The Moo Mesa Story- By Sharon D'cruz

Moo, that's his name. The little pup who came into our lives on New Year's Day in 1997. He was a little bundle of fur. Everyone agreed he was a strange looking puppy. His face was pitch black but the rest of his body, except for the patch on his back and a smaller one around his tail area, was as white as snow. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't ugly, on the contrary, he was an adorable bundle whom you just wanted to cuddle and squeeze (especially when you're feeling so geram).

His name was the first thing I had to decide on. During his first few days, I called him Moo Ba La La La (You have to say the 'la la la' part as if you're singing it). My sister immediately wrote his name on his box (which Moo mutilated within a week.) Of course, everyone declared it to be the stupidest name they've ever heard. Some just laughed right out when they heard it (that's you, Subetra). My Mom put in her two cents worth, "Your dog will have an identity crisis with that kind of name". Matthew said, "What La La La nonsense?" And the worst part was that he kept calling the pup, Moo Bala.

That did it, I had to change his name. No way was I going to have a dog named "Moo Bala". So I thought about calling him Kobe Bryant, after the L.A. Lakers basketball player, but the puppy just looked at me kind of funny whenever I called him. After much pondering, I finally settled on Moo Mesa. Why Mesa? Cos it went along with 'Moo'. Now the puppy was officially 'Moo Mesa'.

The first time I took Moo for a walk, I almost got him killed. I didn't put him on a leash, so he just roamed around next to my feet, smelling the grass and flowers by the roadside. Of course, he ventured to smell other nonsense on the roadside but what he smelt is not something one would mention on a website without making one's readers want to regurgitate their lunch. Moving on, Moo spotted a motorbike approaching carrying a man and his three children ( a good candidate for the advert on TV where the bike smashes into a car and the man smashes his watermelon, ie his head, open.) Anyway, Moo started barking and charging at the bike. I have no idea what the pup was thinking about charging at something 20 times his size. The man (watermelon still intact) saw him charging and tried to avoid him, resulting in the bike shaking rather comically and the children shouting "Papa, Papa". Moo, of course, was trying to nip at the man's ankles and he was really lucky the bike didn't run over him. The man finally managed to avoid him, gave me a stare (as if a small pup like Moo could have hurt him anyway) and drove off (yes, his watermelon was still in one piece, but I doubt it will be for very long).

So Moo escaped being run over. Fine, he didn't get hurt on the road but he did get hurt at home. Not a painful hurt, but a small yelp of a hurt. It wasn't our fault. He was so small and he kept getting under our feet, so naturally one of us were bound to plant our big fat feet on his paw. Yelp! Matthew was turning cartwheels and accidentally landed on the pup. Yelp! He went pathetically to my mother and showed her his paw while looking at me mournfully with his big brown eyes. Ahh, he survived. After all, those are what makes a dog tough, right? Right?

Did I mention that I am afraid of dogs? Really, I am. Teriffied. I'm even afraid of chickens. I thought some chickens ( a whole bunch of them) were chasing me once, so I ran screaming. My sister, who was walking in front, saw me screaming and coming towards her as if a whole herd of elephants were after me. She instinctively began to run as well without knowing what it was I was running from. Human nature. Anyway, we were running towards the open back gate of someone's house as fast as we could(which wasn't very fast at all considering that the chickens were gaining on us). We were almost to the gate when, from our right, a ferocious bark sounded and a big black dog dashed out at us. We screamed even louder in our terror (yes, terror!). The worst part was that it was a three legged dog ! Sheesh! Things like this always happen to us.

We made it to safety only to hear my Uncle and his wife laughing at us. In the house we had just entered was where we first saw Moo. He was lying there with his sister (equally cute), a small bundle, less than a month old. The reason we were there was to choose a puppy. The pups'mom had given birth to them on the streets and they had been brought here, away from the traffic for their own safety. I immediately wanted Moo eventhough his sister was cuter and much more playful. I was still afraid of dogs so I didn't pat him much. I just touched him when he wasn't looking. My sister had to carry him home in a box. The first day, I talked to him and cooed at him without actually having much physical contact. He was cute but he had teeth!