Dog Who Loved Me Story

"The Dog Who Loved Me" is a true story that happened in 2014. It is the story of a few-months-old street Dog who became attached to me. This Dog thought I was his master and lived around me, my car, and my living area. He had decided that he owned me. It was a one-way friendship. I never liked him, as I found him to be a nuisance.

I was serving the Navy those days and I had gone to a place for a short six-month transfer. The place was overflowing with stray dogs. There were so many dogs that I was never able to count how many lived there. But I knew that there were four different dog groups, with each dog group consisting of at least 25 to 30 dogs on average totaling over a hundred dogs, in a small 2 square kilometer area of that base with a solid boundary wall.

This Dog would invariably find my car and sleep under it when all the other dogs of his group were near the dining area waiting for some leftover food. I never brought him any food ever. But he seemed to be skipping meals to be with me.

To me, this fellow was just another dog, one of the hundred-odd dogs in that area I lived. Every time I took out my car, I had to be very careful because invariably this Dog would be sleeping under my car by day.

Once in a while, I went off for a movie at night and he would lay there guarding my car garage from other people parking their car in it. This was told to me by some visitors there who had made the mistake of trying to park their car in my garage for a few minutes during their visit. The dog seemed to own me, my car and even my car garage.

Once I by mistake stepped on his tail at night whilst coming out of my room. The dog never made even a small whine. He just moved a little away startled. I thought I had stepped on a snake and jumped screaming.

But the moment I switched on the light in the corridor, there was my friend standing a couple of meters away looking at me with the same twinkle in his eyes. After going back into my room a while later, I looked through the window curtains and saw him licking his tail where it hurt.

Since then, at night I had to be careful if I had to step out of my front door because this dog would be sleeping on the floor mat just outside my door. I never understood why this dog was behaving so strangely. I removed the floor mat from outside the front door and placed it inside the room near the entrance.

I believed that he would not sleep on the cold floor. But I was wrong. A few nights later I almost stepped on his tummy, as I was not expecting him to sleep in front of my door. But the dog would still sleep in front of my door on the floor. From that day, I started banging the door before I opened it to ensure the dog moved away. But that landed me in problems with my friends staying on either side of my room as their sleep was disturbed.

I felt pity for him because the nights were really cold those days and the floor got as cold as ice. So, the next evening, I went out and bought a nice piece of carpet from the town. I placed the soft carpet outside my door.

I knew that I was actually encouraging the dog to sleep in front of my main door by this act of kindness and the Dog would get attached to me even more. I could not understand what the dog was thinking about me. Neither could I understand what I was doing that day.

The First Dog I Loved

I tried to forget it because, in my school days, I had lost two dogs which were my close friends. The first dog was a neighbor’s pet with a collar. The man was very possessive about this dog and would never let anyone come near him. But in those days there were no fences around houses.

So, I could open his kennel the moment the owner left and play with the dog for a few hours. The lady of the house was the man’s mother. She liked me playing with the dog and never stopped me from doing this prank. When I knew it was time for the man to be back, I would go and put the dog back into the kennel.

One day, as usual, I opened the Kennel and played with the dog, mostly on the road nearby where we would chase each other. My mother called me home for something and I forgot to bring the dog back and put him into the kennel before going home.

Just before lunch, I remembered the dog was still out on the road. It was already time for the man to return home from work. I was scared about the neighbor finding out and scolding me for taking his dog out. As I ran out, I saw a few people near a stopped bus.

As I came closer, I saw the neighbor silently sitting on the road, tears down his cheeks and he was holding his dog in his lap, fully drenched in blood. The dog was run over by the bus as the poor dog never understood the dangers of running on the road. My mother told me that I had a high fever lasting three days after that incident. I had stopped falling in love with any animal to avoid the pain when one separates from the pet for any reason.

The Second Dog I Loved

A few years later, there was a street dog that used to come and stand near our house at lunch time. My mother would throw some bread crumbs and left over bones to the dog. He would eat it standing right there and then leave. This was a daily affair.

Slowly, I started liking the dog even though I did not want to. Although this dog was a different breed and did not even look like the neighbour’s dog which died a few years ago, I started getting attached to it.

A month passed. I and this Dog were playing together in my free time. I would wait for his visit to feed him after I am back from school. We would be back from school at 2:00 pm those days. The dog never failed to come to take his two pieces of bread and bone from me and then would play with me till my mother called me back home, to do my homework.

My evenings started only with feeding this dog and patting his head and body for a few minutes as he ate the bread. Something was wrong somewhere. Throughout the month, I noticed that the moment I went inside my house, he would walk away without looking back. It took a month to realize that the dog was never really attached to me, but it was I who was attached to him emotionally. Probably, I saw the neighbor’s dog who was run over by the bus in him, whereas this dog came only to get fed. No emotions.

One evening after I returned from school, I waited for my friend to come and eat his evening meal. But he never came. I was scared for him. I ran out to the road and looked for him. But the Dog was nowhere to be seen.

I asked my mother about the Dog. She said that the municipality dog catchers came and took away all the stray dogs. When I asked where do they take the Dogs, my mother told me that they will leave him far away from populated areas. Later when my father came home that evening, I told him that I wanted to bring the Dog back.

But when he told me that they take the Dogs to be put down, I felt a strong pain inside me. I sat down and cried for a long time. I refused to have dinner that night and I fell asleep quite late into that night. The next couple of days were hard for me to come back home from school as I yearned to see this Dog just once more.

The two dogs in my life had taught me not to fall in love with animals. They become part of your family and their departure then becomes unbearable and haunts one throughout one’s life.

The Dog Groups

It has been more than two decades since the second dog went out of my life and I did not want another painful moment to be added to my memory. So, I was doing everything possible to avoid being attached to any animal. And here was a third dog trying to become my family. But I was adamant that I am not falling for him.

I never went around counting dogs. But whenever I go out walking in the mornings and evenings, these four groups of dogs are in a relaxed mood and sleeping peacefully after a fully active night, at various territories that they had established along the perimeter road of the base where I was living.

One day out of my curiosity, I just happened to count the number of dogs I was passing during my early morning walk. Two packs of dogs lived near the two dining halls of the sailors. One group had established the Officer's kitchen and dining hall area as their own real estate and wouldn’t let any other group members eat food there, even if there was plenty left over.

The second group had established the sailor's kitchen and dining hall area as their undisputed territory. These two dining halls were just a hundred meters apart and yet these two groups of dogs lived peacefully by day eating and sleeping in harmony.

The dogs get to feed just once a day from these two kitchens after lunchtime, when they dispose of all the leftovers in the open area till the time a garbage truck arrives and takes away the leftovers for a piggery just outside the town area.

No food was ever wasted, as per the policy of the civil administration there. Once the Dogs were all well-fed, they would sleep off the entire afternoon in the front corridors of our rooms, under the trees and car parking.

You could shoo away all other dogs. But, my Dog just would not budge. I had to stop some of my friends from kicking him because they had to go past my room to reach their room. Often I asked myself, why am I doing it. I had nothing to do with this dog.

The Dog Guards

There were two more packs of dogs living there, near the two security check posts along the boundary wall. One Dog group was always on the move. Each security post has three men who live and work inside the check post. They stay there isolated for about 21 days. One man gets replaced every week to have the continuity maintained. All three men would be relieved after 21 days.

At any given time one person is on security watch duty on the top of the 10 meter high building with a loaded gun with him, for four hours at a stretch. He is relieved for the next eight hours afterwhich he has to return back to his post. The second man is sleeping and the third man is usually preparing food or cleaning up the surroundings.

Very often during my evening walks, I used to see the men in the security checkpost, feeding the pack of dogs that had made the area around the checkpost their own territory. Sometimes, I stop to talk to the men manning the security posts.

I was amazed to see the mutual relationship between the security men and the pack of dogs living as each other’s companions. The men told me that it is because of these dogs that they remain happy. Feeding these dogs was a high-stress buster for these men in isolation.

Any intruder into the base would be spotted first by day or night by these Dogs and they start barking and attacking the intruder. It was a mutual relationship between these men and the Dogs. These Dogs were the unpaid guards doing the duty of the base security.

They told me that often they ran out of ration and went hungry as they had to feed these two dozen dogs because the dogs helped ward off and chase any intruder at night who might try to sneak into the institution, jumping over the boundary wall. They also told me that at least on two occasions these dogs had helped them nab a couple of intruders at night, who were later handed over to the local police.

The Third Dog Who Loved Me

It was that day I realized that after my talk with the security men, a few months old puppy was following me. I thought that he would get tired and go back to his mother. So I never bothered to look back. I even ran for a while to get rid of this Puppy.

As I stood in front of my room and was doing a few stretching exercises after the run, I saw the same Puppy, a real brown cutie approaching me. I could make out it was more tired than I was, trying to catch up with me. The Puppy came up to me and almost fell on my feet and licked my running shoes. I casually shooed the Puppy away and went back to my room thinking that his mother would come later and take him away. I forgot about the whole incident.

A day or two later I realized that this little Dog was staying closer to my room and was often found sleeping on the foot mat just outside my room. Sometimes I see him sleeping under my car in the garage. This is how this small Dog came into my life.

Whenever I had to take my car, I had to first wake him up from his slumber and shoo him off from under my car, often banging my shoes on the ground to wake him up. He never took me as a threat and thus it was difficult to scare him off.

First he looks into my eyes straight, trying to read my mood before getting up. Then he would Yawn, spreading his fore limbs forward and his body back and low, as if he was doing a sort of Yoga like Surya Namaskar. I don't know if this brown cutie was bowing to show his respect to me.

Then, he will move very slowly and stand clear of my car watching me drive off with a twinkle in his eyes. I never could make out, if it was the happiness he had in his eyes or they went moist seeing me. But certainly there was something in his eyes whenever he looked at me. Something which I could never really read with my human eyes.

The Dog Wars

At night, these groups of dogs start prowling the entire Area. Very often the Dog groups come face to face and end up in fierce fights. From the barking sounds, I could make out that it was a localized Dog War for domain control. The non-stop war calls in high decibel sounds from a hundred-odd dogs, never let me sleep peacefully past midnight, on a single night during my entire stay. But this small Dog was not involved in any fights.

During the rainy season, our long corridors become their war zone as everywhere else is waterlogged. I could even make out how many of them got injured, from their war cries turning to discreet painful crying frequencies.

After 10 minutes or so, the Dog War is over and the dogs go silent. Each night I could count at least three different wars being fought in quick succession, in some near and distant places. Probably, two pairs of dog groups fight to choose the semi-finalist, who will then fight for the top position of the night. I don't know if all the individual groups ever get a chance to fight every night. Normally, after 3 successive fights the dogs disperse for the night.

The Dog Decease

I realised over the past couple of months, that the number of dogs in all the groups began to dwindle, and there were hardly any left dogs left. There were no Dog fights at night. I was happy as I could sleep well at night as there were no more groups but just a few limping dogs here and there.

There was some skin infection making the dogs lose their fur. They keep scratching their skin and in the process tear the skin especially, in their necks and at the base of their ears. Then, I started seeing the ears of these new dogs also having many big holes in their ear lobes. It was not holes made by the dog by scratching the ears. Some flesh eating bacteria were eating them alive.

I spoke to a friend, who was a dog lover and he had adopted a couple of these puppies sometime back. He too felt sad after seeing the condition of these few leftover Dogs and called in some Veterinary hospital. The Veterinary doctors came and gave a few dogs some injections. Some they released and some they took away to sterilise.

But, most dogs would run for their life at the sight of these Veterinary doctors and the ruthless humans called dog catchers, who had already taken some of their family members as prisoners of War in the past few days.

In the next few months, most dogs were gone and I started seeing new healthy dogs which probably came up the hill from the town. But in a few weeks, the new dogs too were getting the same skin disease.

A couple of weeks later, I started seeing the small dog who owned me, also shedding his hair and scratching his neck and body. He was not seen under my car or on my foot mat at night. His body had grown thin and so had his attachment to me which I never actually acknowledged. I don't know whether he liked me, or my car. One day, he too vanished, never to be seen again.

For almost a week after he went missing, every time I came near my car, I would first bang my shoes on the ground to shoo him away. But this brown cutie, who had by then started looking ugly without the beautiful brown fur he once had on his body and with half a dozen holes in each of his ears was gone. The bacteria probably ate him slowly alive to death.

As time passed I forgot about him. But even today, whenever I see a dog, I look into its eyes searching for my brown cutie, who probably owned me as his master.

I was in love with this small Dog, without realizing it, when the brown cutie was alive. I have many times felt as if this brown cutie used to wait under my car because he wanted to tell me something.

But I, an intelligent being called a human being, failed miserably, to understand that every time this Dog saw me, he was trying to tell me in his own silent language, "I love You".

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