Jackie - Oh

Jackie appeared in our house quite by divine intervention. His mom Roohi was owned by our domestic help, and when she fell pregnant all too early, my sister decided to take charge of her health. Eventually after Roohi gave birth to Jackie and his 7 siblings, our help decided to gift us one of the pups and we picked the one living male of the litter. It still seems like yesterday that all of these tiny little bundles of fur and shrill yaps were crawling all over our house, piddling everywhere and attacking poor Roohi with ravenous cries any time she so much as stuck her nose out of doors. Jackie, though the eldest and biggest, was also the snooziest of the lot. He seemed to spend all of his time sleeping in the cloth-lined cardboard box that was his first home. There were Julie – eventually adopted by our other domestic help; Mooshi – thus named because her tail was bitten off by a rat when she was newborn, and several others whose names I can no longer recall. Liquid-eyed, soft, snowy-white, wriggly little creatures who could fit into our palm, and who spent the day perilously snoozing on top of each other.

Once Jackie moved into our house, he began demonstrating his personality despite his innate snooziness. He used to love to curl up in the scant space that my dad, staunchly south Indian, insisted on leaving between the bed and the wall. I used to worry lest someone should move the bed all the way back, squishing the poor guy – thankfully that didn’t happen. As he started teething, he also developed a bit of a temper and hated being left home alone. In revenge he bit off corners of our rubber slippers – for years we wore shoes ‘designed by Jackie Oh’ – and on one memorable occasion, ate through the leg of one of our sofa chairs and a rosewood whatnot. I discovered these depradations in horror, as the first one home, and quickly set to work with Cherry Blossom Brown so we could conceal the crime from our parents.

Over time, Jackie grew bigger and bigger – 21 kilos at his peak, and 4 feet from tip to tail – quite a feat for a pup born of two Spitz parents. Our ex-army vet figured out that he was a Samoyed – go figure! He was also extremely emotional, though less demonstrative in his younger days. I still remember the hunger strike he went on when we left him behind at the old house for 3 days while we were busy settling the new one – we had to make an emergency rescue. He was also pretty smart, quite apart from learning tricks like shaking hands and ‘shitting down’ on command ( our domestic help was Bengali so his English pronunciation was a bit off; we discovered to our amusement that Jackie never understood it when we said ‘sit down’ but ‘shit down’ worked like a charm!). He was an amazing communicator, especially with Dad who grew to understand his myriad moods very well. Our vet who was very fond of him, used to call him a real gentleman – he would be super-patient whenever we took him to the vet for his checkups and so on.  He also rarely attacked a dog smaller than him even when he was attacked, but woe betide a large dog that got across him, Jackie wouldn’t give any quarter.

When Chubbocks was born, we went to stay at my parents house, as per custom. Jackie was supposed to stay in the living room, but no sooner had Chubbocks crossed the threshold, than Jackie adopted him. He insisted on sleeping in our room. If Chubbocks started crying, Jackie would stand worriedly by his crib, trying to figure out how to soothe the little guy. Chubbocks used to sleep in an old-fashion cloth sling, hung above our bed. Every night, before going to bed, Jackie made it a point to peep in, front paws resting on our bed so he could get the required height boost, and poke his nose in to check if Chubbocks was inside, before curling up to sleep himself. In fact, any time Jackie went out of the room, he would come back and check on Chubbocks like a mother hen. Once, my grandmother decided to keep Chubbocks with her since he was a cranky baby, and let me get some sleep in the afternoon. Jackie came into my room from somewhere, peeped into the sling and became frantic at not seeing the baby. He paced back and forth worriedly, until I realized what the matter was. I told him, “Chubbocks is with Ajji in her room.” Immediately, Jackie made a beeline for Ajji’s room, sniffed her lap to ensure the baby was there, and only then could he relax.

Not knowing very much about dogs, we had no clue about establishing hierarchy and so on. I’m not sure he ever thought of any of us as his master, more as his two-legged equals. He was incredibly protective of dad and my sister though. Once when dad was out walking him, I caught up to them from behind. Just as I was planning to pounce, yell and startle dad (yes, I’m still pretty juvenile that way), Jackie turned around and lunged for me with his teeth! Suffice it to say I got startled, not to mention a rent in my new jeans! Another time, Jackie, who was a big, strong specimen, was dragging dad along and dad tripped and fell. A passerby came up to try and help dad, but Jackie wasn’t about to allow any stranger near dad, so the passerby had to retire hurt.

He loved eating, that was his big vice. Sweets were an especial weakness, and whenever he heard a mithai box being opened, he would materialize instantly from wherever he was. In fact, once when wehad gotten up and gone to the door to see of diwali guests, we returned to find an entire plate of sweets swallowed up! Biscuits too were a favourite, though he was picky there – he would only eat Parle G – and Mum took to buying cheap local biscuits for my sister and I so she could afford his Parle G habit.

It was one of the worst days of my life when we had to take the decision to put him to sleep – he had multiorgan failure, and while not in a coma, he hadn’t eaten in four-five days. He could barely register our presence and his labored breathing was dreadful to hear. Dad and I were almost forced into it by our vet, who said it didn’t make sense to put it off any longer. He was well over 16 years old, after all. And so we bade farewell to this amazing large-hearted soul who had shared so much with us, unstinting with his love and affection, undemanding yet always there for comfort, to share all our moments happy and sad…I hope he always has someone to pet him wherever he is, and give him his daily ration of biscuits and lots of hugs…