Chp 889. A tragic love story

Humans go through different emotions and relationships. But have you ever thought about your dog's romantic life?

How must your dog be feeling about new love interests? Or a crush? Or an ex? Or a cheating partner?

Well, sit back and enjoy reading this post, as I take you through the the sad but adorable romantic life of Dobby here at Neihbawih.

I must warn you though, his tail tale is a drama-filled soap opera that would put even Erika Mitchell aka E.L. James to shame. :P

So here we go.

Much like the opening scene of any captivating drama TV series, my farm echoed with the delightful duo of just Dobby and me, running around and leading a happy normal life alone. We were content and happy with each other. But the storyline was about to change.

Enter the female protagonist - Teii.

Teii was Pi Thuami's dog. Pi Thuami looked after my neighbouring farm. She would pass through my farm every morning and return home in the evening.

When Pi Thuami saw that Dobby didn't have any furry playmate, she asked me if she could bring Teii along, instead of locking her up at her house the whole day. There was a possibility that Dobby and Teii could become friends. I agreed. 

Initially, of course, there was some tension when Dobby and Teii met for the first time, but just as we hoped, they quickly became friends. That's the beauty about male and female dogs, they don't get territorial.

During the first few days, whenever Pi Thuami reached my farm, Dobby and Teii would spend a few minutes playing together on my farm, and then Teii would follow Pi Thuami to her farm. And then on their way back in the evening, they would play together again, before leaving our farm. Dobby would look forward to their arrival every day.

Eventually, they started playing together the whole day. They would either be on my farm or Pi Thuami's farm, running everywhere or resting under the shade. It was the best couple of months for them both.

Dobby even allowed his girlfriend to eat from his bowl with no hesitation :)

We even spent one night helping Pi Thuami look for Teii. There was a severe thunderstorm and Teii didn't go back home. Pi Thuami came to my farm in the night and Dobby sprang into action as we looked for Teii. Dobby barked and she barked back, and eventually, we found her all coiled up and scared under Pi Thuami's thlam. :)

But like all drama-filled TV shows, there has to be a change in the plot, right? Enter the villain in the storyline - Toshi.

Well, not exactly my villain. Just Dobby's villain. :D

So before Dobby came into my life and changed it forever, I was living alone on my farm. And then this dog called Toshi used to visit me occasionally.

Toshi was from a retreat centre at Neihbawih, and though his place was quite far from my farm (around 45 minutes by walk), this was the time before the Neihbawih Welfare Association had prohibited dogs from venturing out of their place of residence. And so Toshi would roam around everywhere in Neihbawih during the day, and return in the night to his owners.

He even stayed one night at my farm because there was a thunderstorm and he couldn't go home. I made a nice bed for him in our sitting room and fed him dinner as well as breakfast the next morning.

But of course, once Dobby was with me, things had to change. 

Dobby was super jealous of Toshi. And much as I pitied Toshi, he had a lot of people looking after him and caring for him, while I was the only one Dobby had. And so I sided with Dobby and told Toshi not to come to my farm anymore.

Here's a photo of Dobby preventing Toshi from entering my farm.

Despite Dobby hating Toshi, Toshi actually helped me save Dobby's life once, and I'll write about that incident in another post.

Dogs are extremely intelligent. To tell Toshi that he shouldn't come to my farm anymore, I didn't have to yell or shout. I simply ignored him or his puppy-affectionate eyes and gave my attention to just Dobby. Toshi understood the message loud and clear, and he never came to our farm again... 

...until Teii was on heat.

Ahhh now we have an explicit sex-twist in the storyline. :D

After Dobby and Teii spent many months playing together, Teii was on heat, but my poor Dobby, bless his simple heart, was already neutered. That "department" didn't exactly function for Dobby, you know. Teii wanted the boom boom, but Dobby was like "Sorry hon, I have a headache".

And so... enter Toshi again.

Toshi started following Pi Thuami and Teii, and when they entered our farm, Dobby was full-on angry. He was like, "Bruh, didn't I tell you not to come here anymore? Bauh bauh!"

But Toshi was smart and avoided me, so as not to aggravate the situation further. He focussed only on Teii. Toshi would dare not fight Dobby, especially when he knew I had Dobby's back, but the sexual urge was too hard for him to ignore. You saw what I did there? :P

Eventually, Dobby was okay with Toshi being around at our farm, as long as he never came near me.

And then of course the mating started. 

Dobby would watch his girlfriend getting hammered from behind by his sworn enemy, and I think that must be one of the worst feelings a man can feel. Fortunately, Dobby was just a dog. :D

But nevertheless, I did feel really bad for him. I gave him more attention and increased his treats dosage to pull him out of his depression.

Luckily, the mating cycle didn't last long and after a few days, it was over. Teii was no longer on heat and she chased away Toshi. That was the last time I saw Toshi, to this day.

Dobby and Teii were back to playing with each other again, though Teii was pregnant by then.

Once Teii was getting bigger, for her own safety, Pi Thuami locked her in her house again. But Dobby never stopped waiting for Teii to appear every morning. I'm sure you're getting a poignant Hachiko vibe at this moment.

Fortunately, unlike humans, dogs are pregnant for around 2 months only. During that time, Pi Thuami constructed an enclosure, and soon Teii gave birth to a litter of extremely cute and adorable puppies.

That's how I got my next dog, Robin, sired out of the complicated relationship between Dobby, Teii and Toshi. There are a lot of exciting stories to be read on that, and I hope you come back to read my next post about how Robin came into our lives. 

You know those popular T-shirts that say "I'm not the stepdad, I'm the dad who stepped up"? Well, Dobby was like that. He became Robin's dad, like it or not, and you'll love their father-and-son relationship saga in my next post. 

Sadly though, Pi Thuami had to sell Teii after that. Teii had been suffering from alopecia for a long time, which, in Mizo, we call "tang", and she had spent a large amount of her earnings on Teii's treatments.

By "sell", I hope you all know what it means.

You gotta understand, if you're an animal lover from the city, you may think, why couldn't Pi Thuami just put more effort into Teii's treatment? Well, that's not the reality here in rural areas. A dosage of Teii's treatment meant Pi Thuami didn't have any proper food to eat for a week. Things are different out here, my privileged friends.

I too had just started living with Dobby back then, and with so much farm work and construction going on, my hands were full with just one dog. Had it been how I am right now, well settled and established, I would have definitely bought Teii from Pi Thuami. But back then, the scene was very different.

For a week, Pi Thuami cried every day when she reached my farm as Dobby greeted her and looked everywhere around her for Teii.

Sometimes Dobby and I would just stare at the distant Sihphir town from our farm hilltop in the night to mesmerise about Teii...

And other times we would welcome the break of dawn with a dramatic silhouette of Dobby trying to express his pain...

I really didn't mean to dampen your mood with this sad ending, but I hope the story of Robin will cheer you up next time. Sorry for this dark turn suddenly.

Chp 888. And then we were five

I had mentioned earlier what life is like for a single dad these days. You know, being a dog dad. 

I never planned for any of this to happen. I was very much content with my one dog. But before I realised what was happening, I became a dad of five beloved dogs.

I realised I haven't written anything about my dogs at all on my blog. The thing about blogging is that it's not just about entertaining readers, but it also serves as a nostalgic time machine when you come back years later to read about your experiences.

Every now and then, I would go through some of my old posts during our Mumbai start-up days, like Hello Gaddafi (our new Persian), Hello Saddam (our new Beagle), Gaddafi vs Saddam (funny encounters), RIP Gaddafi (the sad demise), Every dog has its day (the night I ate Saddam's dinner by mistake and got sick), Hello & goodbye Castro (our new Lab, who left us again shortly) and, Hello Cheech & Chong (our new Persians).

Likewise, I had documented Dobby's journey to my farm very well, but I haven't really updated my blog again since then, especially about my other new doggos. And so, I'll be doing that from now on.

Say hello to my five children.

I'll introduce them all to you one by one in the next few posts. Right now I just want to point out one thing I've learnt - There is a huge difference between owning a solitary dog, and owning a pack of dogs, lolz.

Suppose you need just one "x", x being the time and energy you can spare, to look after one dog, then mathematically speaking, for five dogs, you will need 5x, right? Wrong. Oh so wrong. The x goes exponential. You will need at least 100x. :D

Back when it was just Dobby and me here at my farm, life was bliss. Dobby would spend his days right outside my farmhouse, sunbathing, enjoying the moment, and filled with joie de vivre.

It was indeed a life-changing experience for Dobby, especially after Lalani had saved him from the streets of Dehradun, nurtured him back to life and sent him all the way to my farm in Mizoram (do read his fascinating journey series).

Dobby would run into the farmhouse whenever he wanted to play (usually happened around 3-5 in the evening) and my work be damned, he would demand that I play with him, and so I had to drop everything I was doing and the two of us would be running all over our farm playing "fetch". 

And even inside the farmhouse, be it bathing or sleeping, we always did things together. We braved the harsh cold Neihbawih winter together, like a picture-perfect Hallmark movie poster.

He would always walk right by my side whenever I roamed around the farm and never left my sight, even when I was busy doing farm chores like weed cutting or ploughing.

But that became a bit of a problem when I had to walk down to the foot of the hill to the nearest settlement to buy my weekly supplies, as he would follow me there as well. And so on those long treks, I had to put him on a leash.

Then came my two new puppies - Robin and Tiger. Dobby was super jealous and possessive. He didn't allow them to get anywhere near me, and they learned where to draw the line. Tiger, unfortunately, passed away due to parvovirus, and Dobby became a role model dad for Robin. Robin would follow Dobby wherever he went and started doing whatever he did.

Do read the story of Robin and Tiger when I post it next. Having Robin around relieved me to a certain extent as Dobby had finally found a new playmate.

Then came Jojo and Tom. I'll explain how I got them in their individual post as well. Dobby didn't allow them to get near me either. Suddenly Dobby transformed from being a dad (and big boss) of one, to that of three. The four of them started venturing further and further away from my farmhouse, though they still stayed within the confines of our farm.

Finally came Kimchi. His story is another drama-filled one, do read it when it's published. So with five high-spirited and energetic dogs suddenly in my possession, my life completely turned upside down. And they were no longer playing and chasing each other inside my farm, they started entering my neighbours' farms!

Yup, that's a pack mentality right there.

All it took was just one of the dogs to curiously run inside a neighbouring farm, and the others would run behind him, no longer afraid, like an invading Mongolian horde, scurrying and scampering everywhere into foreign territory, much to the horror of the farmers working in the adjoining farms!

As the saying goes, there's strength in numbers.

But meanwhile, I could see the nuisance and havoc they were creating on other farms. Yikes indeed.

And so I spent a lot of money buying hundreds of bamboo poles, angle rods, steel meshes and wires. I hired many workers for many weeks to completely fence our farm boundary. 

But the naughty dogs just simply dug below or squeezed through or found the next hole. Such a headache.

I even had to put steel meshes on our farm gate to prevent them from squeezing through or wriggling under it to run outside.

The look on Dobby's face in the above photo is priceless, lolz. He's thinking, "Why you gotta do this man?" :D

There were many reasons why I had to resort to all this.

First of all, they were destroying the crops of neighbouring farms. Secondly, the Neihbawih Welfare Association announced that fines would be imposed if dogs were found wandering outside their respective farms. Thirdly, I get anxiety attacks if I don't see them on my farm because there's a sizeable number of people who eat dog meat. And fourthly, they got ensnared many times in fox traps!

Fortunately for me, my neighbouring farmers were very kind and they would release my dogs from their traps, but if they wanted, they could do anything they wanted since it was inside their farm. Here's a photo of Robin I took when he was missing for a couple of hours and I frantically looked for him everywhere, screaming his bloody name, and then I heard his cries coming from my neighbour Pu Hawla's farm (former Mizoram CM). I ran inside his farm through the thick-grown forest and finally found him ensnared like this.

Finally, I had no other option but to completely fence up just my farmhouse vicinity, so that they could no longer wander far.

They became a prisoner of sorts. :D

They no longer had the freedom to run wherever they wanted, even within my farm. They were confined to just my farmhouse vicinity. I did feel bad about it, but then again, they brought this to themselves. Had they been obedient, none of this would have happened.

Compare the two images below and see the contrast in their freedom of movement.

But at the same time, they still had quite a large area at their disposal. There was enough space for them to run and play and do all their shenanigans.

The most important outcome was that I finally found my peace of mind again and could breathe once more. :)

And that's the story of them becoming five. Hope you like this post.

I had so many dear friends and family members from the city, asking me if I could look after their dog at my farm too. They do trust me, knowing the extent I would go to make sure they are happy. I really would love to take on more children too, but being out here at my farm all alone and with my heavy work schedule at Ronin Labs, I really can't. My hands are completely full with these five. 

Sadly, I had to decline.

I do hope you visit again when I update really interesting stories about the origin of the other dogs. Until then, take care, and hope to see you again. Cheers.