Our Dear Gooffy!

Gooffy came into our lives by chance. My daughter brought him home from her friend's home backyard. He was a cute little fellow. Both the kids wanted him. So, he stayed with us. My daughter promised to take him out for walks and the younger one said that he would feed him. They promised us that they would take care of him fully and not bother us, their parents in any way regarding the dog. It's another story that as days went by, the whole thing was forgotten and it was my husband and I who became his prime caretakers. So, Gooffy became a member of the family.

He was like a white stuffed toy with brown patches here and there.A perfect toy. The kids loved him and played with him all the time. As he grew up, he changed. He became so ferocious in a few month's time. Someone told us later that it is a wild breed from the hills, that's how he is so ferocious. Everyone was scared of him. He used to scare everyone including the commuters on the road.

We lived in a huge bungalow in Jodhpur. It was a lovely Air Force quarters with a huge garden. We had at least ten huge trees in our garden. There was a road from our front door to the gate and in between dividing another part to the garage inside our compound itself. That was the best house we lived in. My son learnt his cycling there itself. There were two servant quarters, one for the gardener and the other for the house maid.

Gooffy was friendly only with our housemaid and the gardener excluding us the house inmates. That too only the way he wanted. He made a huge hue and cry even if the sweeper came to sweep the dry leaves off in the garden. It was required job to be done everyday as there used to be a lot of dry leaves. Gooffy never liked her.

Once when my daughter was entering our gate after school, a passerby told her that there is a ferocious dog in there and to be careful. She laughed and said it's my home and my dog. She told me this and we laughed so much. Slowly he became a part and parcel of us. We got so used to his tantrums. We had an unused extra bedroom. And goofy made it his bedroom. He used to sleep on the bed there sometimes. He made it known to us that it is his bedroom. On his own , he started using the bed there whenever he wanted. He wouldn't come down even if we tried hard. He used to snarl back at us. We left it at that. Most of the time he loved to roam around the huge garden and play with the squirrels, chase the birds and butterflies.

Once my father had come home to stay with us. My father shared my daughter's bedroom. Gooffy too used that room sometimes to sleep on the mat

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in front of the washroom. His favorite place was the mat near the bathroom door. My father studied him well and got friendly with him. My mother has a way with dogs. He was friendly with her too when she had come home to Jodhpur. When he used to sleep on the bathroom doormat, he used to decide if we use that bathroom or not. We never used his bathroom as we had one in our bedroom. Now, when my father used to rest and wake up to use the bathroom, he first used to put his one leg up over the mat where Gooffy slept, as if to go inside the bathroom. If he just looked up and put his head down means, "Yes you can use the washroom." Only then dad used to go inside. If Gooffy looked up and snarled, it means "No, you can't disturb me and use the washroom." Then he used to go the other room to use the washroom. Everytime this happened, I used to think that how Gooffy was ruling over us.

Whole day he used to play with the children after school. He used to run behind the cycle when they cycled inside the compound. Whenever anyone came to the gate, he used to bark so loudly. No one entered the gate till he was tied up or shut inside a bedroom. In one sentence if I had to say - He was the boss of our house. He had his way in everything.

The only blessing was the huge garden. He loved to roam around there the whole time. Only sometimes, to rest and eat , he would come indoors. He used to pull the clothes put up to dry in the garden. It was a huge play for him, when we used to run after him to get the clothes back. Later, we tied up the rope so high that he couldn't reach it, to pull it down. He ran after the squirrels and birds and butterflies all the time. He enjoyed in his own way not bothering us much as he grew up. He was around one year and a few months old.

One day, the sweeper came near the gate to sweep the garden. I had just put his food in the bowl for him. He was about to eat. When this lady was banging on the gate signaling me to tie up Gooffy, I just tried to put him inside the bedroom to lock him. Gooffy didn't like this. He bit me on my calf muscle. He is known to be impatient. We know it. But, somehow, my husband got very angry with him . In the spur of the moment, he decided to give him away. As we were not able to train him and all of us were too busy the whole day. And Gooffy too only wanted his way. He never listened to anyone. After we gave him off, we missed him terribly. The boss of our house. We spoke about him and his ways all the time. Soon, in a few days, we were posted out to Bangalore and we started afresh. This happened more than eighteen years ago..............