It's a dog eat dog world

Most dog owners I know like to project human feelings on to a dog. "Oh, look at him, he's feeling guilty." I think dogs are simple creatures. You treat them well, and they're happy. I can't speak for all dogs, but I can broadly classify my dogs' emotions into the following: Excitement, Hunger, Fear, Anger, Longing. There's some amount of loyalty also thrown in there, but it isn't very evident.

To give you some context for the story I'm about to narrate: Dylan is my dog, but I don't think he knows it. He thinks he's my sister's dog. My sister is his world. He follows her everywhere she goes around the house. She sits, he sits. If she's not around, he's visibly upset. He doesn't like going for a walk with anyone else. Hers is the only human name he recognises. In fact, I've had to trick him a number of times into going for a walk with me by saying her name and making him believe she's just around the corner. (Which other dog have you heard of that needs to be TRICKED into going for a walk?) Anyway, his love for her is that extreme.

Every morning, my sister takes both the dogs for a walk to a park where we can take them off the leash. They love going there and spend a good forty minutes sniffing around, playing with the street dogs, and following my sister. Dylan is really good with name recall. You call him and he's by your side almost instantly. This morning, my mom (who's decided to live with us for a while) decided that she would like to go for the walk as well. She's old and diabetic and needs some exercise in her life. I thought it was a good idea and decided to accompany them as well. This is the first time she's ever been there with them. Now, at the beginning of the walk when my mum had energy, I didn't notice anything unusual. Dylan walked in a perimeter around us, he stayed with my sister most of the time, but looked behind to see if we were following. It was when my mom got tired and decided to sit down for a bit, I saw what he was doing. He immediately ran to my mother and jumped on the bench beside her. I jokingly remarked that Dylan was keeping an eye on her. And, my mother responded saying "Well, he knows I'm the weakest in the pack, and he's keeping an eye on me." At first, I dismissed it as another one of her fanciful theories. But, as the walk progressed, and my mother fell further behind, I thought she might have been right. Ever since my mother sat down for the first time, Dylan didn't stray further than 10 meters away from her. And, my sister was much further ahead and kept calling him to join her because she wanted to take him for a longer walk. But for the first time since we got him, he refused to listen to the call of his name. When my mother occasionally stopped for breath, he would stop beside her. When she was walking over tricky terrain and slowed down, he was so close to her legs and moved only when she did. Now all of this may not strike you as extraordinary, but when we're at home, he practically ignores her!

It was the most touching thing I'd seen in a while and ranks as one of my top five moments, ever.

In other news, I'm changing the privacy settings of my blog to make it available for a select few. The whole purpose of this blog was for me to express myself more and be more honest about my feelings. And, I find myself worrying about how a blog post reads to some people and actually not writing a lot of things I want to say. Now especially, when a lot of my friends are busy, this blog is the one thing I can rely on to talk about my feelings. I have to tell you that I'm super thrilled I have regular readers apart from my friends. Especially in Melbourne. If anyone wants to continue reading my blog, please just let me know in the comments, and I'd be happy to add you as a viewer. Offer valid for one week :-)