My Doggy Boy

It was some 3 years back, my mum was the one who noticed that we had a frequent visitor to our house - a dog. He was a big dog - most probably somebody's pet, who jumped over our compound wall everyday to feast on our leftovers. We didn't shoo him away but left food for him, he slowly settled at our house. He guarded our house during the night and slumbered peacefully during the day in our car porch. Thats how he became our pet dog.

Ironically we never thought of naming him, but occasionally called him Pattichan (Patti means dog in Malayalam). He seemed to respond to anything we called him. We didn't put him in our kennel or chained him - but there was some invisible bond that kept him there. I got him a collar so that when he went outside, people won't throw stones at him thinking he is a stray. He is an intelligent dog, most of time playful and always wanting me to rub his reddish-brown coat. The bond grew from there. Whenever I went out to have food from a restaurant, I would endup parceling my leftovers for him or when I visited the local bakery, i would get an extra meat puffs (his favourite) for him. Whenever I go out on my motorbike, he waits eagerly at the gate for me to come back, by listening for the sound of my motorbike. In the daytime, its is a timepass to watch him sleep hugging himself into a furball. I wonder why people say, "I work like a dog ", coz all that the dogs seem to do is sleep all day! I slowly learned that Pattichan was not that loyal, probably the reason why his previous owner left him. Nowadays even though he spends most of his time outside, I still like him and give him a good pat on his head when he comes back. However naughty he gets, whenever he sadly looks into my eyes and wags his tail, my heart just melts.