PET STORIES: My Beloved Dogs

When I was 27 years old, living at my grandma house with my brother, I ever had a first little, cute and lovely dog. I named him, Vinggo. I got him from a photographer in my city, Surabaya-Indonesia. He was a baby and I adopted him when he was around 3 months old. I and my brother were so happy he let us having him. We thought he was the best one than the others (his brothers and sisters, they were 6 or 7 baby dogs). He adviced us to take care of that baby dog carefully and well. Of course, we both did it very well enough.

I always brought him to have a bath twice a week so he always had good smell. He liked eating my leftover food, even it was the vegetable. He was so strange! Mostly dog used to like eating meat or young bones, but not him. He liked eating vegetables beside them.

I loved to play with him, He was my best friend in home when I was by myself, meanwhile my brother worked overnight at the hotel. He liked cuddling on my feed. As long as he could feel a part of my body, it made him so peaceful. It was a pity, everytime he jumped to my bed and cuddled on my feed when I was watching TV, because of his hair fell down everywhere, I didn't want him to stay on the bed with me. I created a nice, warm and cozy place for him for resting. I thought he liked it, but anytime he saw me sitting on my bed and watching TV, he prefered to cuddle with me.

When I and my brother weren't in home, I prepared enough food and drink for him. He looked so happy when we went home.

One day in an evening he messed up my plants. Automatically I screamed on him and made him so afraid. I realized that he didn't know it, that was why he wondered of the new stuff I had. He run on the corner and looked confused. I felt so bad, I came to him and tried to hug him, but he refused me. I let him alone several minutes. Finally he felt normal again after I showed him that I wasn't angry anymore.

The children also liked playing with him. Almost every noon when I was in home, my grandma's house had the visit several children who loved to play with him. Vinggo looked enjoying his noon with them. I was so happy I got other accompany.

One thing happened. One day I went home earlier from work, I opened the door and I didn't see him coming to me. It was strange! I looked around home and called his name, but I didn't hear his sound at all. I run to my neighbour and asked if another family visited my grandma's house and they said, "Yes." I said them that Vinggo was gone. I was sure my other family that didn't like a dog living in my grandma's house, let him run out of house by opening door widely. Of course he would go out and maybe he didn't know how to come home or maybe someone had kidnapped him.

I really cried. I felt like I lost a loved one in my life. I tried to look for him around the area where I lived. That bad news was heard by the children who loved to play with him almost every noon. They came to me and asked other children to help me looking for Vinggo. Some of them accompanied me by taking a walk, some of them drove their bikes but we had nothing clues to find him.

Everybody was sad. I called my family who had just visited and let them know that I lost Vinggo but they mentioned that they didn't know. I asked them why they didn't checked him before they left the house but I just got the statement, "It is just a dog. Why do you take it seriously?" Oh my God! I hung up the telephone. It hurted my felling. Really! I tried to make myself calm down by calling my best friend, my brother at the hotel, and my parent with the tears I could not stop it. My step mom came and tried to comfort me but it couldn't work. My brother helped me to find him in the next morning at the place where someone made a temporarily shelter for the kidnapped dogs and sold to the buyer but we also didn't find him. We went to the famous place where most of the sellers sold the dogs and we didn't find him either.

Many weeks I could not put away my sadness. I hoped a good person had found him and took care of him nicely like us did to him. I really missed him many years. He was gone at 7 months old. He was still a baby. After that happened, my grandma's house was so quite without him. I didn't like it. It made me remembering him again.

Many years I had been in trauma. I felt the animals were like the human being. He was like another family member of mine. So, when he was gone without I knew, it was like I had lost a family member who I didn't know where he was. You may believe or not, I have tears on my eyes when writing this story. (*)


Published at Helium, March 2, 2009, http://www.beyondprose.com/index.php/pet-stories-my-beloved-dogs-151138/