Canine tales

At first it was all rather embarrassing. The grovelling accompanied by the 8220;I8217;ve-got-you- on-my-mind8221; expression. With time though, he became quite domesticated. The Jollies of the world may go baby-hunting, we got picked as the family Frisky the Dog wished to take under his wing Or shall I say paw?. We never saw him in the form of a cuddly bundle of fur. He materialised as a full-grown body of oddities. He set about dropping his visiting card to ensure that others of the species knew he8217;d come a-visiting. The groundwork done, the next step was to ouster previous tenants with consummate ease. Thus Frisky the Dog made his home with us in a manner of speaking.

And as time went by, though we had a pooch of our own, the phrase 8220;canine culture8221; began to acquire a plethora of meaning. Chasing cars was now passeacute; and giving cats a run for their money a mere clicheacute;. The real meat lay in poking his snout where another dog lay curled up, asleep. To our discomfiture, he displayed an odd sense of class consciousness. The freshly-powdered, well-clad would be allowed to pass by. The not-so-well-dressed were assured of a battle on their hands. Enrolling himself for guard duty, the mutt provided us a royal escort on every walk. Come twilight and we8217;d hear his curious yowl signalling dinnertime. Any delay would raise the yowl to a crescendo, much to mom8217;s mortification. I often wondered how many other heartstrings he had yanked on this issue. On spotting one of us down the street, he would gallop at full throttle, and hurl himself down as a bundle of love and excitement. He8217;d recognise our car8217;s reverse alarm, and would leap at its windows, greeting my dad as a long lost friend. Life was too full to spend snoozing and scratching at fleas. Twice they tried to 8220;net8221; him, and both times he gave 8216;em the slip, to return with the familiar glint and grin.

One summer when we weren8217;t in town they took him, I don8217;t know where. But, I continue to watch out for smooth-coated brown-coloured, impish canine, with a big heart and gleaming eyes.