Animal Tales - 2

Three months passed by with Snoopy and Misty’s merry antics and non-stop entertainment.  They played together, catch, hide-n-seek (with Snoopy always hiding) and wrestled with Snoopy making tiny growling sounds.    It was great fun and even though I never imagined that we could manage 2 pets in our home, we were actually doing so.

 

 And then one fine day in March, our friend who had promised us the Mudhol Hound pup ‘Very Soon’ turned up with a very skinny, not so healthy looking pup – “You had asked for a Mudhol pup, here is one” he said.  Oh Goodness!  I really couldn’t handle yet another pet now – all the travails of  toilet-training and with a 4 month old kitten already on our hands – no way I just couldn’t.  But one look at the sad looking pup, and my heart just melted.  How could we turn it away? 

 

And so Phoenix joined the menagerie.  It took quite some time for the introductions – Misty was quite okay with the young pup, but Snoopy snarled and hissed at him and Phoenix was scared.



Please May I be your friend?

 

Puhleeeeeez?

 

 But we kept pacifying them  and soon they were friends enough to cuddle together.

 

 

 

 

 It was a rare sight indeed, a gawky hound and a delicate looking kitten – the best of friends, and Misty tolerating their pranks.

 

 

 

 

 

Phoenix grew in height at an alarming rate – that is how the hounds grow!  And soon he was towering over Snoopy

 

 

– but she was the boss!

 

Having heard about how uncontrollable and ferocious hounds can be, we tried our best to make him gentle – and luckily for us he turned out to be the one with a most generous and soft heart.  He would wait for all three to be served before starting on his own meal.  Snoopy loved ‘Pedigree’ the dog food which comes in the form of little pellets.  But it played havoc with her health and  the vet warned us against giving a cat any ‘Pedigree’ which is strictly meant only for dogs.  But Phoenix would never eat it alone. In fact when we held it in our palm for him, he would ‘nose’ a few and drop them down so that Snoopy too could eat some.  She would boldly push him away from his meal and eat the choicest bits and he would never growl at her!

 

Sadly, a few months after we moved to the farm, Snoopy disappeared one night, never to be seen again.  She often used to go out at night, while the dogs slept indoors and probably got picked by one of the numerous wild animals that abound in the forest adjoining our home.  Both Misty and Phoenix seemed devastated by her disappearance. 

 

 Phoenix looked mournful for a long time until we got a new pup and yet another kitten.... and yet another  and yet another...But more about that   in the next post.