This is the second part of a three part story. If you have not read the first part yet, you may want to access the same via this link first,
Chapter 3: The Downward Spiral
I woke up with a start – the
morning breeze had a little nip in it. I had left the balcony door open at night, in
case Hush felt like relieving himself and figured that balcony was the spot to
go at. I immediately jumped up and scanned the entire floor of the room for
signs of pee or poop. This was a common practice when Hush was a pup…for the
first six months, until he was vaccinated, we could not take him down for walks
so he had to relieve himself in the
house. So I would invariably
wake up to the sight of pee on the floor, and to avoid stepping on to it, I
would first scan the floor and then get off the bed. Back then I would wish to not be welcomed by a sight of pee, however at this point, I was not sure if
I was wishing to see or not see any mess – but once I noticed there was none, I
almost immediately wished that there was some! The day was mockingly pleasant. As
I looked at the forlorn face of my dog, I was pained at the idea of the
discomfort he must be in – and a discomfort he does not know why he deserves to
be in. It had now been 24 hours since Hush had relieved himself. The attempts
to get him to do anything in the balcony had just not worked. We had spent the
night before, till 3 AM in hourly walks around the house, each one concluding
in the balcony of my bedroom. But all that he would do is to sit in the balcony
and nothing more. To him, it was a part of his house, his sitting area, not a
place to mess up. Exhausted by the effort and mental strain, at 3 AM I finally turned
off the lights and decided to lie down in hope that once he figures that we aren’t
going out for a walk, he would eventually relent. I am not sure when I dozed
off, but at 4 AM I was suddenly awakened to the sight of Hush sitting upright
on my bed staring down at me unblinkingly. His expression was blank and face
unmoved. Unable to read him, I decided to be hopeful. I immediately got up, put
on his harness and walked him into the balcony.
There was a quizzical expression on his face which seemed to say “Why don’t
you get me? I need to go out”
I sensed the plea in his eyes and
it hurt me to imagine his discomfort. I hugged Hush “I am sorry baba. But we
cannot go down. You have to relieve yourself here. Please, can you do so?”
The weariness of the night felt
less so in the bright sunshine of the morning, and I made a solemn resolve – I
have to make this work. There has to be a way and I need to figure it out. I
started with putting Hush on the harness and walk him around the house. After
the first round itself, Hush stopped. He had figured the routine and was not
keen to pursue it. He was feeling heavy, claustrophobic and these rounds about
the house further added to his discomfort. Suddenly he tugged at the harness
and fell flat on his tummy. If he wasn’t going out, he wasn’t going anywhere
anymore. I took off his harness, and patted his head, he wagged his tail in return.
I may not be able to give him what he needs, but I had to do everything in my
power to make him realize that he was not being punished, that we were in this bad place, together.
Hush shut his eyes and dozed
himself off in the discomfort.
I logged into my laptop, opened
the calendar and cancelled all the meetings in the day, put an out of office
and dropped a message to my boss informing her that I would like to take a day
off. I called up the vet and hung up on her very helpful advise to not
worry and hope Hush would pee soon. Scanning the net continued for hours with very
little helpful material. Eventually, I disconnected and called up Devi to
enquire if there was any development from the discussion with the BMC – there
was none. I had no choice but to stay inside. As I poured out my woes to her,
there was nothing she could do but hear me out. By this point I had started
feeling helpless and the thought of sustaining this for another 13 days made me
panic. What if Hush fell sick during this period? Already I had read on
the internet that if a dog went more than a day or two without
relieving himself, he runs the risk of urinary tract infection or constipation
- the thought of such complications were manifesting in my own physical well being, my breath tightened, chest started feeling heavy and all the symptoms
of hyperventilation set in. I have to keep myself calm and centred,
I said to myself as I took a few deep breaths. I contemplated calling some
friends for ideas, but almost any one I knew would get ruffled at the thought
of my misery and in turn aggravate my own condition. I couldn’t have someone
hyperventilating around me at this time – already I had to hold myself back
from doing so.
An hour later, the matters got
worse, the sanitation workers who had refused to enter the building to collect
the garbage two days ago, had now agreed that they would collect the garbage if
all households take their trash down and leave it in the bins outside the
building. This caused cheer for all flats but those who were in strict home
quarantine – we could not step out of our flats so there was no way of getting our
garbage out. Just when I thought I had hit rock bottom – the rock bottom pulled
open revealing another layer below it. I went straight from feeling miserable
to feeling victimized, isolated and marginalized. The helplessness of the
situation gave rise to anger directed solely at the individual who currently
was battling COVID in a hospital ward and his ill fated decision to let in his
maid for household chores. One act to ease his life, was causing discomfort to
someone who he had never met, seen or interacted with – and the realization that
the brunt of this was borne by an innocent dog who had neither the knowledge
nor the sense to process the situation made my fury wild! “FUCK!!”, I yelled, followed by a
loud volley of abuses hurled at people unknown, unseen but definitely
identifiable as the cause of my and Hush’s current misery. It felt like a
volcano had erupted from within me, which five minutes later left me feeling
light and calm. A calmness that was not long to last. Over the next few days I
found myself flipping between a state of calm during which I would forgive Mr
Srinivas and family for their unwitting trespass, and falling back into that abyss
where I would spew venom at everyone around. As this cycle of blame and
forgiveness continued within me, the nerd in me also realized that Kubler-Ross’
grieving process is not a one way street where we go through stages of grief in
any particular order. It’s like an emotional roller coaster rising and falling in
an erratic fashion, sometimes triggered by extraneous and sometimes just unknown
internal triggers. My mind snapped from victimization, to denial, to regret to
acceptance to forgiveness in no particular order, revisiting each one every now
and then and then again. However I cannot thank my stars enough, for having the resilience to never falling down the abyss of self pity!
By end of the day Hush looked
pale and sick, he had not eaten anything all day, only sipped a little water
and become completely inactive. His eyes had lost their sheen, playful nature
completely dormant and lying on the floor he looked thin, old and somehow grey.
Another day was coming to a close, the twilight felt darker and more ominous
than usual as I sat by his side shrouded in misery and pure unadulterated depression.
Eventually, I decided to let
someone in on my state. After due deliberation I decided it had to be my boss –
she and I shared a great personal equation, yet our relationship was more
professional than personal thus ensuring she wont be too emotional about the
situation. Also her empathy was likely to soothe me at this hour.
So we set up a virtual coffee
session at 7 that evening – a refreshing lightness fell in the pit of my
stomach as I narrated to her the saga, a fake smile plastered across my face.
She heard me with her signature patience and concern and as she spoke I could
feel myself calming down a little. In her usual form she seamlessly switched
from empathizing to offering solutions – practical advise coming from a
mother’s perspective.
“Don’t worry – just keep
talking to him I am sure he will figure eventually that you need him to relieve
himself in the house. Dogs are very perceptive that way. He just needs to know
that you are ok with it…..well, have you considered cranking up the AC, It may
create a greater urge to pee…..how about creating a sand pit and take him there
to pee – ask your guards to dig out some dirt from the garden and get for you.”
While Hush continued to remain unrelieved,
the conversation made me realize that I had under-estimated my need for an
emotional release – lighter from the conversation and armed with some new ideas
to experiment, I gathered my residual energy. All the three ACs in the house
were promptly turned on with temperature set at 18C, lights were dimmed and I
went on with the task of creating a sand pit. I had a pot still awaiting a
plant, so I started digging the mud out of it with my bare hands for the sand
pits. I decided to create two of them – one in the outside bay area of one of
the bathrooms, and the other one in one of the balconies. Both of these were
the least visited parts of the house, likely that Hush would consider them as safe areas to relieve himself within the house.
Busy with some activity, the
distraction soothed me from the self gnawing thoughts of Hush’s misery. It took
me 45 minutes to create the two sand pits, I even threw in some branches and
leaves on them to mimic a little raggedy garden. All this while, Hush lay
asleep on the cold living room floor.
An hour went by and I knew I had
to wake him up else he would go on sleeping forever. Sleep was his refuge from
the current discomfort. I served him some yoghurt with honey, food that he was
unable to resist. Then I got him onto his harness and took him for a round to
the sand pit in the balcony. He glanced at it, curious at the pop up garden
which wasn’t there the last time around. He walked up to it and sniffed around –
the soil, the strands of the grass and the stray leaves and bushes lying around
it. I looked at him hopefully, as he paused to take one last sniff of it.
Suddenly his tail wagged gaily and he looked back at me, as if smiling. What?!?
It was clear, he was not going to pee in the garden that I had created, no matter
how shabby a job I would have done of it - it was something that I had created.
He went back into the bed room, lay
down and closed his eyes. I was exhausted, both mentally and physically, and the crashing of my new found hope transformed this exhaustion into anger. Anger emanating from desperation, helplessness rushing uncontrollably from my gut..... What I did next, I would regret for a long time. I rushed up to Hush, and
shook him awake…. “WAKUP! And get going!” I ran into the bedroom, livid
at the situation and my desperation at what I could only perceive as his
stubbornness. I put him in his harness – by now he knew he wasn’t going
anywhere for a walk so Hush made no effort to get up. I shook the dog, pulled
him up and started “walking” him around the house. With a full bladder and
immense discomfort in his gut, the last thing that he wanted was any movement. As
Hush unsuccessfully tried to use his paws to screech him to a halt, he got
dragged across the floor of the bedroom. Angered at his apparent belligerence, I
picked him and steadied his legs. Thoroughly scared, Hush surrendered
immediately. As I paced up and down across the rooms in the house, pulling Hush
along with me, I yelled – “Why wont you relieve yourself? Dont you understand it? What
should I do?”. He had to understand what I was saying, surely he cant be so
clueless, I reasoned with myself. A visibly scared Hush kept walking by my
heel, not sure what was upsetting me and how he could appease. By the end of five
such rounds, my anger subsided and got replaced with utmost shame and horror at
the realization that I had made him even more miserable than he already felt. I
finally stopped in the balcony, feeling weak and miserable. Hush was simply not
prepared to indulge in an act that he had been trained since childhood – and I was
failing to retrain him.
In that small balcony cooped on
the 12th floor of a high rise building, with no one around to see, sat
a man on his haunches holding his head in his palms and a dog squatting next to
him, looking expectantly at him unsure of how to oblige his master, with a
slight wag in his tail in an attempt to cheer him up.
That night, the TV played on
mute, I sat distracted and he in trance in a room that had never been so
silent, devoid of any sounds from within or outside. Two souls in shared
misery, one who thought he did everything he could in the situation and willing
to do anything more if only he knew what. The other who possibly had the only
key to the situation but unwilling or unaware of the same. That evening, Hush did
not climb on my bed. We both had our own opposite ways to deal with the misery
– he put himself to sleep quickly to ignore the discomfort, and I refusing to
put myself in any comfort lay awake till 4... The story continues, the last part of the story is in the link below: https://cosmicliaison.blogspot.com/2020/04/hush-i-that-which-went-between-us-those_28.html
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