I am sorry to say Nike has a special needs dog. I am sorrier still that it was I who discovered that it was a special needs dog. I’ve been living in this house for over two months and yet the silly dog barks every time I come down the stairs or go up. You’d think a dog would get used to a person in two months’ time, but not this dog. I confided to Nike that I felt the dog was rather underdeveloped mentally, and he agreed with me, but we decided to keep this to ourselves so as not to hurt the sentiments of the others in the family.
But the events of the last weekend led to this sad truth coming out in the open. I was alone at home, and the dog R kept howling continuously. Thinking he was afraid of being alone, I went and sat near him but the howling continued. I finally started talking to him in a soft, consoling manner, and that seemed to calm him down somewhat. I then decided to pat his head. If you knew what an absolute phobia I have of animals, you would realise this was a very brave move on my part (you’d also realise the extent of frustration brought upon by the dog’s non-stop howling); but as soon as I reached out to pat its head, it jumped angrily at me.
This was of course sufficient incentive for me to turn tail and run upstairs, and shut the door to drown out the howling. When everybody else came home in the afternoon, I described the dog’s inexplicable behaviour, and Nike pronounced “R is retarded”. We then googled for ‘how to tell if my dog is retarded” and proceeded to try out the first simple test. It involved calling out the dog’s name and observing if it responded consistently. Of course, R decided not to respond at all for the first 10 calls of its name; it then responded at the 11th call, but then it also responded when we called out ‘mango’ and then lost interest and went to sleep.
We were very discouraged by this and didn’t have the enthusiasm to try out the next test – also what was the point. The next day, the dog barked the daily maid – this poor maid is devoted to the dog, walks him all around the place, keeps talking to it while she’s doing her chores, carries him in her arms like he’s a little baby, and even buys him sweetmeats from the corner store. And R bit her!
It’s the Dog, not the Doorbell!
In the ensuing debate about whether R was a special needs dog, or simple a badly behaved dog, the MIL told us a story. When the moved into their new home, the dog went berserk every time the doorbell rang. My MIL assumed that the dog didn’t like the sound of the doorbell and changed it. But the insane barking continued. My MIL, who is given to thinking the best of others, continued to replace doorbells, hoping that when she found the right doorbell, the dog wouldn’t go mad every time it rang. It took over a dozen doorbells before she finally gave up and accepted that ‘it was the dog, not the doorbell’. (And yes, R still goes into a mad frenzy EVERY SINGLE TIME the doorbell rings, irrespective of who is on the other side of the door).
Despite all these events, we still want to give it the benefit of doubt – that it’s just a badly behaved dog. Next week a trainer is going to come to meet R and assess if he is a badly behaved dog who can be trained, or if he is incapable of being trained. I will keep you updated on the verdict. Till next week then!
* I wanted to title it ‘The Retarded Dog and Other Stories’ but I was afraid that wasn’t politically correct, and I didn’t want to offend anyone. But throughout the text, you can replace special needs with retarded, if you wish.
Where are the other stories, you ask? Well I did have two other stories to tell, but I was so carried away by this story that now I don’t have the time for the other two. Maybe some other time (Your sigh of relief came a tad too early, dear reader).
