My Dad and his Dogs (II)

       Those were years of a new life for my dad: raising, training, and caring for the seven dogs. They had so taken over his life.

             

           The love affair started slowly. Every morning as I’d leave for work I’d see my elderly dad sit at his favorite chair in the living room, his book for the day, and an ugly brown dog on the floor by his side. When I come home in the evening, he’d open the door for me and I’d see that same ugly brown dog with him.

But my dad was becoming enthusiastic. “The dog is beside me all day long,” he remarked. “When I go to the kitchen she follows me. When I go back to the living room she follows me too.”  He reminisced a similar dog that stayed by his side when he was a little boy. Life was getting interesting.

It took many days before my dad named the dog. Finally he decided on “Alfa.”

One day I saw a new book by his seat. It was a book about Boxers. He had gone out that day to buy the book that would soon be his new Bible. He studied it all day and would tell me the new things he was learning.  

When my dad had gone through the book, he announced to me what he wanted to do next: he wanted to breed Alfa.

I went back to Joey to tell him that Alfa was in good hands, my dad was interested in life again, and that he wanted to have the dog bred. We arranged for the stud date and on that day I brought Alfa back to Joey where she stayed a few days.

The Extended Years

Alfa gave birth to six tiny puppies. I brought them home from the vet in a laundry basin and my dad greeted me upon my arrival to see them. A few days later, I returned to the clinic with all six to have their tails docked. When I came home after the pups’ minor surgery, my dad gave a remark that indicated the new obsession he was developing: “So that is what was done.  I couldn’t sleep all week thinking how the surgery was going to be like!”

All six pups grew robust and happy. In the beginning we relegated them to the den and my dad bought a pup crib upon the vet’s advice for them to stay until their booster shots were complete. Soon, all six pups were crowded in the crib. Every morning my dad would enter to feed his wards and the growing youngsters, waiting for breakfast, would raise an uproar soon as the door opened.The den was next to my room so the racket was my alarm clock!

But I was facing new challenges now. If my mom was still around, she would've never let dogs inside the house. But when she left, life at home evolved to a new personality. There were 7 new rambunctious members sharing the space. Everyday the dogs were full of antics that delighted my dad no end. The downside? The house was often dirtier! The problems of housecleaning and housebreaking became my territory. We consulted the book on Boxers often. In the end, I experimented on leaving the front door open so the pups could run in and out as they wished. I taught them to do their Nature's Call downstairs.

The dogs scramble for their master's attention. At right is Alfa.

We quickly became famous in the neighborhood. The canine youngsters were a beautiful sight. Joey had told me not to look down at Alfa critically because though she was ugly, she can produce a superb line of Boxers. She did. For blocks around our house was a fascination. People would purposely pass by our house just to get a glimpse of those seven snub-nosed Boxers lounging at our front gate watching the world go by. A charming sight.

Having the Boxers turned out to be the ideal breed for us. By then, we had a new maid with a six-year-old daughter. As I’d leave for work every morning, I knew my father would’ve been vulnerable. I was leaving behind one female househelp, one child, and an elderly. But vulnerable they were not. The seven Boxers, to the uninformed, looked fierce!

Those were years of a new life for my dad: raising, training, and caring for the seven dogs. They had so taken over his life that relatives and friends found amusing his rushing home in the afternoons to “feed the dogs." But nobody appreciated the big picture then. The dogs were my dad's second lease on life in his old age. They were what kept him alive.

(next post below)