping we kept our voices low, because whenever Chhoti heard us, it would want to come to us. It did not even try to follow its mother after going 20 Feet. I again became a bit relaxed thinking that Chhoti can now survive in this world.
On Thursday Chhoti fell ill, we tried to give it some medicine, when it did not improve Chhoti’s health we called a Doctor next day. Chhoti was beyond saving by then but still the Doctor tried everything he could. In the afternoon Chhoti passed away and it broke my heart to see this small, beautiful, adorable creature to go this cold and rigid. Now Kallu keeps coming at our front door thinking that we might have its kid.
I don’t cry much. Whenever I cry it is either for my own or my family’s problems. It makes me sad when I think about them. I miss these puppies, I miss seeing them first thing in the morning, I miss putting them to sleep in night, I miss feeding them, and I miss playing with them. I don’t think I can get attach to a person in a whole year or in a life time as much as I got attached to these puppies in a month.
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