On these sunny days, it has been common to see dogs sitting in the shades of your house.... While I was sitting and watching them, I was thinking of all those dogs that I met in my life.....
It is long since I had a dog in my house.... But I remember my sweet pet, "Tiger" by name (and yet was a dog- of course..!)
Dogs have some reserved common names.... Some are like Tommy, Jimmy, Tony, Tiger, Rover, Ceaser, July......
How does a dog get its name? Do these little ones expect to be called by good names? Who can ever think about the name from a dog's point of view?
Well.... Some keep the most common names reserved for dogs... And thats really easy....! Some dogs get their names from their personality(??!!??). From their colour , Whitie, Blackie..... and other styles..... Fluffy, bujju.....
When I was pretty young, after hearing a lot of dog stories that my mother had in her home, I was fond of dogs, as children used to be.... But I never got the permission to grow one.... My mom used to say that it is hard for her to maintain one "dog" itself..... And by that one dog she means me! I used to whine like a dog on hearing this. (But later I learnt that it was the common custom of mothers to use the same words to put an end to the children's dog desires.......!)
But my mom could not stop me from playing or at least feeding (as I always had a little fear for those canined friends!) other dogs which I see on the street. One such friend of mine was "Tommy". My sister and me started feeding that poor dog which doesn't know to pick up a fight with other stray dogs to get a piece of food.... It made it a usual routine to visit our house and it also used to give us company when we work in the garden. When asked my sister how to call it, we entered into a long discussion and arrived at the name "Tommy". Tommy started responding to that call after a few days.... Later we found that the dog was not a street dog and it had an owner! I was too curious to restrain myself from going to that house and ask what was the name they had for their dog? I got the reply as "Mani"....
Now I had a series of questions in my mind...... While the dog already had another name why did it accept our pet name Tommy? And why did it come to play with us leaving the two young girls in that house? Most of all...... Does the dog know whether it was christened with two names and respond to both? I asked one of the girl of that house the last question. She looked a bit confused.... It seemed that as for her giving a name for the dog was just a kind of ritual. She had never thought that the dog should be called by that name!
She said that she never called her dog by that name. So we decided to test whether Tommy was aware of the existence of its other name. As we called it "Mani"...... Oops.... The dog didn't respond! On the contrary, it started running towards us when called "Tommy"..... I was so excited and thus Tommy became my first pet.....
Later I met many dogs in my life, with many queer habits- Roger- my friend's dog, which she always used to call as her brother, Tuffy- a pomeranian from my aunt's home, Teddy- a white cutie of my cousin, Rover- a labradar, that likes to hold something in its mouth and many more.......
Lastly came "Tiger", a German shepherd cross breed, which came as a birthday present to me! It became my best friend and a good companion... It removed the fear of dogs which I had in my heart. It accompanied me wherever I went- sometimes even to school!- creating a lot of fuss.... But he made me understand what a dog is..... More accurate to say- what actually a living being is! It was he that made me realize that all hearts- be it a dog or human- yearns for the same love and responds for the same feelings! From this best friend of man's that I learnt the fact - "All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man, the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports ".....
It is long since I had a dog in my house.... But I remember my sweet pet, "Tiger" by name (and yet was a dog- of course..!)
Dogs have some reserved common names.... Some are like Tommy, Jimmy, Tony, Tiger, Rover, Ceaser, July......
How does a dog get its name? Do these little ones expect to be called by good names? Who can ever think about the name from a dog's point of view?
Well.... Some keep the most common names reserved for dogs... And thats really easy....! Some dogs get their names from their personality(??!!??). From their colour , Whitie, Blackie..... and other styles..... Fluffy, bujju.....
When I was pretty young, after hearing a lot of dog stories that my mother had in her home, I was fond of dogs, as children used to be.... But I never got the permission to grow one.... My mom used to say that it is hard for her to maintain one "dog" itself..... And by that one dog she means me! I used to whine like a dog on hearing this. (But later I learnt that it was the common custom of mothers to use the same words to put an end to the children's dog desires.......!)
Now I had a series of questions in my mind...... While the dog already had another name why did it accept our pet name Tommy? And why did it come to play with us leaving the two young girls in that house? Most of all...... Does the dog know whether it was christened with two names and respond to both? I asked one of the girl of that house the last question. She looked a bit confused.... It seemed that as for her giving a name for the dog was just a kind of ritual. She had never thought that the dog should be called by that name!
She said that she never called her dog by that name. So we decided to test whether Tommy was aware of the existence of its other name. As we called it "Mani"...... Oops.... The dog didn't respond! On the contrary, it started running towards us when called "Tommy"..... I was so excited and thus Tommy became my first pet.....
Later I met many dogs in my life, with many queer habits- Roger- my friend's dog, which she always used to call as her brother, Tuffy- a pomeranian from my aunt's home, Teddy- a white cutie of my cousin, Rover- a labradar, that likes to hold something in its mouth and many more.......
Lastly came "Tiger", a German shepherd cross breed, which came as a birthday present to me! It became my best friend and a good companion... It removed the fear of dogs which I had in my heart. It accompanied me wherever I went- sometimes even to school!- creating a lot of fuss.... But he made me understand what a dog is..... More accurate to say- what actually a living being is! It was he that made me realize that all hearts- be it a dog or human- yearns for the same love and responds for the same feelings! From this best friend of man's that I learnt the fact - "All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man, the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports ".....
Having a pet is not merely an entertainment but the practice of loving other lives and understanding them....
