Just wished to deviate from the usual stuff that I write about, namely Investments in Real Estate. Sounds so unexciting, as compared to writing about my dog.

Before starting this piece, I was curious to read about what other “dog lovers” had to say/ write. Would recommend that you do the same . I was bowled over, after reading some pretty inspiring stuff. It was clear that the “dog” in their lives elevated them to a different level and propelled them to write brilliantly. My dog has a similar effect on me and I am really writing this from my heart.

When somebody points out that “dog” is an anagram for “god”. We feel compelled to say “oh no what a cliché “. However, when I see the qualities that my dog has, I cannot but agree that she is the closest to God that we will ever experience in our lives. Like most other Indian families, we were dead against getting a Dog into our “oh so busy” lives. We bore the hostility and nags of our teenage daughter before grudgingly giving in. The familiar litany of excuses was discarded and we got our beautiful pet home. A word of caution is in order here, though. Never believe your teenager when he/ she swears that they will assume responsibility for the dog . Promises are made to be broken and our family was no different.

In the three years that we have had our dog “Ruan” in our family, our daughter has never taken care of the Dog . This duty has devolved onto us completely. It is therefore really irritating to see that Ruan loves our daughter the most and gives her Star status. Maybe, it is an acknowledgement of her role in getting us to agree to adopt the dog. There is another heart warming story connected with Ruan that I love to recount. We were busy scouting for a dog and were luck to meet Rajesh who runs a pet store in Navi Mumbai. We were perturbed by the high rates that were quoted by other pet stores. Rajesh restored our faith by quoting rates which were lower and reasonable. In the same breath, he mentioned that there was a cocker spaniel pup by the name of Ruan, who was being given back to him by a previous customer, because they lacked the time to look after her. We agreed to take a look and I went with my daughter and her friend to check her out. We were instantly smitten and Ruan also took a shine to us. We came back to Rajesh, our hearts aflutter, and asked him to name his price. To our surprise and gratification, Rajesh offered Ruan without taking any money for himself. He was in love with Ruan himself and wanted to give her away on two conditions, one that we would return Ruan ( and not give her away, ever) only to him, if we felt unwilling to look after her. He also requested us to make a donation to the Leprosy Foundation. We chose to make a donation to a Child Foundation instead, but that is another story.

This was an auspicious beginning and we feel blessed and delighted to have Ruan in our lives. Where, with all the wealth and means that we have at our disposal, can we get a five star welcome home, day on day. Ruan is love personified and reaches out to everybody without discrimination. My ex neighbour Mrs Mavinkurve, a dog lover herself, said to me ” Remember, there is a mysterious reason why some of us are privileged to get a dog in our lives”. I have yet to discover the “mysterious reason”. For now we are just living it up with the cutest, most wonderful “person” in our lives.

May all of you have a dog’s day.