“But why?” she’d whine at me a thousand times. “Why don’t you like animals?” To which I’d have to patiently explain – yet again – that it’s not that I don’t like animals. I generally have nothing against them, and I do like the really cute ones. It’s just that I could very well live without them too, that’s all.
When I was eight, my dad decided to get a dog. My sister – who was six years old at the time – and I were in throes of delight, until he came home one day with a Rottweiler puppy. Of course back then we had no idea we had a potential killing machine in our midst and so we put aside the Beethovens and Lassies we’d envisioned and tried to love this brown, hair-less and tail-less addition to the family we named Major.
It was impossible almost right the start. From the minute my dad put him down on the ground, he began darting all over the place, upsetting plants and chewing everything in sight, and he didn’t stop until he was a very big, very fierce dog.
“Rottweilers are very good guard dogs,” my father would tell us each time we asked him for a more lovable pet. And he obviously thought our house needed a lot of guarding because he soon bought a female Rottweiler.
“For Major’s company,” he said. Great, now we had two killing machines in our immediate vicinity. By that time, my sister and I had given up all hope of playing with Major. He was just too big, and all those months of us staying away from him had caused us to become almost like strangers to him. He growled most terribly whenever we tried to go near him, and my young mind believed he could and would eat me if I gave him the chance. Even my animal-lover sister eventually gave up trying to be friends with him.
In a matter of months, Mr. and Mrs. Major had eleven puppies and my sister and I were positively horrified. What were we going to do with thirteen mean, angry dogs? Thankfully, my father gave nine of them away to friends and relatives. The tenth died when it was accidentally crushed by its mother and the eleventh we kept, so we now had a nuclear family of Rottweilers in our backyard.
They didn’t stay long. My father eventually gave away mother and son to a dog-breeder friend of his, leaving Major alone once more. But even Major didn’t stay very long after that because he tried to bite my father one day – nobody knows why – and my father gave him away too. I was happy to see him go because it meant I could play freely in my backyard once more. And I hoped I’d never have to go too near Rottweilers again.
I was wrong. When I was eleven, I took piano lessons from a woman who lived down the street. She had two dogs, an Alsatian and – you guessed it – a Rottweiler. They were dark brown, enormous and very mean.
“Be careful of the dogs,” she would say every time I went for my lessons. “They’re not in a very good mood today.” Like they would ever be in a good mood.
I managed to stay a more than respectable distance away from them and grades three, four and five passed without mishap. In fact, I even began to say hi to them, when I was on the other side of the gate of course.
One sunny day however, I unlatched the gate and walked in as usual. How odd, I thought to myself. There weren’t any cars in the driveway. Usually, there would be at least one. I turned to latch the gate back into place and heard the sound of paws running on grass. Running very fast, in fact. I realised three milliseconds too late what was coming. I don’t think I even had time to register fear.
(To be continued)
I almost want to add a ‘jeng, jeng, jeng’ at the end! ;)
ooo…. continue!!!