I have been living with pets, read dog for the past 10 yrs.
Initially I was fearful of dogs. That was until my brother got Prince our first
pet Labrador retriever. Soon my fear turned to absolute love, so much so that I
started observing our surroundings which was home to street dogs. Until Prince
came I was not aware that they existed.
Prince passed away last February leaving a huge vacuum in my
life. He was the soul of our house, everything just centered on him. He was
omnipresent everywhere. He is the reason why I am enjoying a blissful married
life now. It was Prince who got me two wonderful gifts, my husband and his pet
Osty now our Osty .Osty is also a Labrador like Prince but like humans they are
two different personalities.
Prince was trained by a professional trainer from the dog
squad of Mumbai police. He was like those who went to finishing schools very
polished, with loads of attitude. My brother prided in the fact that he was
very obedient. While all the pet owners had people complain about their pets in
our society, there was none against Prince. He was called the “Graduate Dog” as
he was the only one fully trained. People who had kids who loved dogs used to
come to us for a meeting with Prince, because they felt he is the only dog whom
they can trust with their infants, Prince never let them down. Kids used to
request me to get him down to play area so that they can pet him. He gave a
complex to all other pets and their owners in our society.
I recall, it was not only fellow pets he gave complex to, he
gave my friends as well. Prince was chosen to be featured in tv serials and his
pay packet at the point of time was more than double pay of most of my friends
and even higher than mine. He was
lovable, adorable, intelligent but had loads of attitude and was quite fussy
when it came to food. He would allow us
to cuddle and pet him, but beyond a certain point he would move out to his own
space. Prince had friends but he would not like them to enter his home, he
would say bye to everyone at the door. His friend a golden retriever named
Sergeant would come home to play with him, but Prince did not like his
uninvited visits. Home was his private den, other than his immediate family he
wanted no one around.
Enter Osty, a bundle of energy, bouncing all around and
loves to have as many people around as possible. Osty has been trained by my
husband. He is an absolute foodie and
his non fussiness about food astonished me. He is just the opposite of Prince.
Osty has won many competitions on the looks front. All the guts he has are
drawn from us via the leash. He is ready to take on any one as long as we hold
his leash, the minute we retreat he retreats with double speed. He allows me to
cuddle him as much as I want, he is very patient. I introduced Osty to hide and seek, which I
used to play with Prince a lot. Prince used to rely on his nose to search me
out, Osty uses his eyes. He would never use his nose..He would look all around
for me; needless to say he would struggle to find me unlike Prince who could do
this in a jiffy. Osty loves to bark, Prince would only bark when any one rang
the door bell. Osty can recognize the difference in the ring tones of our
society intercom phone and our residence land line. Whenever the intercom
rings, he runs barking loudly towards our front gate. He has linked the
intercom rings to arrival of visitors. Initially I could not understand why he
ran towards the gate when the intercom rang.
My husband says dogs take after their owners and he
attributes the differences due to the different personalities that we are. Osty has started a new life with me, we both
are learning about each other. He has filled in the vacuum left by Prince and I
am really grateful for that. I think Prince knew I would miss him too much and
sent Osty couple of months after he passed away.
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