Forthnights

Goodbye Doby... I'm sorry....

It’s still hard to accept for me.

My brother gave our dog away to the animal shelter.I just feel extremely sad about the matter; its not just something you give away so easily like so toy you were tired of.

This was a life we are talking about. This is a dog that grew up not knowing any other master. This was a dog we nurtured from a cute, helpless little puppy to the young and health dog that he is today. We called him Doby; named after the character in Harry Porter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban, because we couldn’t think of a better name, and they both had pointy ears.

As a puppy, he wasn’t properly toilet trained, so he used to do his business just anywhere around the house, and we had clean it up time after time. We did eventually manage to teach him to do his business in the toilet, among the many other things he did pick up.

After many days of trying to teach him, I finally got him to understand basic things like “Hand”, “Stand”, “Lie down”, “Jump!” to the more amusing like “Where’s your doggy bone?” or “Off the bed!” to “Come here donkey boy….”… It was always fun, because as a dog, he never really understood any of the words we used, but he always understood what we meant. Similarly, we could always understand if he wanted something, or how he was feeling on particular days. Even dogs have their moods…. Some days he would be in a good mood, licking you all over the face, other days, he’d be naughty, trying to get you to chase him around the house, other times, he’d be grumpy and moody for no particular reason.

For the pass 2 years, feeding him, cleaning up after him, pinching his cute little face, kissing him on the head, bathing him, combing his fur became part of my routine. I accepted the good and the bad. Fur was everywhere; on the bed, inside my calculator, on my clothes, I literally had a pile of shit to clean every day, and I could never be away for too long a time, since the dog was dependent on us to feed him. But as reward, I got a loving little dog, one that would greet you every day with enthusiasm, one that would sit by your leg when you are sitting, sleep at your feet while lying, and roll over the floor when playing. He was a darling, charming his way into the hearts of many visitors who came to the house. Many said he was a handsome dog, others said he was cute. He had but one trick; his greatest but most effective trick, which he used as a means of begging for food. He would stand on his two legs, and the front 2 legs joint together waving up and down in the air.

It worked with many people, so much so that a friend of mine would ALWAYS bring something along “just for Doby to eat”… He even bought an entire chicken drumstick.. just for my dog… How come my dog gets preferential treatment over his master? Amusingly, when we were eating something different, he would ask me “I wonder if Doby has ever eaten…. … so and so…. ?“ and since I almost always only fed the canine dog biscuits, the answer would be no… but not for long.

Our neighbours did eventually start complaining. They said the dogs howled all the time when nobody was around. So, my brother brought him to his place, but over there, people started complaining too. I felt so guilty and so sorry. Doby was only doing what came naturally to him. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He howled because he was alone,and perhaps was feeling lonely.

Perhaps my brother had enough of keeping the dog. I know that ever since he moved there, my brother hasn’t really treated the dog well. Despite his initial promises to take full responsibility over the dog, my brother never came through to his words. Despite all his talk of needing to treat the dog well, he walloped the dog on numerous occasions. Whenever my brother lost his temper with the dog, he would really trash the dog, and being a small dog, there was nothing much Doby could do in defence. My father having seen the way my brother beat the living daylights out of the dog, felt very worried about my brother and his abusive attitude. It’s the natural instinct of an animal to protect itself. By nature, they’d rather run away then get confrontational. Contrary to what people think, a snake, tiger or lion would not attack a human without reason. They were either injured and could not hunt, you were intruding on their territory, or they were cornered and there was no place to run, except to fight. There is no animal more dangerous than one cornered. In one of my brother’s rages, the dog ran under the bed, trying to avoid my brother. He reached his hand into the bed and tried to grab the dog out. Doby bit him. Not a severe bite, but enough to cause pain.

Finger bleeding a little, he moved the bed, grabbed the dog and gave him a thorough bashing. After that day, my brother already started talking about giving Doby away. I guess the decision to get rid of him was manifold. Having a dog to take care of severely limited my brother’s freedom there. Previously, it was I who had to shoulder that responsibility. The neighbours were finally complaining about the dog, and the dog was by then really terrified of my brother. The last time I saw Doby, he was so obviously one unhappy dog.

In a way, it is for the better that my brother gave Doby to the animal shelter. At least over there, there will be no one to hit him and beat him up. He would be among a hundred other dogs, though I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. What worries me is what is to become of him. Will someone else adopt him? Unlikely. There as so many dogs there, with only so much space and money. If no one adopts him, one day, he will be put to sleep.

In that sense, I feel as if we have sentenced the dog to life in prison, then death by lethal injection. It really breaks my heart thinking of Doby right now. I don’t really know just how to express it out. Despite complaining about the dog, I really loved and cared for the dog so much. He was like a part of this family, a member of our household. We were responsible for him. I felt responsible for him. He trusted us, depended on us; he would never have imagined that we would just give him away like that. No child would ever expect that from their parents. No parent would give their child away willingly. You’d have to pry them away from their dead cold fingers.

“Its for the better,” my brother said. But to me, it was more for our own good than the dogs. We got the dog for selfish reasons, and now we gave his away, again for our selfish reasons. To think of Doby there in his cage alone, abandoned by his owners, to have no one to pat him, care for him, play with him and keep him company; it just makes my heart sink. The dog deserved better than this fate. He deserved better owners that us. In his short 2 years of life, all he got to see was mostly the four walls of my home, food treats here and there, and countless senseless beatings……… and now we leave him in a shelter somewhere, doomed to be killed when they cant keep him anymore. I genuinely thought that we would be keeping him till the end of his days. On numerous occasions, I wondered if I would ever see Doby breathe his last breath, and if I would ever be able to handle seeing my beloved dog die. But that day will never come now. I will never see Doby again. I will never hear his bark, or his howling. I will never feel his soft fur, his wet tongue licking me. I will never feel him snuggling up to me in bed again, or performing tricks for me.


Betrayal. That’s the word for it. Can you imagine how the dog would feel? It has been two weeks since my brother gave him away. Do you not think the dog wonders why he hasn’t seen his masters for so long? Do you not think he thinks of us too? Dogs are pack animals. Of course they will think of their pack. The issue is not about me, or how I feel about the matter. It’s about the dog, and what we have done to him. Life can just be so cruel sometimes. We always see ourselves at the receiving end of cruelty. I never thought that we would be the ones dishing it out. I feel so tempted to just blame my brother. All this would never have happened if he never got the dog in the first place, or if he was more responsible. I feel tempted to blame the neighbours; they could have just put up with it, since the dog never hurt anyone. But there is no use. No amount of blame would make things different.

Maybe I’m just being a cry baby. Maybe I’m making a fuss about nothing again. Maybe I’m being soft hearted about the matter. “Its just a dog,” you might say. Perhaps it comes down to me and who I am. I am a relater. Some feel the need to be respected, some feel the need to be appreciated, some feel the need to be admired. I feel the need to be wanted. At the top of my list, I want to know that people accept me, and they want having me around. At the heart of every friendship, every relationship, every interaction, I want to know that I have made a sincere, honest and meaningful connection with people. It is where my joy comes from, it is where my confidence and sense of self worth comes from. When any of these connections are lost to me, I mourn for it. I feel its lost, more than the lost of any cash or valuables; the end of a long friendship, the end of a relationship, its always significant. These are the things that define the chapters in our life. The events that chronicles our journey.

As funny as this may sound, having raised the dog from a pup, I do feel connected to the dog; whatever you call it, there was a real relationship between us. Now that that connection has been so abruptly cut off, I feel the pain of separation. I regret all that we did to the dog in the past, I mull over its the gloomy future, and I resent the part we played in the whole matter.

As I said, he deserved so much better. He didn’t deserve to have such irresponsible owners such as us.

For what its worth, I am sorry. If I could ever be granted one wish, it would be that you find a home, better than what we gave you, an owner who would love and care for you better than we ever did., and for you to live out you life with love, care and attention. I wish it with all my heart. Thank you for all that you have given us. I love you… and I’m sorry….

May God forgive me.

posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 12:51 am Comments: 1