My Bitch’s Poo and Other Things

I have a dog, a bitch actually. I have always called my dog a bitch. After all, you need to give due respect to the gender. However, there are quite a number of people who avoid calling my dog a bitch. “Dog a bitch” – That’s not right is it. Well how about this “My bitch a bitch.

Thank god I didn’t have her, when I was in nursery or some such grade where you are asked to write a few words on your pet. How would I have begun “I have a bitch, her name is Tulip”. A phone call to my mom or dad “Madam Your Son, Needs help with his diction”, He has learnt words that he must not use, and hence must unlearn them

Tell me people? Why does the word “Bitch” command such a pejorative connotation? C’mon, I simply refuse to change the gender of my pet. It’s a BITCH. Got It. A BITCH! All right, now that I have got that out of the way, let me go on the road that all pet lovers take. The Singing of paeans Dedicated to their Pets. Hmm, I am not too much of a poetic sort, more of the prose sort actually. So won’t bring tears to your eyes with the soppy, mushy…… ode to the Pet.

Now, firstly let me do away with the BITCH thingy and just caller her by name – Tulip. She is intelligent. You know what, intelligence is a funny thing. Here is an example. I have tried for hours on end to get her to recognize the command ‘SIT’. She has never for once answered my command. I ask her to ‘SIT’ and she stares at me as if I have gone nuts or something. She does her own thing. I don’t want to sound like a male chauvinist, you know what… but it’s a bit demeaning right…. I always wonder. What if it was a dog? Would he have ‘SAT.” Well anyways, along comes a neighbor, a friend of the family etc, and commands Tulip to “SIT”. And guess what? She bloody sits. The comment “She is pretty intelligent”? Well, trained! “Hmmmm…. Yes that she is” “And I am an Idiot”

Look at the situation here! I think that the ‘the sitting bit’ was bit of a fluke, but the guest does not think so! I can be as nit-picky as I like about her command recognition, but I have no doubt in my mind that in her tinsy winsy head is the brain of a genius. If she wants something (usually something that the doctor has strictly forbidden us to give her) she targets the most vulnerable of all the options (people) at her disposal. If that does not work, then she has this peculiar stare. That innocent and pitying stare that usually melts our hearts, and she usually ends up getting the butter.

She also knows the perfect people to scare. Yes, Scare! She has her own bit of fun with them. So, when the neighbor’s boy rushes down the steps, our girl is in the balcony, ready to startle him, with her deep throated bark. Nine times out of Ten, she is successful. She picks her targets carefully. She has a special sort of bark on these occasions; which starts with a growl, goes through the woofs and ends with what I can make out is a chuckle.

Then there is the Uncle upstairs, who is scared of dogs. I and Tulip usually encounter him in the mornings, when I take her out to do the needful. Though he takes a wide trajectory, she still manages to make her mark. She is beautiful. Military strategists take note.

All right here is the scene. From the corner of her eyes she espies the man approaching. She shows no reaction, goes about her business, smelling here and there. The only indication that she is getting ready to have her bit of fun, are the ears. They are perked up, like radars. The man sees her, skirts around, he thinks she is not looking in his direction, so he takes it easy, slowly, slowly , and boom or should we say BARK.

This happens regularly. The Uncle mumbles something in Telugu, I guess it would go on the lines of ... ok lets leave that alone. I say a perfunctionary NO, in mock anger, and life goes on.

I won’t say anything more on the intelligence quotient. I think she is, So there.. Anyways, as a pet owner, I never imagined that a large part of the dog’s health is dictated by the poo. Shit is the exact word here, but let’s call it poo. Tulip does not eat, give the poo a glance. The reason will be clear! She shows some symptoms that do not look healthy, yes you got it right, check her poo. If it’s black, then there is something wrong with the kidney, if its invisible then she has constipation and so on and so forth.

When she comes back from her walk, the question usually is, did she do anything? It’s like an event. No, I mean really! If Tulip poos when she is taken out, there is a sense of satisfaction. Why? Well, the reason being, for most of her formative years, she was in the habit of using the balcony as an area to take out the indigestible paraphernalia. She learnt to use the natural environs quite late in the day. Therefore, the jubilation when she poos.

There are times when I am really egging her on with all the mental energy at my disposal. Do it. Do it. Just Do it. Why you might ask? Well, you won’t find the situation so funny, if you are woken up at around six in the morning, by a cacophony of shrieking barks or your face being licked rigorously. I wake up; take her out and for what? For me the equation is pretty simple – Loss of sleep should equal lots of Poo. Only then is the waking up, justified.

This reminds of an interesting and funny habit that she had. Interesting and funny for me; not so for my mother. When she was a year or two old, she had a habit of pissing on the bed. Yes, it used to get my mother mad. It was like a race against the finishing line. Tulip takes a running jump on the bed. I or mom or anybody else running to get her off the bed… and more often than not Tulip emerged the winner. At times there was a kind of photo finish, however, in this case also, we were the losers. You can imagine why!

Well, I gotta go! I got to take her out for a walk and to poo. Wish me luck!!!