Obituary: Bouba

Bouba was one of my internet friends' long time pet dog. He lived a healthy and long life; 20 years in human timescale is perhaps 150 dog years! This, however, does not make my friend's sadness a bit less.

Talking of myself, we never had a pet dog at our home. The official version is that dogs might bite us. But at the heart of my heart, I had (and have) always known that another (and more realistic) reason was that my mother's family dog of her school days had been killed by tiger(s). Back then, their village was adjacent to forests, and tigers often used to troll around their village during some of the seasons of the year. Their dog was white in color.

(Much later, I witnessed her being very emotional and attached, when a lost white dog walked into our home. I was in my early teens then. This dog was also very well-mannered amd my mother, for first time in my life, showed real affection to a dog!).

But tigers are animals and, in the animal kingdom, it's perfectly alright to kill others for food, probably because they don't kill for fun. But often humans go down below the level of animals. One neighbor of us, a witch of an old woman who never had a child of her own,for example,threw our kitten to a wall and killed it. The crime: the kitten followed her into her house and climbed into her bed.

Even afrer 2o years or so, I've still not forgotten her violent death!

Interestingly, a few months ago (or was it a year ago?) a guy in California beheaded his pet dog, becuase he named it after his girlfriend, with whom he had recently broken up. He had two past records of violent crimes, and the California Three-Strikes Rule made sure that he went to prison for 25 years without any chance of parole!

Below is a picture of Bouba with his feline friend, Nono. This photo was taken about a week before Nono's death.

Nono, who passed away about a month ago, used to bring worms as gift to my friend every morning. She was a nice soul.

May both Bouba and Nono be together and in peace!
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Note: Part of a mail from my friend:
"I lost both in less than a month. The picture of them was tooken perhaps a week before Nono's death. Both are so good animals, so friendly and lovingly. I am sure I will find them once, somewhere, again."