Shishur Sevay

The girls have wanted a puppy for a long time.  I’ve held off for several reasons.  One, is that dogs are not clean.  Their feet are like shoes — carrying in all the germs.  Two, I have my hands full and didn’t want another creature to worry about. Three, I miss my dog Rupee terribly, and even though she is happy where she is, with a family she loves and who love her, I couldn’t face having another dog.  It felt/feels disloyal, and still makes me tear up just thinking about her.  So that’s probably the real reason.

Streets here are full of dogs roaming.  We see puppies all the time.  One pup across the street from the school used to follow our girls into the school yard.  I held out.  Well, close to our house, in the lane just off the road, was a funny looking big eared black mother dog, and one of her pups who looked just like her.  I thought to myself, "now that’s a puppy I wouldn’t want.  She is so funny looking with her big ears."  About a week later this funny looking pup ran out in front of a truck and I yelled at the driver and he stopped just in time.  The pup wandered off, oblivious.  Then last week she came to our house, limping, with a handkerchief on her paw, covered with blood, and a bloody cut on her head.  We learned she had been hit by a scooter.  A neighbor had put the handkerchief on her paw and called the pet-line.  They come out at night and pick up injured animals.  The girls looked at the pup, and looked at me, and I said I would take care of her, and that we could keep her.  The pet-line people didn’t show up so I took her to the vet, who sewed up her leg.  The girls named her Jelly. 

Jelly is a timid puppy.  The people who feed the street dogs say she is "not normal" and that she used to faint a lot.  They also agree she is not smart, which is why she has to be protected.  Our taking her has actually eased some local tensions.  Some people who have never spoken to me (or responded when I said hello) now ask how she is.  It seems important that my care extends to a street dog.  Jelly likes the food she got on the street, chicken and rice, to our usual vegetarian fare, so the neighbors still bring her some food when they make the rounds.

Jelly licks her bandage and nibbled at the loose gauze, but never tried to remove it.  She chews, but gently.  She chases flies and mosquitoes, and once barked at a cat passing by. I love just quietly sitting with her. I reflect on now having the dog I said I’d never want because she was so funny looking.  Irony is one form of order in the Universe.