My Kanyon

 It was a day in May 2019 when my daughter Ishna came to me and said-dad I want to get him home, he is so cute. Not that, that excited me. I had been mowing the lawn and tiringly wanted to get by it without paying any distraction a lot of attention. Anyway we had already put down the deposit on a pet and would get it before winter.

Ishna has always been fond of dogs. She would recognize a dog's breed just by looking at it/it's picture and rattle off it's traits, health concerns, whether it would make for a good pet or not .etc. She had been insisting on a pet dog since she was six years old and now she was twelve. It was getting harder by the day to contain her. I was about to gibe in and yield to het. Glad for my life that I did.

I, coming from a house-hold where cleanliness nd order stood above everything else and never having had a pet in my house earlier, was quite reluctant at the prospect of sharing space with a dog. It is just that there were so many unknowns which I did not know how to handle. What about the fur that would be everywhere? How would I protect my nicely polished wood floor, what about the furniture, the couches and the lamps? Al types of people who has never owned a dog would offer their unsolicited advice. They would say-"Oh you should cover your floor with plastic, don't give it access to every room in your house(Kanyon lords over the entire house-it being his home). Even the lady at the shelter from where we ended up getting Kanyon advised me against giving hi access to all the rooms in the house.

Coming back to that fateful day (I think it was a weekend), we sought an appointment with the shelter (Lynnwood Paws to be exact) to see this beauty. I have to confess-I fell immediately in love with him. And as did my wife Pooja who had previously seen him. And how could you not with his drooling gaze following you everywhere imploring you to take him home. After cuddling and playing with him, we were doing the paperwork to take him home. On way back home, I brought his food, feeding bowls and crate for him to sleep in. Little did I realize that that would be the only night he would sleep in the crate as soon the whole house was his for taking. Soon the crate was up for resale on Craigslist and it was gone. 

Rest as they say is history and I am sure the words are not going to do any justice to the emotion, the bond, the pace he has in our lives. Very soon we would find him becoming an integral part of our lives. When we would go camping, he would sleep on top of me or my wife's bed, keen to squeeze in the tiny 4 person tent.

Soon I would be seeing him following me everywhere in the house or if I would stop out to work in the yard, he would start weeping at the prospect of being left alone and I would have to invite him to sit with me on the porch. He is my companion on my hikes and loves to hike all the way to those beautiful alpine lakes that this state is blessed with. One beauty meeting other beauty. 

He can not bear the prospect of having to share me with anyone. He would wait for Pooja to feed him any snacks before coming up to retire in the bed with me. His favorite spot being the one between my wife and me. If I attempt to hug Ishna sometimes, he would come up o his hind legs, give a lowly growl as if saying that he too wants a hug. I can bore you with stories of my son. Such is my son, Kanyon.