The dearer pets

Yesterday, for the first time, I visited a kennel. It was kind of a farmhouse (just a thought, how was the term ‘animal husbandry’ framed?); spacious, well shaded, immersed in multitude of barks. One could easily guess from the spectrum of the voices that the place must be housing quite a range of dogs. The lady, who seemed to be owning the kennel, showed us around and was trying her best to socialize with my friend’s pups, a golden retriever and a shih-tzu, who were really scared.

Saint Bernard, Pug, Shih-tzu, Siberian Husky, Miniature pinscher are some of the breeds I could register. The dogs cost between Rs.1.5L to Rs.15k and no doubt they were all caged. It was only the night before I watched The Matrix for the umpteenth time and I could not stop my mind from comparing this place with the human fields shown in the movie.

Apparently, the golden retriever pup was visiting his father’s place! The kennel had charged around 45K, with the condition that they would return the money if they were offered the best male pup from the litter. The lady complained that the pup’s hind legs were bent and was expecting them to look like ’11′. So, rejected it straight away.

Another shock I had in the morning was when I heard the cost of the dog food. The ‘Royal Canin’ sack I saw in my friend’s place is Rs.5K! After rejecting the pup the lady a gave piece of advice to my friend. She said, “It was foolish that you chose a Golden Retriever. Instead you should have taken a Shih-tzu initially. They are small and eat so little that one bag comes for three months”. To this my dear friend countered saying, “their litter is small, around 3-4 pups unlike the retrievers”. The lady replied, “Yeah.. but the pups need very little space and a small cage is sufficient for the entire litter. They also poop very little and its easy to clean”. Very practical indeed but my heart was sunk and I knew that I was in a wrong place.

We were about to leave and I saw some mongrels roaming around in the compound. In all likelihood, they are meant for guarding the facility. Karupu was looking beautiful and I asked him what he had for lunch. Probably, he didn’t understand and just kept wagging his tail.