Golu: My dog son

Pets are the only ones who love us unconditionally, in this mean and selfish world. All they expect from us is love and affection, by giving us pure love, happiness and joy. A lot of you might have one yourself or must have seen someone around you keeping one. There are many animals that we can keep as pets such as dogs, cats, horses, fishes, turtles, birds and even elephants etc. In certain countries, lions, cheetahs, snakes and are pets in quite a number of house but that isn’t a case in India. The most preferred pet that we keep are dogs. There are many reasons for that. Dogs are caring and protective to the family but ferocious for intruders. They are faithful and obedient. They can be trained to perform a particular action and be disciplined. Like many others, I also have had a couple of dogs in the past and I have one even right now.

The love for dogs came to me from my grandmother who used to have a Dalmatian and I grew up looking at their bond. The first dog my family had when I wanted one was an Alsatian (German Shepherd) named Aishwarya. She grew up and passed away in 2012. After her death, I was saddened for weeks. By that time there used to be an Indian Pariah dog (known as Indian street dog) who used to eat from our backyard but live on streets. I then had an understanding of how we normally wish to buy dogs of foreign breed but are reluctant to adapt the dogs left on the street. In due time she gave birth to her children, and we used to give them shelter and food, but they used to go out in the street with their mother. Growing up, one of them, Lavina gave birth to 7 kids in our backyard, but most of them were too fragile and despite our best efforts, only one could survive. The one left turned out to be very healthy. We named him Golu, because in Odia, it is referred to a cute kid.

Golu was born in front of my eyes. While I was providing Lavina food and other essentials in her shelter in our backyard, Golu became very fond of me, even with his eyes being closed. After four weeks, I used to pick him up in my arms and take him up to the roof, make him walk and played with him, because he was a lazy dog. I had return to him to Lavina by the evening, or else she would get restless. That had become a regular ritual, until Lavina got a skin infection when Golu was 7-month-old. I gave her medicine but her health kept deteriorating. I had to keep Golu away from her on the advice of the vet, on the assumption that it might spread to him. We lost Lavina a few weeks later. Golu thereafter has become a very essential part of my life. When I went to hostel, he was annoyed and didn’t eat for a day. When I used to come home, his happiness knew no bounds. My mother started calling me his father as our bond has grown into that stage. From playing with him to feeding him, bathing him and scolding him for his misdoings- he was surely my son. He is going to be 4 years old this December and there doesn’t go a day in my life, when I don’t talk to him physically or through video call if I am not present and enquire about him well-being from others.

Golu is a great support in bad times and has become an irreplaceable part of my life. Many of us want to buy a dog, but we forget that a lot of street dogs require the same level of love and affection and hence I always preach to my friends and family around to adopt one than to buy one. I can assure you; you would not regret it. I am repeating myself, the love and affection they give is the purest you will ever receive.