A tale of two dogs

By Shevlin Sebastian

I heard the agonising wail followed by quick barks at 2 am. This surprised me. Usually, cats are the ones who make these sad moans. This was the first time I heard a dog being in this sort of emotional trauma.

The next morning, as I set out to buy milk, I saw the brown-skinned dog. I am calling him Sam. Sam stays near my house, in Kochi, on the road. He is a stray. Sam was alone. His eyes were drooping and so was his jaw. His inseparable companion, a smaller female brown-skinned dog, Molly, was no longer there.

This came as a shock to me. It meant that she had died in a car accident. I was told that dogs cannot properly gauge the distance when cars approach them. As a result, they are hit frequently. And many die like that.

That night, Sam again let out several moans. This continued for two more nights.

But on the fourth morning, I saw Molly had reunited with Sam.
So what happened? Did Molly run away with another dog? Or did they have a massive fight and Molly ran away to get some respite? Or was Molly tiring of the relationship? And wanted a change.

Did Sam go in search of Molly and then apologise and beg her to return?

I don’t know.

In the initial few days, Molly kept a distance of a foot between them. Then, over a few days, they became close as twins. What they loved most was to sleep next to each other under parked cars during hot summer afternoons.

Recently, I saw Sam jump on to a low wall and walk to the end. Molly followed. Then Sam jumped into a vacant plot of land. It comprised plants, coconut trees, and banana bushes. Molly stared at him. Then she looked to the left. Then backwards. In the past, she would have jumped right away. Now Molly turned back, reached the end of the wall and jumped back to the road. No more following Sam blindly any more.

Can Sam adjust to the new Molly? Who knows? Only time will tell.

This morning, there was another shock.

There was no Molly around. Sam sat by the side of the road, his lower jaw pressed against the tarred surface.

It seems they have not resolved things. Molly’s gone again. A crack has formed in the relationship. And it looks like they tried to paper over the differences. But it seems to have failed.

Wow, this is like human relationships.

Sam is battling to remain connected. But Molly seems to have changed. And doesn’t want to go back to play the docile role of earlier times.

I am waiting to see what happens next.

This is the woman’s century, both in the human and the animal world.

They are calling the shots.

And males will have to adjust to the new reality.