We always wanted to have a dog but couldn't have one till then because we were a part of a joint family, lived in big antique house in Srikakulam with big gardens along with 15 members of family. There were cows and buffaloes, tortoises. There were also cats, mangooses, roosters, mynahs, parrots, pigeons, squirrels, cranes and many other fauna but not dogs! As other family members didn't like to have them in the house.
Our joint family got split into nuclear families in 2007 and the house was dismantled, a very tragic and emotional thing ever happened to us, but the good thing was we were free to adopt a dog!
Dad and mom ( aged 52 and 40 back then) were hale and healthy, I was aged 16, was in my junior intermediate, my sister aged 12, was in her 7th class. She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and a gifted artist and painter.
In last 10 years everything changed. We have shifted our home 8 times, finally our base shifted from Srikakulam to vizianagaram in 2016.
In 2013 itself, myself and sister left home for Mumbai, for my job and my sister's architecture studies, respectively. In our absence dad and mom were looking after our snoop dog well.
Since 2008, it has become a routine for my dad to walk our brother twice in a day. Very occasionally, myself or mother take this responsibility.
In August 2017, my sister ( aged 21 then), suffered headache suddenly lost her vision in her both eyes, it is idiopathic intracranial hypertension ( IIH), a very rare disorder, she was in her final year ( 5th year) architecture. Since then she underwent 3 critical spine surgeries and 2 brain surgeries. Right now she is having only 3 percent tubular vision in her right eye and almost no vision in her left eye. Lots of hospitalisations in Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Bangalore and still persevering. She has developed osteoporosis also, so she should not bend herself much. Still she manages to bend and play with our Snoopy brother, gives him massage. Snoop gives a special response when my sister calls him in a high pitched voice, he reciprocates with high pitched talking like growl ( pleasure growling) he does this seldom, when I whistle to him but never responds in that manner to anyone else.
My mother ( aged 51 now), developed osteoarthritis in 2015 and now it's in advanced stage, needs knee replacement surgery. Recently she have developed a mild heart problem. Still she manages to give snoop a good bath regularly, feeds him his favourite food and removes ticks.
My dad ( aged 62 now), is mentally subnormal, was doing ok till recent years, developed parkinsonism and dementia. He has become cognitively impaired, hence became completely incapable of handling mundane things. The only responsibility he is still undertaking is, walking our snoop twice every day.
Myself ( aged 26 now), unable to focus on job because of the family issues, not staying at my home, often staying outside on job purpose and always keep travelling.
Under these circumstances, many of our relatives told us to abandon our dog as we are going through very tough times but we can't even imagine that.
It's a very big challenge for us to leave him alone if all the four of us are required to travel, because none of our relatives can take proper care of our dog, still we are somehow managing this.
I am not writing all this to compliment ourselves or anything but just to emphasize the fact that having a dog is not just a pleasure but it's a kind of responsibility, same as having a kid.
Our snoop dog is part of our family and he shares every emotion with us. Most of the times he is our stress buster. My sister forgets all her pain and sufferings she is going through, when she plays with our snoop. We just forget all our tensions when we look at our dog's smiling face.
By the way I always wanted to become a veterinary surgeon since my childhood, and never imagined myself in any other professions even in my dreams, somehow ended up becoming an electrical engineer, due to some unavoidable reasons.
