Stubby, R.I.P.

Stubby, the pet dog in my parents’ place in Bangalore, died on June 3^rd. She was a real darling, friendly to the core, accomodating and always ready for a shut eye ! At 11 and a half years old, she had just entered the canine senior citizen bracket. During her younger days, she would converse with us whenever she wanted something or did not approve of what we gave her. She was pretty slow by the time we returned in March and was refusing to eat anything by the end of May. After the diagnosis of multiple organ failure, and a lot of dicsussion within the family it was decided to put her to sleep and spare her the suffering as her condition deteriorated. My father and I drove her over to the vet to have the cocktail injection administered. When we reached there we found that she had died without a whimper somewhere on the way.

She was my father’s pet, and a spoilt one at that. Back when she was still young, every day he would spend an hour or more preparing biscuit crisp ‘roti’s for her. He started sharing sweets and crispies with her, inspite of protests from all of us, and slowly Stubby’s taste buds started demanding rusks, biscuits, cakes, and other such bakery items. She became picky about the other not so tasty, but healthy food that ma prepared for her. How can Raagi ganji, multi-grain flour roti, boiled egg, bread & milk compete with sweet baked yummies? Fortunately though, untill the last week, her primary diet was still one of the healthier foods.

Sounds like someone's at the door !

I was the designated ‘bather’ and ‘vet guardian’. Even in the year when I was in Mysore and the family was in Bangalore, stubby care would be a part of my weekend visit. When my parents moved to Gandhinagar in Gujarat, Stubby and I, along with a driver, drove over in the family’s Maruti van. When I rejoined the family in Gujarat, Stubby was getting a little more exercise and was in a much better shape. By the time I left for Minneapolis, my sister was trained enough to take over Stubby care.

Like me, Stubby also had a fairly bad memory, I suspect. After a long absence it would greet me like it was greeting a stranger and after a few seconds, when reminded by ma, appaji and yaa, she would guardedly come towards me seeking to be petted. A few moments later she would start a conversation with her ‘bow-wow-bow’s!! We miss Stubby …