Alice and Me

She is our friend, our partner, our defender, our dog. We are her life, her love, her leaders. She will be ours, faithful and true, to the last beat of her heart. We owe it to her to be worthy of such devotion

Raj went on a 3 day long trip to New York recently and that was my first night all alone with Eesha. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten Alice but I am not worried about her security but being all alone with Eesha, I do get worried about Eesha's security.

I must say more than Alice being dependent on me, I was dependent on her becasue she can stay without food and water for days, I know (she has done that in past) but I can NOT stay one whole night without her support and courage. Not that I am scared of anything. I have stayed alone in past without her as well, but now it's not all about me. With a small baby with me I am more concerned about her security and well being that my own self's. The courage that I get just by thinking there is someone powerful around me to protect me from all evils cannot be jotted down in a blog. Normally she is just a baby, but in these extra ordinary situations she becomes my guardian. More than she follows what I say, I follow what her instinct says. So, if she is barking at night at vague hours I definitely come down and make sure everything is OK. She wont bark for no reason.

It's not fun staying alone but both of these kids keep me busy all day long and I don't even have time to think about Raj till I reach office and see him online. It's not fun :) but I can't complaint . It's a new experience and I am embracing it so far. Hopefully Raj doesn't have to make these trips too often.

Alice in Wonderland

Alice is a free bird now (pretty much) No wonder why she loves a huge backyard. We love to watch her chasing rabbits and squirrels in the backyard. She goes out when she want to do business and comes back when she is done.

This long weekend we got our backyard fenced and we don't have to worry anymore about Alice waiting for us to do business while we are out. We had a fun filled weekend with Alice this time. Soon Eesha will grow and they can have fun together in the yard.

We are finally settled with our new home and getting back to life. So much looking forward to it.

Oh did I tell how calmly she behaves with our 15 month old daughter. When I am too busy and Eesha is giving me a hard time to do stuff, I would just tell her "Go see where is Alice" Eesha cannot pronounce Alice yet, so she says "Ice"; for her even I address "Alice" as "Ice". So, I would say "Go check out Ice" and she will be excited to go check her out every time I would say that. But I noticed a couple of times after happily playing for about 15 minutes Eesha would come running shouting "Am Am..(short form for Amma in her dictionary)" Since all that area is not visible from the place I am working at in home, I didn't know what's really going on so I put a camera one day and started watching after sending Eesha to Alice. Alice has a specific area till where she can come, we have bordered that area so that she understands that it's her space. I noticed after leaving from my work area Eesha slowly goes and sits beside Alice and starts touching her, patting her gently. Oh by the way I love to see how gentle she is with Alice. After 5 minutes of playing Eesha gets excited and gradually slides and reaches very close to Alice, almost barging  in Alice's space and Alice gets up from her own area. Then Alice tries to move carefully in that small area to go a little behind, and her body touches Eesha's and Eesha is like "No No". Eesha tries to hide her face, makes faces and comes running "Am Am.." So that's what was really going on and thus I discovered who the brat is here.

I have to agree that we made a great decision of getting a Dog even before Eesha came. She is definitely more matured than Eesha :) and doesn't mind Eesha complaining about her for her own mistake. I am sure there will be more stories to come as they grow older. But  really love to watch them grow this way.

Alice and Crissie

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends- Alexander Pope

It is very sad to see Alice not getting any workout in the sense she doesn't get to go play with Crissie anymore. Raj tries to take her for a long walk everyday as schedule permits. So, yesterday Raj took her for a walk and when they came back I was standing outside the door and we were talking about how much she might be missing Crissie. She didn't hear me since we were talking very softly. Then I though "Let's see how she reacts when I say the name Crissie". So I called her by her own name which is Alice for 3 times and she was busy sniffing the grass. The fourth time I called, I said "Crissie" and she gave me a shocked/surprised/excited/questioning look which is difficult to forget. Soon she realized herself that there is no way Crissie will be here. I think she will be better once we have the fence built and she gets to roam freely. I also wish we take her to our old home to play with Crissie once in a while

One more fun thing to talk about is her "feeling of closeness". When I and Raj leave for office and work respectively, Rekha my sister in law takes Alice out for business in the mornings and evenings most of the times. Alice would normally go and sit in the basement after they are back and Rekha will stay in the main level playing with our daughter. Alice would never come up by herself the whole day to stay with Rekha and MIL but as soon as I or Raj come from office or work respectively, she will not go down unless scolded or asked to go. Rekha noticed this for a few weeks and told us. If anyone of the two of us is in the basement she will prefer to be in the basement probably for safeguarding. But if both of us are not in basement and even one of us is in the main level she will come up and sit in the main level. That is something we didn't get to know in the old home because she used to stay in the formal living room and had her limits as till where she can come. This home gives her a little more luxury of being around us.

Like I have said earlier, there are so many things your kids can learn from your Dogs, (well for that matter good or bad) its worth having a Dog when your kid is growing up. Most importantly they learn to love animals. Tomorrow even if they see a PET Lion cuddling his master, they will know what exactly that means to the master. Secondly they wont be scared of Dogs anymore like most of the kids are. Most importantly when they have their family later, they will also wish to give a home to a Dog.

Hopefully the fence will be done by end of this month and Alice will have a little more luxury that before.

Believe It Or Not!

Lots of people talk to animals but not many listen to them. I tried to... 

                                                                                                                                    -Myself

Before I start writing anything else, let me tell you; some of you might not believe this even after reading it and knowing that it's coming from a trusted source. But I will still share with you all, so you know how crazy I am about Dogs.

So, the foundation of this story started sometime in mid march when I was driving to office and listening to a very famous Morning show of Atlanta on Radio. It's called "The Bert Show". The hosts were interviewing a lady who claimed to be a Pet Psychic (Animal communicator). I know you either already lost interest in the topic or are very interested on what happened next. So, I will keep writing for some of those who will read it complete. I called in the show and said I wanted to talk to that lady. Obviously they won't have time for so many callers so I was put on hold and told a little while later "We are running out of time, so please try next time or go to her website." Ok! that works I said, only to realize later that it costs a heck a lot of money for a 30 minute session of your pet. I said OK I still will do it. I asked this as my Birthday gift from Raj and he agreed. I wish I had the "Surprise" icon from Yahoo messenger to add here. So I was all set for the session. I used to tell Alice now and then about how Amma scheduled this for her and soon she will know what she is lacking in case she is. This is how it works. I had to send a picture of Alice to that lady on her website and she will call me on the scheduled time and we start counting 30 minutes from there. I can ask whatever I want to know from Alice. Alice can tell whatever she wants to tell us. She works with Telepathy, talks to the pet and lets you know what she heard. It was scheduled for 30th April at 6:15PM, the day we were shifting to our new home. Wow I can't believe I left all that work and sat in a corner to talk to this lady when she called me. Every statement she said about Alice blew my mind.

Some very interesting statements she said were:

"So, you have been talking to Alice about me and she is telling she is excited about this session"

"She is nervous as what's going on in the house" then I told her we are moving to new home today so all packing and stuff is going on.

"She says she is going to miss her tree in the yard" (In our neighbor's yard)

"She asked if the little animal going to come along" (Neighbor's dog)

"She said she would like to play with the little creature at home, how soon can they start playing together?" (That's my daughter who is just 1 year old now, so we don't let them be together alone or for long)

"She said she wants to be a house Dog and she doesn't want you to get another dog if she is going to stay away from us and the other Dog gets to stay close to us"

"She wants a little dog and not big one" (Guess she wants to boss around)

"She doesn't like dry food"

"She likes Chicken"

"She would like to play up and down on stairs like she used to earlier"

"She would like to go out in Car more like she used to get to do earlier"

There were too many things she told and I was stunned as she told stuff only raj Alice and I would have known. I am looking forward for another session with her but not so soon. I will have to first work on her previous session to fulfill what Alice needs and wants. But it was an enlightening experience to know that animals can also think so much, have needs wants and demands, preferences. WOW that really blew my mind. It was truly worth it. Believe it or Not!

A Blue Evening made White

Dogs’ lives are too short. Their only defect, really.

                                                                                                                              Agnes Sligh Turnbull

So once again Alice proved to be a wonderful partner for the lonely me.

I was feeling very blue that day and felt very frustrated and irritated becasue of a couple of things that were happening one after the other; making me feel sitting in a roller coaster ride of emotions. I felt like crying and I did too. There were enough people around but you know sometimes it happens that even though you have people around you, you feel deserted. I would be lying if I said that I didn't miss my closest friends. One of those was Alice.

I desperately wanted to sit with her and share some of my feelings. The best part was she won't ask questions. So, after returning from office, I spent some time with Eesha and wanted to go to Alice but had some house chores to take care of.

So, I kept myself busy with the chores but I could hear Alice barking in the garage, then not sure why, though now I guess I do. I quickly went to her and told her "Wait Amma is coming shortly, we can chit chat a little". But she kept barking, barking and barking. That was annoying; not that I wont be able to sleep (who wanted to) but that if no one sleeps becasue of that noise, how will I come down and spend time with her.

When I was done with all work by 10:30PM, I turned off the lights and pretended to go to the bedroom becasue I didn't want anybody's presence when I was with Alice. Those were OUR special moments. Everyone went to their bedrooms and started getting ready to sleep. I pretended too. After Raj and Eesha slept, I came down and brought Alice in from garage and spent an hour with her, when I and she just sat beside each other. I patted her, said thanks, sorry, I love you and all that I was feeling. I really think she was a good listener and I'm sure she understands. When she looks at me with so much attention, and gently licks my hands; then rubs her nose on my clothes, rests her head on my lap I never feel like saying "NO".  For we all know now that we can buy more clothes, but never a friend like that.  She didn't get up till I got up from there.

I give her my time, space and love that I can spare and in return, she gives me her all. It’s the best deal I could have ever made. After an hour I left her back in the garage and and we both were as calm as never. She did not bark I did not cry. So it made me feel as if she knew what I was going through and was equally eager to calm me down.

I never felt like this with my older Dog Laika becasue I was a kid so she was more like a toy for me but now I am grown up with lot more responsibilities and having a Dog really helps to reduce stress.

The Bad period

With eye upraised his master's look to scan,
The joy, the solace, and the aid of man:
The rich man's guardian and the poor man's friend,
The only creature faithful to the end.
                                                                 George Crabbe 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to the "Not so good" part of having a FEMALE dog. So, like every female, dogs also have to go through heat cycles. The good thing is they have to go through this every 6-9 months and not every month but then it goes on and on for 21 days and not 3-4 days. This is going on for last 1 week and we are forced to keep her in garage but that explains a lot of her stomach upset part as well. It is pretty common to have a digestion problem during the heat cycle and that holds good for anyone who can reproduce. 

There are ways to have them spayed so that they don't have to go through that at all. Our neighbors had adopted their dog and adopted dogs are fixed by default. But we had purchased Alice and didn't want to spay her. It basically involves removing her Uterus so that she doesn't have to go through all this which also means that she can never give birth and I was very much against this. I didn't want to take away her right of being a Mother and after becoming a mother myself, I really wanted her to feel the same for her babies. I do agree that involves a lot of pain, uncomfort for her as well as us but in the end it's all worth it. The feeling when you have a baby is incredible. 

For the last 3 years I have been pushing hard to not have her spayed. I am not sure if I can do that anymore. I really become very emotional when I imagine her not being able to have kids and Raj understands that but unfortunately there is a huge difference between understanding and agreeing so he wants to have her spayed after this season of her heat cycle. At the same time I do agree that she will be much more comfortable by not having to go through this torture now and then given that she doesn't know what it is all about but then who knows she might have her own ways to gain that knowledge.

As of now we are extremely busy with Eesha's Birthday preparations and are giving little attention to Alice since she stays most of the time in garage. I ideally would like to breed her with a pure German Shepard and have her produce lovely and affectionate doggies just like her but I am not opening my mouth about this right now :) I  might need to study more about "How to convince your spouse for breeding your Dog" kind of book to do that.

Don't be disheartened by seeing all bad thing for last 2 posts. It's all  part and parcel of the game. At the end of the day she is still worth it. Someone who belives in just giving and not taking.

She is still worth it!

"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog."
                                                                                                                                - Edward Hoagland

I have some bad news and good news to share! Good news is we we had a great vacation last week. The bad news is we just returned home from a wonderful vacation to Mexico! That calls for another blog. Check out my "Miles to Go before I sleep" blog for updates.

Another bad news is Alice had to go through a lot while we were out. Neither this one is an exciting topic to talk about nor am I enthusiastic about writing this blog but I promised to show you the pros and cons of having a Dog so I got to be honest and you need to be practical  if you are seriously planning to get a Dog.

You all know, on a sunny day Alice goes to play in yard with neighbor's dog but unfortunately it was raining for all 4 days here in Atlanta while we were out so she was under house arrest. On top of that she had pooped all over the carpet as she was suffering from diarrhea from the day we left. Since we were on a cruise we could not call up the pet sitter to get her updates (as if we would have been able to come back if we had got any  instead we would not have been able to have fun wholeheartedly thinking she is sick) But this became really bad.

We saw her email the day we landed back in US. When we came back home at 6:00PM, she was playing in the neighbor's yard and was overjoyed to see us. We brought her in the garage and she had to stay all night there as we were too tired from the drive back home to clean the poop so we decided to do that first thing in the morning. Temperature wasn't great according to me for her to stay out in garage, well that's a mother's heart I guess. Raj and I had major argument over that but Raj was not ready to let her inside as she can stamp on the poop and make things worse. So we put 2 rugs on the concrete floor in garage, made her wear a pet jacket and turned on the camera to see if she is fine a little while later. She is not very comfortable sleeping with that jacket on but this time she didn't have an option and neither did we. We came upstairs and Raj kept a watch on her through the camera and came back to sleep when she slept comfortably. That's a Father's heart I would say. Raj had to clean her poop early morning before he started work. Obviously I could see he was not very delighted about that. He is going out of town also today. Must have really pissed him to do that on such a hectic day. He might have even got thoughts like why did we ever get this Dog but I know inside his heart he loves her a lot. He is the one she considers Dad and I can almost guarantee he will never let her down.

At the end of the day she still stays a lovely adorable dog who cares for our daughter, who protects us from dangers, who protects our home from thefts, who loves us unconditionally, who listens to all orders, who will listen to our troubles always, who has stood by us during every single trouble, who searches for us when we are not around, who feels sick when we are not with her. This list can go on and on. We still love her from the bottom of our heart because who doesn't do accidents/mistakes and this time it wasn't her fault. This mistake was nothing in front of all the positive things she does.

Ending this blog on a good note. We had a real fun trip and are glad to see Alice after 4 days.

Predictably unpredictable

Heights of faithfulness-A Dog will even protect his master's dead body and grave

                                                                          -A random though from a dog lover's mind

I am back with my dog news. Let me tell you a secret today. This lady at my home who walks on 4 legs, has beautiful blue eyes, is completely black with a little bit of tan, very affectionate and last but not the least looks like a female dog is not really a dog. She has different faces. She is a kid when she is with me or my husband. She is an adult for the Grandma. She is an elder sister with Eesha (remember how she came running downstairs when Eesha was crying) She is a friend for the pet sitter. She is a ferocious female Dog for the stranger. The next one is hilarious. She is a normal human being when she is alone. Did I say "Normal"

Enough of background, I will come to the point now. So we went to a friend's home the past weekend. I and my husband took off from work on Friday and we left Thursday evening. Well, it was not evening exactly, you know how these trips are with a baby with us and a Dog at home. So, there were couple of things we needed to make sure that they were taken care of like the pet sitter, home security etc so we actually left home at 8:30PM which is not exactly evening. Also when we leave home for overnight trips we turn on a device with which we can track who came in and went out, what's Alice doing etc. We can actually see her through that. So we turned this camera on and left. Generally when we are at home we keep Alice in front room and block the entrance of kitchen and family room so she doesn't go anywhere but stay in her area as we have a small kid at home. But when we go out we unblock all entrances so that she has access to those places when required. But we really never had the necessity for her to go to other rooms in our absence unless there is a threat. We, as in my husband and I, used to talk between ourselves that we need to train her to go to these places when required and not let her go to these places when we are in the home. But we never got to that but still used to unblock the entrances when we were not at home.

This time we were tracking her with the camera from our friends home and surprisingly she was walking inside the kitchen, family room, upstairs and everywhere inside the home just like we do, basically with out any hesitation. We thought **** she has to be trained again to not do so. She has started roaming all over the house and we don't prefer that. We had a great trip with friends and came prepared to scold her. But obviously as soon as we saw her we forgot everything and started patting her, playing with her etc.Then we went inside the family room through the front room and surprisingly she stopped right near the entrance even when there were no blocks. She stood right there and gave the looks "How can I come in, I am not supposed to get in this area" and we rolled on the floor and laughed looking at her smartness. She obviously didn't know that we were watching her but she actually did what we wanted to train her for which is to not come in that area when we were in and to come if she sees any threats. We understood that she kept checking the whole home time to time in our absence without being told to do so. 

That's the reason I believe they are called the most faithful and grateful animals in the world. Oh! I cant count on my fingers how many times I went back to her to appreciate what she did, before I went to sleep and every time I made sure I said "I love you" I really cant stop thinking and laughing about it how smart she became without us teaching her to be so. 

Alice's 1st winter

Oh My Dog

Losing would be painful, but not as painful as knowing there was something else you could have done.

                                                                                                                                      -Joe Trippi 

After a long time, the weekend weather was just too good to be true. We had fun with bunch of friends whole weekend at our home and the weekend just showed its face on Friday and flew and I don't have any regrets because it was fun! The only not so fun part was what happened with Alice.

So, like every sunny day she went out with Crissie to play whole day and came back in the evening. Since these days its not sunny and pleasant she gets to go to Crissie only once in a while so we increased her outing time when she goes to do business in the backyard in the evening on days she didn't go to Crissie's backyard. Mornings, she still has to come back on time after business since we are in a hurry to start office work but in the evenings, she would just roam in the backyard (it's not fenced and she never goes out of sight unless there is some dog around) till my husband would say "Alice, Come in". Oh yes! Before that he would ask her after 10 minutes of her roaming, "Alice, are you done?" and she would just look at us and would give a gesture of "Oh no, not yet" and continue to roam, but she takes it as a warning and buys a little more time though she might be done. Then in another 10-15 minutes he would say "Alice, Come in" and she will come running inside the house.

So coming back to what happened yesterday, since she came back in the evening, we would generally assume that she would have done her business at their place but we still let her out once again on such days before we would call it a day to avoid accidents. Raj left her around 12:30AM (night) while we were still playing with our friends. Let me remind you if you have not seen her or her pictures in the blog, she is completely black and the amount of tan she has on her skin is negligible. That tan is pretty visible in the day light but in the night, forget it. So we consider she is black. So my husband got this blinking red light kind of gadget from Wal-mart that blinks when she moves, so that we can track her. But well that broke a week back and she has been a good dog and comes back as soon as we call.

Sorry, I keep going back; but I have to build the background. So again, he left her at 12:30AM (night) and was feeling too sleepy, so I called him for a game that we were playing with friends as he was planning to go up and sleep after she comes back. But we got so involved in the game that we totally forgot about Alice and kept playing for half an hour. Suddenly he got up and said **** "Alice is outside" and I was alarmed. I was changing my daughter's diaper but I cant believe, I left her as it is and went running outside. He got a torch and we started looking for her calling her name. She was nowhere in sight. Our friends all came outside and helped us to call her. I started crying loud and my mom who was sleeping upstairs came down, picked my daughter (who probably was startled with our behavior), as she sensed something went wrong. Then suddenly we saw something moving in the woods and BOOM, there she comes running after may be 2 minutes of calling. To tell you the truth I already have tears in my eyes now. Guess she thought she also got a night out like us. I think she was stuck in the woods but made her way back. Everyone was telling that dogs come back and my experience also says so but I know what I went through. To tell you frankly she is such a sweet and friendly dog that even if someone sees her roaming somewhere with her tag that has our name and phone number, I don't trust they will call up and tell us about her instead will just keep her :) I am just too scared of losing her. Too much! Thanked goodness for sending her back.

I almost thought we lost her and I sensed the fear of loosing her once again. We have decided to not go out of sight till she is in after business. In the morning when I got up and came down, I once again thanked God for blessing us with her.

This is her first day at our home/her new home in 2007

Memoirs

When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism!  

                                                                                                                     David Starr Jordan

So yesterday someone was talking about how their dog behaves differently to different people for the same situation and I obviously went back to the great old days with Laika.

I was may be in 5th standard while this was happening. We had subscribed for two newspapers at home, one was Hindi Newspaper and the other was Tamil Newspaper (one of the many regional languages of India). Hindi was for dad and Tamil was for mom. These newspaper distributor guys used to come in bi-cycle at different timings and throw newspaper in our road facing balcony and leave. Laika would obviously bark at them as she would take this act of throwing stuff at home as a sign of danger. The fun part was whenever the Hindi newspaper guys used to throw Hindi paper she used to hold the paper in her mouth and bring to Appa but whenever the Tamil newspaper guy do the same thing she will tear the paper into pieces and her face will glow with a sign of relief, satisfaction and proud. We never understood that logic until one day we discovered the truth.

That day we hid and saw when the Hindi newspaper guy came to throw the paper. He threw it and went like anybody would do. Then we stayed to watch the Tamil newspaper guy and we saw that he used to do something unusual and dogs don't welcome unusual things. He used to tease Laika from the road and do some signs that would irritate her and then throw the paper which forced her to behave aggressively with his paper and she would tear it thinking something is not right with this paper or may be she just didn't like that guy and didn't want his paper at our home. After seeing this my dad shouted at him and asked him not to do so and surprisingly Laika stopped tearing the Tamil newspapers and would bring them in her mouth and hand it over to my mom.

All these funny behaviors of Laika urged my husband to get a dog for us also. These silly things might be nothing to people who don't love dogs or are indifferent to dogs. I write this blog exclusively for people who like dogs but don't have one because their spouse is scared of dogs or they themselves are scared of dogs but still like them, or who like dogs and have one. My personal suggestion is read my blog if you want to convince your spouse to get a dog. My blog would be a never ending topic for such people, well mixed with sweet and sour stuff.

Oh, coming back to present, Eesha and Alice have started interacting with each other. I am just waiting for the summers so that we all can have some fun. One of the the great pleasures of having a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not be angry at you or laugh at you but he will make a fool of himself too. That's the reason I guess they say that Dog is the only living being in this world who has seen his God.

The Other side of the coin

Dogs are animals that poop in public and you're supposed to pick it up. After a week of doing this, you've got to ask yourself, "Who's the real master in this relationship?"

                                                                                                                              Anthony Griffin

Every day might be a New day but I am sure everyone agrees that not every day is a good day. It was the Thursday before Christmas and we woke up in pretty fun mood not realizing how worse it can become in another 2 hours. After doing our daily chores in the morning I came down to have breakfast. Alice would generally come and say Good Morning in her own way and play softly with Eesha and leave. But that day she didn't. I noticed and assumed she must be tired after the previous day workout with Crissie because she went out after a long time. Crissie doesn't come out too often in winters as she is a short haired Dog and catches cold soon.

So I decided to go see Alice after breakfast. Meanwhile my husband came down and right when I was about to leave, my husband said the bad "S" word and I saw that Alice had pooped on the carpet. Let me remind you she is 3 years old, completely housebroken, potty trained long back and completely understands where to potty and where not to. I was surprised, my husband was in a shock (see the difference between mother and father) I am not in here to describe her poop but frankly speaking it wasn't looking normal. Suddenly I remembered that she didn't come to me in the morning to say Good Morning. I tried to recall when she played with me last time while my husband was busy thinking of ways to clean the mess. He was getting late for office, so was I but at least I was all ready to leave so I took the initiative to clean it. Sounds crazy right "I was all ready for office that's why i could clean and he was not ready yet so he could not" as if you need to get ready and properly dressed up to clean such a mess. Obviously it is not completely gone but a friend suggested to use White vinegar to clean it and it worked very well. I would suggest that to anyone now.

I relaxed and remembered that she didn't come to say me hi the previous evening either when I came back from office. I did not take that seriously but guess she was not well. We stayed with her spoke to her gently; she was highly guilty though. It's funny to describe how she behaves when she is guilty. She will completely lie down on her belly, that's the way she says sorry. We just have to raise our voice a little and she knows her fault. Sometime even that is not required like this time she was just too guilty to come and say Good Morning and didn't look at us in the eye. She was fine a little later.

This was the other side of the coin but I choose to ignore this as this becomes void as you look at the previous side of the coin.