Daddy's tale of a wagging tail

A river changes its course at free will carving a path for itself when it comes across a stumbling block. Such is life as well. Our stumbling blocks are the milestones/ events/ decisions that allow us to choose our path leading to the next step in life. They include education, work, marriage, and children and so on. We are responsible for these altering events which could make life a bed of roses or path of thorns.

My wife Kanishtha and I updated our life’s calendar with one such event on Wednesday, 13 June 2007 8pm. We took one big decision that has not allowed us to get a decent 7 hrs of sleep ever since. It has redecorated our faces with dark circles and our legs and hands with scratches. We haven’t sat on our hind for more than 10 min at a stretch and have lost our voices to screaming out a ‘no’ every 2 minutes. Yes, we brought this upon ourselves. We bought Romeo, a 6 week old Black Labrador.

Life was good without him. It’s only better now. Romeo has added ‘years’ to both our lives and all the pain mentioned above is a very small price to pay for the loads of happiness he brings us. The day ends quickly at work with the thought of rushing home to my baby who receives me with a wagging tail and his display of excitement with a few nibbles of my legs, tugs on my pants and displaying a belly that is begging to be rubbed. I am expected to spend 10 minutes with him before I can even take a step in any direction. Fun just never ends at home. My evenings are spent playing with him at home and then taking him to the park for his play date with his buddies Skeeter- Shitzu, Jack- English Bull Dog, Kramer- Black Labrador, Riley- Havanese and Alphie.

Born on May 7 2007, my Romeo is 10 weeks and 2 days old today. He has grown and continues to at lightening pace, making us wonder if the food we feed him contains steroids. I still remember the tiny fur ball that we got home 5 weeks ago. It’s all so clear in my head still…

Tring!! Tring!! Pick up the phone hun…
Kanishtha: Hello
Me: Hey it’s me. Stay ready this evening. We are going to do tea with some colleagues from work.
Kanishtha: Sure! What time will you pick me?
Me: Sharp 6:30 pm
Kanishtha: Sounds good
Click! Click!…the phones hang up.

Even though we drove for an hour to reach Auburn, WA for my 7:30 pm appointment at Magic Creek Farms, not once did Kanishtha call my bluff?
She did investigate a lot though. Who are these folks? What are their names? Why do we have to drive this far for tea? Is it really worth the gas we are spending? I kept fending off each question with a quick fix reply while anticipating what the next one will be. I felt like I was in a criminal investigation room with a detective trying to get things out of me. But, I had sworn secrecy. (I deserve to be starring in a Bollywood flick, just based on this performance.) Mind you, it’s never easy to keep anything from the wife. She always reads through me. Well, not this time.

Tammy, the breeder greeted us as we parked and then walked us towards her home. By now Kanishtha knew there is something fishy. All her questions were answered within the next minute when she saw a litter of fur balls following their mom out of the house door into the yard. Her face lit up. She had this surreal glow. I could see the set of 32. She was all smiles. I said, “Pick the one you like”. She turned towards me to confirm what her ears might have heard. Without wasting a moment she got down on her knees to greet the mommies (there were 2 of them: yellow and chocolate) and then the pitter patter of tiny paws that followed. This was too good to be true for her. She has been waiting for this moment ever since she moved to the US, post our wedding in Dec 2005. Many a times she had begged and pleaded me for getting her a puppy, even agreed to be my slave for life. Finally, her moment had arrived and she made the most of it, picking each one of the pups individually and then putting her arms around all together.


One stood out of the lot…that was our Romeo to be. He was fearless. We watched him closely. He pushed and shoved everyone around to make way for himself, tumbling over his siblings if need be and/or bite the rest. He took a big piece of wood between his razor sharp puppy teeth and walked around with his head held high. Kanishtha looked at me, smiled and nodded, confirming the choice of her’ knight’ who is meant to protect her from all the evil ducks at the Kirkland water front. Oh yeah, ‘the wife’ is phobic of birds. So while she played I finished all other formalities and we were on our way home.

It was love at first sight. We knew that very moment that life has changed. We christened him “Romeo” on our drive home. That was the first name that flashed in my mind and it stuck. Trust me; he has been doing full justice to it as well. An apple of everyone’s eye in the community we live, people gravitate towards him everywhere we go. He is truly an ace in the pack. The hour long drive home wasn’t pleasant at all. Amidst all his yowling, whining, high pitch barking and struggling to be let out to get back to his siblings, we tried talking to him, calming him down, keeping him straight up, sometimes upside down, planting kisses and everything else that you can possibly think of, but nothing worked for more than 2 minutes. At one point we even considered taking him back to the breeder as we couldn’t see him in pain. Kanishtha had slipped into her parental role and the motherly instinct had kicked in. Her experience in raising Caesar and Hazel (her Daschunds in India) helped her handle Romeo well. Kanishtha made a couple of quick calls to our friends who promised to be home to receive our baby.

We reached home finally, after a journey that seemed to go on forever. First thing we did after entering home was take him to our little mandir to thank the almighty and seek blessings to help us provide for Romeo with everything that he deserves and keep him away from an evil eye. Our baby is dependent on us for as long as he lives and we needed to make sure that the superpower that sits above us all is with us through this journey. Romeo was let loose. He wandered around sniffing, exploring every nook and corner of his new home. In the meantime our friends poured in to see our new bundle of joy. In sheer excitement to meet new folks, Romeo marked his territory, peeing and pooping. I looked around for Kanishtha to clean up, but since she had stepped away I was the chosen one. “Welcome to fatherhood” was my thought as I bent over to pick the mess. There has been no turning back ever since.


Romeo’s social character was displayed right away when he played around with all the starry eyed folks who came to visit him. That came as a pleasant surprise as we expected him to have separation anxiety. Everyone was surprised and overjoyed to see this lovely addition to our family and took their time to spend some one on one time with him. After all he was to meet his uncles and aunts on a daily basis. After playtime was over Romeo fell asleep on his Mommy’s toes…a sight so sweet, it just had to be captured through my lens (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidz11/550741108/). Romeo was soon transferred to his makeshift bed next to ours for a good night’s sleep.

Zzzzzz……..zzzzzzzzzz………..scratch…..scratch….whhhhiiiinnnnneee……..bark……..scratches again….whiineeeeee (Woof Woof to English dictionary, “Good Morning, I am wide awake…take me out”)
I squint to see the time in the alarm clock that sits on my bedside. It’s 5:00 am. “Why can’t you sleep for just one more hour “, I tell Romeo who is now sitting up in his crate. He has been my wakeup call at this unearthly hour for the last five weeks now and I still haven’t got accustomed to it as yet. I walk dreamy eyed to his crate and unlatch it. He quickly runs out with a wag of his tail, conveniently ignoring my presence and the sleep I just sacrificed for him; runs to his mommy for a quick pat on his back and few kisses. After that is over, he remembers that he has business to finish and follows me to the door. I take him downstairs to his make shift toilet patch to wrap things up. He follows me back home after emptying his bowels. We follow the ritual of a rub down with disinfectant wipes every time he enters home, post which he is allowed to spend an hour in bed with mom and dad. It’s our family bonding time every morning. I struggle to get shut my eyes and get a few extra minutes which is totally at the mercy of this sleep destroying devil in disguise. He sometimes prefers to share my pillow or just use my face as one. When his pillow choice is Kanishtha I quickly slide myself completely under the comforter and steal a few minutes of the much needed siesta.

Kanishtha has been kind to me by taking Romeo for a walk at around 6:30 am. They get back at 7:00 am and after the usual cleaning up ritual he makes a dash for his bowl. His body clock tells him it’s one of the three best times of the day. It’s food time! Our puppy is always hungry. His mouth is always open, either to eat food or chew on his toys or just about anything that is in jaw snapping distance. Sometimes I wonder if “Camera” would have been a more appropriate name for him, since he snaps so much. What do most of us think of with a full tummy? If you guessed ‘sleep’ give yourselves a pat on the back and an extra five minutes in bed tomorrow morning. As for Romeo, food is always followed by a nice twenty minute nap. He wakes up at the time I am about to head to work, and then all hell breaks loose. He senses separation and gets into a hysterical mode. You read it right, “Hysterical”. He starts barking and tugging at my pants aggressively as if to say, “I will be very upset if you go away”. This is usually broken up by the bitter apple that’s sprayed in his mouth to let go. After a landing a few kisses and playing with him for a sometime I bid adieu to ‘the wife’ and ‘the son’ hoping for the day to speed through so that I can rush back to the wagging tail in the evening.

Sid