Tommy's Perspective About His Life

Hello everyone! I am Tommy, Mr.& Mrs Rao’s newly acquired pet dog. I have been curious to know the reason why I was brought into the family. I have been listening attentively to the servants who are coming across and by the way, they take care of me, very good care indeed! They scrub and bathe me and after drying my fur they brush it well so that it is shining and in the evening when the Raos’ come home they appreciate my looks by running a hand through my back and petting me.

At last, I have come to know why I came to this house! I overheard two maidservants talking on the topic in a hushed voice apparently they brought me to teach companionship, sharing and responding to their 5-year-old daughter Sneha before they planned for a second child. I have no comments as most of it was beyond my understanding. Nevertheless, I am well cared for and got a secured home and therefore very happy. But in what way Sneha will learn to be responsible for me when even her parents do not take care of me and assigned my responsibility to the servants! It beats my logic. Sneha and I play every evening on the lawns in front of the bungalow and that is the most enjoyable activity of the entire day.

 As planned, Sneha became the sister to a baby boy who was named Varun. As Varun started growing up, Sneha and I had his company to play in the evenings. This happened one evening while three of us were playing. Varun was chasing me while trying to tickle my ears and this was very inconvenient for me and I increased my speed slightly. This problem in the ears seems to be increasing and don’t know whom to tell and how to tell? Does anyone notice that I have a problem?! Lost in my thoughts I increased my running speed and suddenly I could not hear anything but realized that Varun fell down.

The skin over the knees was abrased and the boy started crying. All the servants were reprimanded. I was thoroughly chastised for being irresponsible in spite of being older than the boy! I cried stealthily that night with tears flowing silently from my eyes! I did feel guilty for what happened that evening and I love Varun so much but I was also just a child if only my mother was there to console me! Every night I am awake with remorse and guilt and unable to eat anything, thought Tommy. Moreover, Mr and Mrs Rao were looking for somebody who would adopt me. I deserve to be punished for the mistake I did.

Meanwhile, another interesting incident took place, giving a different twist to the story. Let us hear in the words of Tommy himself.

As usual, while I was playing with the children on the lawns that evening, a delivery boy came to deliver an order and he left the door open and ajar. Varun rarely gets to see the gate open and so he drifted out of the gate onto the road and went behind some children who were passing by. I saw this and ran behind Varun, barking. In this whole commotion, I do not know what happened but a two-wheeler came and hit me. I was running behind Varun to attract his attention and swear upon God that I didn’t even hear any vehicle coming! Hell broke loose, the two-wheeler driver was beaten up, Varun started crying and was taken inside and I had injuries but luckily nothing happened to Varun. That night I could hardly sleep out of excitement. Everyone was saying that I was the hero of the day!

 I was taken to the Veterinarian, who was very good and kind. He not only nursed my wounds but also ran several general tests where he discovered that I had a hearing defect that was progressing over time. That could be the reason I did not hear the two-wheeler approaching and continued to follow the boy! Luckily in the whole incidence, nothing serious happened to Varun or anyone and contrarily everything worked in favour of me. A happy ending indeed! 

But on a serious note, why do we keep pets? The pets give unconditional love. They give companionship, they teach responsibility to kids etc. etc But Raising pets is a responsible job in itself. It requires a lot of love care and attention. Tommy received all these but from servants that did it as a duty. And in all, they missed an important defect in the functionality of the dog.

Loneliness, need for companionship, and many more reasons lead to raising pets but above all this, it should be love for the animal. Without that, one should not bring a pet and unintentionally end up being unkind and unjust to the animal.

 Do the pet lovers know basic facts about the pets they are keeping and like the animal genuinely? Can they identify or care to notice ailments in animals like Tommy had? May not be always. In that case, it is perhaps not justifiable to keep a pet. Half the time the pet owners are lazy or busy to take the dog even for a walk and engage helpers. They are reluctant to follow the rules of the community regarding pets’ defecation

 I have been noticing that the number of pet dogs in our colony has been increasing significantly over time. We have been living in the same colony for more than 18 years now and on a rough estimate, there has been about a 5fold increase in the houses that have pet dogs. Some houses have two pet dogs as well. With heightened curiosity, I did some basic Google search, which showed that up to 2019 there were 31.43 million pet dogs in India and by 2021 the population of India was 1.38 billion. Though my calculation is not based on validated resources, it may not be far from reality. There is one pet dog for every 50 people. On average, an Indian family has 5 to 6 persons therefore one out of 6 families kept a dog as a pet. Certainly, at this rate, the density of pet dogs per given unit area would be sufficiently high leading to an assault on the olfactory function of dogs, smells from neighbourhood dogs and smells of humans. Under these settings how does the important faculty of canine function? This is the biggest doubt that I always had. Perhaps we are being selfish in not paying attention to pets’ biological needs. This aspect needs to be given a serious thought.