The dog who hated water

Atypical for a lab, Lyka hated being bathed or being anywhere near water. We would have to bribe her with biscuits to get her to the terrance to be bathed. After enduring the indignity of being scrubbed, she would ignore the biscuits we would give her afterwards as a peace offering and sulk the whole day.

But it was all worth it to see her fluffy and clean and have her fur curl up into ringlets, very much like the family she came from.

Pondering

It's been a mini lifetime since the last post, but not for want of stories, just time. However, as diwali time approaches and I hear the fireworks outside, I can't help but think of Lyka.

Lyka, like a lot of dogs around this time of year, was miserable during diwali. One can hardly blame her. If you had the capacity to hear frequencies unknown to man and then have everything you hear multiplied times three, a sharp blast every so often would probably jar every nerve in your body as well, not to mention, give you a splitting headache. I know the rows of firecrackers that seem never ending send me looking for the nearest paracetamol strip. The entire time that firecrackers were being set off, Lyka wouldn't leave our side, lest the booming noise consume her. She was certain that as long as one of us was around to reassure her and keep a hand permanently placed on her, she couldn't be harmed. Or if she wasn't to be found, Lyka would be hiding in the bathroom - though I'm not quite sure the acoustics of any bathroom are suitable for reducing echoes.

Lyka hated any form of loud noise actually. Thunder, loud bangs at any point in time, anything that jarred her delicate sense of peace really. And woe betide the person/thing that shook her awake, she would bark till her objection was well and noted. We would, of course, have to wait it out until her indignation subsided.

They say though that animals are afraid of fire. Strangely enough, everytime my grandmother would take an 'aarti' of the family, Lyka would be front and center, watching the flame go round and round. And also be the recipient of the 'teeka' that's supposed to keep the evil spirits away.

With no Lyka insisting on continuous physical contact, covering our clothes in her golden fur or us stumbling on her in the middle of the night when you go to brush your teeth, this diwali will certainly seem empty.

A death defying feat

When we moved to Madras, we moved into govt. housing, which was a fairly decent sized apartment. While it was no big deal for us, Lyka found the whole concept of an apartment puzzling - there was no access to anything resembling a garden, no place to stretch out and soak in the sun, nothing. And to top it all off, we would disappear for long periods in the day for school and work, leaving her locked inside. Let's just say, she was not happy about this arrangement and took a while to come to terms with it.

Moving into a cramped space also meant that we now had to take a decision on whether or not we wanted Lyka to breed. While I loved the idea of lab puppies running amok in the house and then putting them for sale, my parents decided it wasn't practical. One, we didn't have the space and two, being the softies we are, there would have been no way in which we would have had the heart to put little furry golden colored animals on sale. That being said, we decided it was best to get Lyka spayed. So off we went to Blue Cross and picked up Lyka a couple of days later, post the procedure.

Initially Lyka seemed none the worse for the wear. She had stitches that took time to heal but that was all. Then we started noticing that Lyka's beautifully triangular face no longer seemed normal - her facial muscles were seizing up and her eyes looked unfocused. Soon she started to bump into things and started having seizures. Our vet said that when dogs are usually operated on, they're not given a tetanus shot because they have a very high threshold for infection. However, Lyka seemed to have gotten tetanus nonetheless, usually a death toll for any animal. But we wouldn't give up.

We took Lyka to the vet hospital everyday where she would be injected with various things and put on IVs. Then we'd bring her back every evening and sit with her, coaxing her to eat through a dropper and hold her tight when she'd have seizures so she wouldn't hurt herself. Things seemed bleak for a while and the infection took the better part of a month to pass, but I don't think there was any point at which we didn't believe that she would make a full recovery. There was no question of Lyka not being around.

Finally, after extensive visits to the vet, she started to improve. Her doc was very surprised and apparently wrote a medical article chronicling her whole sickness. We were told Lyka was one of maybe 10 dogs in the country who had survived tetanus. Eventually, her facial muscles relaxed and she looked like the happy dog she was and she stopped bumping into things. We like to think that apart from the extensive medication she was on, our positive vibes had a lot to do with her recovery.

Human Nature

Have you ever wondered how difficult it would be to express yourself without being able to use words? What if all you had was your face and a desire to be around people all the time?

In our last house in Agartala, we had a front patio bounded by a short wall. By the time Lyka grew to her full height, she was able to rest her head on the wall and watch the world go by. If we'd go out, Lyka would await our return on the patio, with only her triangle face and raisin like eyes visible above the wall. Her face would be absolutely immobile and would stare at us beadily till we got to the front door. Till such time she would assess us and determine whether we were planning to abandon her once again and leave for distant parts.

When we moved into our current house, Lyka investigated the whole place thoroughly and demarcated all 'her' places. When we sat upstairs watching TV, she would heave herself up and pad her way up the stairs. We always knew she was coming by the clicking of her claws on the marble. After dinner she would automatically go up to the TV room and await our arrival. If we didn't show in sometime, she would come out on to the landing and look at us questioningly, wondering why on earth we were taking so long, when family time was supposed to have started long ago.

In some ways Lyka was more eloquent than any person we've met. She would express her pleasure with a wide doggy smile and a thumping tail that had the power to sweep things off a table and whack your shins till they were 'black n blue.' If she was depressed she would refuse to eat. If she was concerned about anyone of us being upset or ill, she would spend the whole day by our side, not asking for anything, making sure we knew that she was around if we needed her. Just her presence sometimes would make all the difference in the world. All she asked for in return was our company. Her brand of unconditional love is hard to come by.

Lyka made the most unlikely people believers...

Sibling rivalry

Being an only child has several advantages, one of them being you get your parents' undivided attention. And after 11 years of getting used to that, you don't quite know how to handle a puppy, a Lab puppy at that, who wants to wriggle her way into your parents' good graces too.

For as long as Lyka was a baby, she was convinced I was some kind of two legged puppy as well and therefore, we were equals. But that also meant competing for attention, at least in her head it did. So we had a game. Whenever we would watch TV, I would lie down on the couch and lay my head on my mom's lap. The minute Lyka saw that she would come running over and push her cold nose into my face and try and budge my head out of the way. And trust me there's only so long you can take a dog licking you. Once I was successfully moved out of the way, Lyka would have full access to my mother and thereafter, proceed to sit docilely while my mother petted her. She didn't take very kindly to intrusions on "mommy & me" time by me.

As the years passed, Lyka's first priority would always be my mother. For obvious reasons of course, my mother got to spend more time with her at home, was the giver of meals and generally has that "mom" stamp. So every time my mother would leave town on work or family visits, Lyka would initially go into depression and refuse to eat. Then sense would dawn on her and she would gobble down every little bite we'd give her for fear that with mommy gone, lord only knows when we strange non-mommy people would feed her. So she had better make the most of the situation. The hand that feeds is always the true master.

The family dog

Lyka was happiest when she was surrounded by family.

Lyka's introduction to our colony happened on my 11th birthday. She couldn't quite understand why she was being tied up like a dog.

She's staring intently at the biscuit I was holding right on top of the camera.

Anything for a biscuit!

Training Days

In her absolute craze for chicken, Lyka actually went after a tiny little bone I'd thrown into the trash. She arose triumphant with the chicken bone and with the trash can lid around her neck, completely nonchalant, like it was an everyday occurrence. My mother and I took a good 5 minutes to stop laughing hysterically.

Teething trouble

Lyka, the puppy, went through an intense phase of teething where absolutely nothing on the floor was spared. At the time I was enrolled in a convent and we had to wear those awful black "Mary Jane" like shoes with our regular uniform. I, like a diligent child, had polished my shoes the night before but made the cardinal mistake of leaving them in puppy reach. Come morning, the straps that were supposed to buckle the shoes on were missing. And there were telltale bite marks around the scuffed edges. Lyka in the meantime looked very sheepish and was wagging her tail as if to say, "Was I not supposed to eat that?" I, of course, had to go to school with a note that actually said the dog ate my shoes. I don't think the nuns at school were very amused.

We had read somewhere that ice helped soothe teething trouble for dogs. So we tried giving Lyka ice cubes to gnaw on, hoping she'd leave our valuables alone. Her expression, like so many others, was priceless. She sniffed at it, gave it a perfunctory lick and watched the ice melt into a puddle. She looked very happy about the whole process.

The funny part is that Lyka seemed to think anything in her reach was fair game for chewing. So a year down, I again made the mistake of leaving a prized possession (I was 11 at this time. Don't judge me!), my long haired Barbie, on my bed while I had gone out to play with friends. I got back to find doggie drool all over the doll and an arm chewed off. Unfortunately, I gave in to my temper and Lyka got a solid yelling. She realized immediately that something had gone very wrong and spent the rest of day trying to make up for it by being extra nice (read following me around like a baa lamb and keeping me constant company).

Lyka in her old age lost a lot of her teeth. I always wondered how she chewed through her food. I think on most days, in her hunger, she just swallowed things whole. Doggie dentures, now there's an idea!