Goodbye Meow

On August 5, after months of painful visits to the vet, Meow succumbed.

He was a weak baby from the go. He also used to be unusually scared of the slightest of sudden sounds and movements. His fear gave him an uncanny aggressiveness and a sense of territory and I would like to believe that I was his punching bag as well as his most prized possession. He was mine. I treasured him in a way I knew I could never own someone; selfishly, unconditionally, fearlessly.

Two days before he passed, I got a feeling that the end was near and I escaped the house riding on a vague excuse. I was exhausted and believed that I needed distraction to prepare myself for the inevitable vacuum that would suck me in soon enough.

The day Meow died, it rained with an ardour that even this town hadn't witnessed before. Moments before he left, he kept looking at me, his piercing gaze questioning me and accusing me and seeking assurance from me all at once. Meow had been my saviour in more ways than I can define or will to share and in his last moments, I wondered if he wondered if I was at all equipped to carry on without him.

This has been a month of mourning. Of distracting myself with fleeting people and emotions. For all the times he fell sick and threw tantrums at the vet's making treatment all the more difficult and I lay awake imagining my loneliness without him around, I must say I am doing good.

Goodbye, Meow. Till we meet again!

A dog's life

Last night, Lali, our dog of twelve years, died.

She was playing till the last. Indiraben had just let her go out of the house for her night stroll, and about half an hour later, when she went to fetch Lali back, Indiraben found her lying motionless in the middle of the road outside our house.

First we thought a speeding vehicle had knocked her down. We checked her body, but she had no signs of injury whatever. She was still warm, and we thought she moved her ears and eyes. But she was definitely dead; Indiraben and I were only resorting to last-ditch death-defying hope. As I lifted Lali up to remove her to a safer place, her tongue spilled out. It was bluish-grey, pretty much off colour. We concluded a snake bite. A small consolation is that Lali died near us and that we had time to mourn her, to arrange a proper burial. 

Sheeba, her sibling was all confused this morning as they took Lali away. We thought Sheebu would go first, what with her numerous health problems. When Sheebu was recuperating from a surgery some months back, Lali surprised us by pushing in bits of bread for Sheebu through the iron gate every evening. It was as if she also wanted her share of nursing Sheebu back to health. 

Lali's death was sudden as sudden death is. 

In spite of having to digest that dreadful news many times, every time someone dies, the swiftness and the aloofness of the process never fails to amaze me. It makes me feel infinitesimally smaller and helpless. Some people might be put off by likening human death with animal death - I agree both have huge differences - but there are also similarities. When you hold in your hands a dead bird, or a squirrel, a puppy or a dog, the helplessness and strange spiritual anger and disbelief is similar to the devastation and rage on losing a human. 

Lali enriched our life with her constant, unconditional presence quite like a good friend or a loving relative. It was definitely not a dog's life.

Lali (L) and Sheeba in December 2009

Meow- My miracle

I grew up with dogs, and like most dog people, had an open dislike that bordered on trust issues and prejudice for cats. This began to change sometime last year when I first met two pet cats with rather royal names. I thought, "Hmm, cats are not that bad to have around."

In the days after my return to India, I found myself entertaining the idea of having a "cat pet" more and more. Then, there was a period of two weeks when I was so desperate to get a kitten that I literally stopped my scooter at the sight of kittens on the road or near fish markets. One day, I happened to go to Panaji Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). There, Meow happened to me.

Though Meow is quite a plebian name compared to the cats that acquainted me with the feline world, he is every bit the pet I could ever dream of or ask for. So much so, I sometimes question myself how in the world can anyone ever be a dog person when there are cats around.

Meow took to jumping on my bed and sleeping near me since day one. It was his first week home and I had had a particularly bad day. I had tucked Meow in my bed and was trying to sleep while fighting ocassional tears when I felt a soft little paw rubbing my cheek. I opened my eyes to see Meow's green eyes staring into mine and then he rubbed his paw against my cheek again, this time flicking the tear away.

Meow is my little miracle. Yes, Meows happen!

-GG

Meow Mondays

 

 

Meow is on a roll and thanks to him, so are we.

Please go here and like this FB page :)

Meow Mondays

Meow chose me at the animal shelter where he was since he was about one month old. He chose me, yes. I simply obeyed his "meow" and took him in my arms to carress and cuddle him just the way he likes.

The shelter staff told me he had a congenital lump near the side of his belly and my vet later thought it was a hernia.

At another animal hospital, the vet confirmed an advanced hernia and suggested an immediate surgery. Meow was operated on the evening last Tuesday, October 9 and he was up and running on October 11 morning, the day I shot this video.

 

 

Check this video: https://vimeo.com/51439926

 

 

Meow Mondays

When he makes my heart jump out of the window

 

 

 

Meow will undergo a surgery for advanced hernia tomorrow.

Pray for my little cupcake with all the faith you have.

Meow Mondays

Gata took all the time in the world to snub Meow's advances. After torturing the poor guy enough, Gata seems to have said "Yes." But look how she stresses out my white-little-cupcake so much already!

Wordless Wednesday

Update from home: Lali is not well

When you run to welcome me home, sometimes I feel I need no other love in this world.

I had tweeted this about Lali.

She is one of the four dogs that we raised. Born in November 2002, the litter came under our care, when their mother, whom I called Jhingy, suddenly died. They were a month old then. Lali is the most loyal, her territory remains our house and she guards it against, mostly, the postman and the sweeper.

It is Indiraben, who became a part of our family when I was about six months of age, who lovingly and possessively tends to all our pets. On the night of September 10, Indiraben came to my father, very worried, and said she had not seen Lali for the entire day. Unusual, scary. They tried to look around all over the society, but did not find her.

Early next morning, Lali's siblings Dholu and Sheeba literally dragged Indiraben to a locked plot in the society. There we found Lali: weak, frightened. She's old now and couldn't jump the high walls. Baba got keys to the lock from the society secretary, but it was rusted. The guards then broke the lock. Lali came out to hug Indiraben and Baba.

In recent emails, Baba says how Lali is still in a shock. She has given up barking with gusto as she used to. She only wimps and cries, eats less and seldom leaves our compound. Baba thinks she climbed up a car and jumped into the plot, falling on her face. She has some injuries near the jaw. She runs at the sight of medicine and Baba and Indiraben are too old for the hide-and-seek routine I dealt with. I hope she gets better soon. My family depends on these kids more than we admit or realize. Home would not be home without them...

Look who came calling?

A peahen lays eggs on our terrace or in the vicinity of our house each year. There's a lot of excitement when the eggs hatch and chicks jump down*. Thus begins the first adventure of their life: to jump across our boundary wall and into the fields. This time, we saw three chicks.

Two chicks were stuck in a plot behind us and could find no way to escape. The neighbours gingerly caught them in a bucket and we released them in the fields adjacent to our house. The third, perhaps the youngest and the weakest, stayed behind, hidden somewhere. After a while, Baba heard its persistent calls in our garden.

"Mama, where are you?"

The peahen came back for this chick. She was constantly flying up to the wall and was urging the baby to climb one of the plants and jump out.

"Mama's here... Yippeee"

She then guided the chick to the other side, where there are more plants. From here, her baby could jump out easily.

"I will be a good boy now, promise!"

After about 15 minutes or so, we stopped hearing the baby's chirps and the mother's beckoning "quack quack". The chick had jumped outside and started a new life with its two siblings.

* Unlike chicks of other birds that have to be fed and raised for a month or two before they are able to exist independently, peacock chicks are nidifugous and leave nest minutes after hatching.

Meet Yahoo

Pet update

This little chap should begin to fly pretty soon...



This is the first baby from my pair and I spend afternoons playing with it..

And that's where I come from...

Under the car was a baby cobra
Coiled with a hood of beauty and shine...
Alarming woofs of my playful, silly dogs
Made him rush to that garden of mine...

Leave him in peace and away you go
My little naughty ones,
You need not be with creatures divine, not just yet.
And away you go dear baby with no fear
Waiting is your mother with siblings nine..

He then slithered somewhere far away...
With my gentle push and a touch.
Happy were silly dogs, so was the baby cobra
These are the real pleasures of mine...

-Baba-12-05-2009

Dear Gauri,

Last night, a baby cobra of about 20 inches length came and
thrilled all of us. His hood was very cute, hardly measuring about
1.5" in width....

Some six months back, Lali* had cornered a six-inch baby cobra. I had pushed it away with a mug full of water to let him to go, as a
stick would have injured him....

Of late, i have realized one thing...all babies, living beings should be
nurtured equally, loved and protected with care.

Baba

*Lali is one of our four pet stray dogs

Bobo

Bobo, the puppy kept by a street-side hawker near Golpark crossing... I saw him from a bus and walked back to capture his pic.
Here's a Happy New Year from Bobo...And me... :)

Caring for pets

With a childhood full of raising almost all kinds of animals from a magnificient german shephard bitch and a flock of lively hens, to caring for injured or abandoned baby squirrels, baby peacocks, etc, learning to cope with the loss of an animal is something I have slowly aquired. But it's difficult all the same, everytime.

So let me use this blog to write whatever I know about caring for Budgrigars, Lovebirds and Beta Fighter fishes- as these are my current pets...

Budgrigars



These are very delicate little birds, orginally found in the deserts of Australia... They come in numerous colours from canary yellow, to lemon green, sky blue, yellowish-blue, white/cream, etc. Also, these are more easily bred as compared to lovebirds.

But caring for these is quite a task, as I have now come to know...

The veternary doc prescribed to give each bird a drop of Visceryl Vitamin drops everyday. For the youngest of all- 'Chhotu' who was feathering and had some minor skin infection, the doc prescribed the following remedy:

1 portion finely ground naphthalene ball
1 portion (same as that quantity of ground naphthalene) of boric acid powder
Mix both these portions thoroughly.
Now add 4 portions* (*portions equal to the quantity of the mixed naphthalene and boric acid powders this time) normal talcum powder.
Mix well and store in a clean bottle.

Dust the affected area with this powder once a day till the skin infection is under control.

I was also asked to de-worm each bird, and then repeat the same dose of one drop each after eighteen days.

My father, who himself bred a lot of budgerigars when I really very small to understand these nitty-gritties, was a bit skeptical about the de-worm step. His resistance was correct, as dogs pups are bound to get a bit weak after a de-worm dose.

Well, nothing happened to my birds after the first dose, but one adult male suddenly died two days after the second de-worm dose after 18 days. The only anomaly I had noticed about him was he didnt feed in the morning as all birds do. But these are very moody birds, so I assumed it was one of his mood swings..If this was related or not, the vet didn't confirm.

One day after the death of this adult, another young died suddenly.

When I say sudenly, I mean suddenly! These birds act perfectly normal just minutes before they fall down and start weakening up.

And so, today was the final blow- death of the youngest and most charming bird I called 'Chhotu'. He had an extremely unique red colour marking on his forehead, which I had not yet seen in a budgrigar...

Lovebirds




I have the 'rosy faced' pair now. With now, I mean that two beautiful green lovebirds' pair actually 'escaped' out of the cage. Yes, they escaped. I am damn sure I had closed the cage the night before.

The thing is, these are extremely inquisitive, curious and hyper-active birds. Their beaks are ever poking in anything new and anything that can move. They push around the food cups, empty the water cups and yes, I saw them experimenting with the bolting hook too. But I didnt actually think they would be able to open it and hop out. But hop out they did... And vanished into thin air much before my husband's eyes.

So one big lesson learnt- Tie the hook with a string to make sure these silly creatures don't fly away to their doom.

Another lesson which I learnt much earlier as a child was never to get carried away by emotions and 'free' a small sized caged bird. My father explained, and now I know he was right, that such delicate birds like Budgrigars and Lovebirds are almost entirely bred in captivity, having lived in cages all their life. They can't thus fly a lot. At the most they will zoom somewhere in full speed and fumble without finding a good perch. Moreover, not being native, scared and lost, these are easy preys for kites, even crows for that matter who are normally scavengers...

If the bird is tame enough and if you can aptly handle the bird, i.e. catch it again and all, you may let it fly in a room, with all doors and fans closed.

About the 'Rosy-faced' pair which chose not to hop out of the open cage. Well... it's the most charming twosome I have ever laid my eyes on. These are hopelessly silly and ever squeaking birds, a joy to behold... I thought the cage was getting a bit dull, so I hung the two wooden circles of an embroidery ring with a string in the cage.



In less than two hours, the most curious one was happily swinging away... Each bird has its own unique personality and will take his own sweet time to try a new toy. Like, even though the rosy male started using the ring on the first day itself, the female took more than a week to accompany him on the ride...

Siamese Beta Fighters

I have two beatiful males. (The females are drab, not as attractively coloured, and as a rule never put on sale in most pet shops)



This fish is excellent for beginners, or for those who have less time on hands... It's a very sturdy fish and will deman minimum possible attention from you. What's more, with the beautiful colours it comes in, just seeing this pet gliding gracefully in the bowl is almost as good as a trip to the spa after a long day...

So as I said, this is one super low maintanance fish... Lets see what one has to do to keep it healthy and happy...

It will thrive in a medium sized bowl, but as is with all bird habitats, the bigger the better.

Before buying the bowl, ensure it does not have any crack or small leaks. Make the shop owner fill the bowl and hold it up for a while, to check if any water trickles out.

Clean the bowl regularly, and once thouroughly before introducing the fish from the polythene bag.

Fix two days in a week, say Wednesday and Sunday, and try to stick to the schedule you have maintained.

Take a clean empty bathroom mug. Carefully fill it up with the water already in the bowl.

Gently catch the fish in your hands, dont ever press too hard, and release it slowly in a mug.

A word of caution- Dont fill the mug to its brim and keep it in your view while cleaning the bowl. I had a fright of my life one fine day when i shifted my two fighters- Chhotu (again, chhotu the fish this time) and motu in two mugs, kept these near the centre table and went in the kitchen to clean the bowls...

On coming back, I saw this wrinkled blue thing lying near the tv, almost 3 feet away from the mug. In a moment, tht 'thing' started jumping. I had a hard time to react in an instant, to transfer the silly new fish-motu in the mug.

I have no idea how long it was out in this manner. Why this fish survived is because it belongs to a family, which has special accessory breathing organs called 'labyrinthine organs'. These help them to stay in oxygen deficient conditions quite easily, like their natural habitat of water-filled paddy fields in Thailand. I take extra care of 'Motu' now, after his out of the bowl escapade.

Clean the bowl thoroughly, scrub well, using a mild soap will do. Just make sure to wash the bowl again well, free of any remaining soap, for it might alter the Ph of the water..

Add one day old water, preferably aquaguard or any drinking water you normally use. (Not mineral water though)

Always retain one quarter of the old water and add three quarters of one old day water. Never change the water completely. It might kill your fish.



When the fish is new, you may use this treatment for the first two-three water changes:
Take potassium permanganate, quantity stricty a quarter of a mustard seed in a mugful of water. Leave the fish in this mug for a few seconds, say 10-20 seconds, or even less. Catch it and release immediately in the bowl of fresh water. Potassium permangate is very effective for fungal or other such skin infections, for the general glow of the skin, but a little more can be lethal. So be very cautious with this treatment.

Once a female fighter had a strange, mysterious and potentially disastrous symptom: The water turned a definite yellow, very clear, but a little more dense than usual in record time. I frantically called up a guy who I was told kept a lot of aquariums. He heard the symptoms as i described and told me to change the water completely, for a change! He asked to add warm water (Hottish warm, but not hot) and then sprinkle a pinch of salt over the fish wherever it moved for a few seconds. I did as I was told, although in hearts of my heart, I had lost all hope. But this female miraculously reacted to the treatment and went on to live healthily for a long time afterwards...

With food, be as miserly as you can. Don't give in to the temptations of throwing extra munches. Over feeding is most defintely lethal, under feeding is not. Ideally give in only about 0.1 cm or 0.2 cm at the max for full-grown males of the dried tubifix cubes each day. I feed my fighters only once a day and they seem to be literally thriving. Keep the dried tubifix cubes, or any other readymade pellets that you buy in an air-tight bottle. Do not let it get moist in any case. Ideally, once small pack should last more than a month at the least. If you live in a bunglow, dig up some fertile soil for baby earthworms (light pink, 2 cm to 3 cm long worms with a moist, shiny body), clean them well and throw live in the bowl. See your Fighter devour them in a jiffy. They will be very healthy if fed live food once in a while.
P.S- Search for earthworms only if you know well enough what to find and can identify earthworms from other worms with good confidence!

These fish have a great personality. Introduing any play toy may be a good idea, but the toy should not be dangerous in anyway, i.e. with sharp ends, soluble in water, etc. I put a beautiful purple orchid flower in the bowl once and it was delightful to see 'Chhotu' the fish poke it curiously for hours at end, gliding below it from time to time and seeing it from all angles. However, be careful with the showy stones the aquarium owner may give you along with the fish and the bowl. The stones I had introduced in the bowl began to deposit calcium carbonate or some such substance in a day, which my husband noticed... I had to remove the stones carefully, clean the bowl thoroughly again and wait and watch with crossed fingers to see if any Ph change had affected the fish. Fortunately, 'Chhotu' was as healthy as ever...

Hmmm... That's all I have the energy now to share with you...
Have a Happy Pet Experience...

-Gauri Gharpure, Sep 15 '2007

The goldfish in the bowl
An orange dollop of life
She laps about in circles
For but a rubber playman,she is alone, all alone...

The goldfish in the bowl
Have you ever seen it closely
Or is she just for show?
For but a rubber playman, she is alone, all alone...

That dollop of orange,
how she slithers her paper thin fins,
And how gracefully she turns and bends
within the scarcity of life she has...



How her shades of orange change,
From a vibrant orange to reddish,
A tinge of golden here, a hint of yellow there,
An orange dollop of life, that goldfish in the bowl...

But sometimes, the colour begins to fade...

How she refuses feed one day,
And then the day next...
how the water turns murky,
And how her fins go limp...

That dollop of orange,
will just fall still one day
And float in the glass bowl
O how ugly would it look!

The goldfish in the bowl,
Do you see it daily
Or she is just for show?
For but a rubber playman, is she alone, all alone?...

****************

Please keep pets only if you can keep them with love, care and proper medical treatment...

****************

By Gauri Gharpure