Chasing kittens

As I was going to work yesterday I saw a cat perched on a wall, very studiously washing itself. And as always, I though of Lyka.

When Lyka was about 2 years old and at her bouncy and energetic best, she decided that her favorite pastime was to make all the colony cats' lives miserable by lunging at them. There was this one morning where a kitten, who I'm certain was making its first foray out into the world having told its mother that it can take care of itself and it just wants to explore, wandered onto our front yard. Lyka, who was outside dutifully sniffing every corner of the house making sure nothing had changed in 12 hours, detected the slight movement and stopped still in her tracks. In such moments she often resembled one of large cats you watch on the Discovery channel who are getting ready to pounce on their prey. She crouched down and watched the kitten make its way daintily across our lawn. Now this little cat being completely unaware that there's a concept called dogs, was happily pawing at things and looking around. This was the moment Lyka decided to strike. Galloping full speed at the kitten, barking her sonorous barks, tail wagging madly in the air, I'm sure from the kitten's perspective Lyka looked like some kind of nightmarish monster. It ran to the nearest tree and somehow managed to climb up to the top branch and sat there, quivering and thanking its stars.

Lyka not having anticipated this, stopped short at the tree. She thought she would give the kitten a good chase around our yard till she got bored but this animal climbing a tree was unheard of. She looked up at the tree, very puzzled, as if to say "huh?? how come you can climb?" So she sat down, waiting patiently for the kitten to come down. The kitten of course had no intention of moving until this dog had been safely removed from its vicinity. Now I of course had been watching this entire proceeding and found the whole spectacle very amusing (I was 11 so don't judge me). But I decided to cut the kitten a break and took Lyka's leash, clamped it on her and somehow managed to drag her back into the house. She didn't like this one bit. I had ruined her fun.

The kitten noticed this turn of events and decided to slowly makes it way down. There was one problem though. It had no clue how to come down from the tree. When you're running for your life, I suppose some instincts kick in and climbing up a tree happens unconsciously. But coming back down is a whole different ball game. After much hemming and hawing and a few hours, the kitten managed to land on terra firma. Lyka by this time had lost interest and was fast asleep. But by some quirk of fate, she chose that exact moment to wake up and caught sight of the kitten again. Unfortunately I was too slow to stop her and off she went bounding in the kitten's direction and the kitten went straight back up that tree. It took about 15 min for me to stop laughing.

When that kitten finally made its way home that evening, it would have had an incredible story to tell.

Odds & ends

A life less ordinary

My tryst with dogs started at the age of seven. My grandmother was walking me home from the bus stop and as we were making our way through the alleys, a stray ran up and cuffed my leg. In my panic, not realizing that the dog hadn't actually broken skin, I shrieked and the dog ran for cover. But that was enough to put me off all canines for a very long time. Large, full grown ones at least. If I spotted a dog even 5 km away, I would promptly head in the opposite direction.

Then we had Lyka and I couldn't imagine ever being scared of dogs now. Having a dog brings you into this club of people - when we spot other dog owners on the road, we automatically smile at each other and look on fondly as the canines trot along happily smelling every nook and cranny of the road. Before Lyka, we may have liked animals, but not empathized with them. You never really realize how difficult it is for animals to communicate but how much they manage to tell you by just being themselves. Lyka, for instance, would lunge at stray dogs on the road, not out of aggression but mere playfulness. But being as large as she was, she would scare the daylights of the dog on the receiving end of one of her playful gestures. On the other hand, she was an absolute lamb around small children, knowing, even as a puppy, not to jump all over them and scare them. She would wait patiently as they would pull and poke and prod at her tail and coat.

My parents and I have often had this discussion and we have often wondered if we would be the people we are today had it not been for Lyka. I like to believe that having Lyka in our lives has made us better human beings.

A window to the world

One of Lyka's favorite pastimes in our house was to stare out the little cut outs in our balcony, at the general state of affairs on the road below and the sea beyond. On a particularly windy day, Lyka's ears would be buffeted by the wind and she would calmly watch the goings on of the world outside.

A well bred canine on her queen sized bed

Call it an academic debate if you will, but my parents and I have often wondered if Lyka was a pure lab. After she grew to her full size, Lyka was still shorter than several labs around the block and had much sharper features that we had expected her to. Most labs are pug nosed but Lyka had a full snout, not shortened by her genes. And a subject that was a particular favorite of ours - her sharp ears. We liked to believe that Lyka often bore resemblance to a rabbit, especially when she would be fast asleep on her custom made bed. Her ears would be be pointed outwards, in sharp relief to the rest of her.

Lyka could often be found lying on her back, lost in dreamworld, with her paws sticking up into the air. Given a choice to sleep in my parents' room with the a/c on and her bed, Lyka would inevitably chose her bed. And we recently discovered why the choice was obvious, given that we live in Madras, which only has one kind of weather and Lyka had the small problem of being saddled with a fur coat all year round. My parents got Lyka's bed refurbished about a month back, and we've kept her old mattress, as extra seating in our house. You can sink into that bed and never want to get up. That's why till the very end, Lyka always preferred to sleep on her bed.

Our doggy deserved nothing but the best.

Playtime

As Lyka got older, her exuberance for life mellowed down and day to day things stopped evoking extreme reactions. But every once in a while she would decide it's play time and go completely crazy - tugging on her leash, running around in mad circles and digging large holes for no particular purpose. She would be covered in sand at the end of the exercise and look extremely pleased with herself on a good day's work.

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.