Sandier Pastures

My sister sent me photos of our 4th generation pups back home. The pregnancy of the mommy dog was not expected so my sister was surprised to see the puppies. There are 4 of them:

Minutes after they were born, my sister assigned them names immediately. But if I were to choose, as suggested by of course my assistant name adviser, my daughter, the names would have been:

• Mocha - for the brown one (right picture)
• Chocolat - for the other brown one (middle picture)
• Sirius and Joe - for the black ones (left picture..there are actually 2 black pups there)

MY FAMILY’S DOG STORY

Our first dog ’swam’ its way to our house during a flood. No matter how my father tried to drive her away because stray dogs don’t have a place in our home, she would always swim back during the rainy days and walk back when it dried. We eventually took her in. She was probably the sweetest dog we ever had. I was 12 that time and every morning while boarding the jeepney (mini-bus sort of thing) with my 2 brothers to school, she would chase the vehicle until she pants and almost lose her breath. Then she would walk back home. She did this for almost one year until we lost her. We searched everywhere and some witnesses told us, some drunk in the street corner ‘ate’ our dog during the city fiesta. We were all heartbroken. She had tiger-like marks on her fur and ran so fast, we named her Cheetah. Too bad we didn’t have any photograph of her.

THE DOG AT THE TOP OF THE FAMILY TREE

The pups’ great-great grandmother was our second dog. My family never wanted a dog since rabies scare my father very much (his grandma died of rabies). Dogs and small children are not a good combination. Of course we have the option to go to the vet and have the dog treated (vaccinated) but we did not have that luxury before. Our second dog, Christie came knocking at our front gate and once we opened it for her, she never left our home. Thank God she was not a biting dog. She had a very mild character and eventually died of old age.

Christie had a philandering husband called Casper, named after the friendly ghost because he would pop in and pop out instantaneously, especially if there is a new she-dog in the neighborhood. Christie bore with him and bore litters after litters, courtesy of the same father. Casper never took care of his brood and continued on his dogmanizing ways - until we learned that he died outside of our home. We concluded that he died of AIDS.

So the 4 pups above are our new dogs in the house. As of this writing, my sister has given away two of them to her friends.

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The Carnival of Family Life is up at Little Legends Blog. Check out the great family-related posts this week!