Dog time: on Snowy/Whitey, an old lady of Saket (2007-24)

You can measure time in your own life through a dog’s years, even if it’s a creature you didn’t know too well. Consider this community dog variously known in Saket’s D block as Snowy, Whitey, Heeru or Cheeku. She died early yesterday morning, aged 17 or 18, and I took her to Sai Ashram to be cremated.

 

For most of her long life, “Snowy” and I hadn’t interacted at all; it’s only yesterday that I learnt her many names. And yet she was central to my memories of this part of Saket – because in 2007, just after we moved to D-block, she was the first puppy I noticed. I wasn’t seriously interested yet in street dogs (this was a year before we adopted Foxie and my life took a new, maternal turn), but we indulged this pup when we saw her during evening walks – she was being looked after by a guard, was small and very alert and friendly. I seem to remember the guard noting our fondness and asking if we would like to take her home, but I’m not sure. Anyway, that’s a parallel-universe tale.

In this universe she ended up spending her life along a 150-metre span of colony road, near the 2-3 houses where people were fond of her. Whenever I saw her in the distance, I would think “She must be 10/12/15 years old now, because that’s when we moved here.” And I would think about some of the signposts of my own life – good and bad – in these last two decades.

The first video above, from three years ago, is the only video (or photo) I ever took of her. It was January, someone had put a jacket on her – but then it rained and as so often happens no one was around to take the jacket off and prevent it from getting badly soaked and affecting her health. So I approached her, taking a video for the animal groups as a caution, and got it off. As you can see, she was nervous and didn’t remember me (in dog years it must have been 7-8 decades since her childhood interactions with me).

Yesterday morning a neighbour who didn’t have a car handy called in distress to inform me of Snowy’s death, and I’m glad I got the chance to take her on her final journey – it was an important journey for me too. The pics below are of the last rites – as you can see, there was a solemn-looking abandoned pitbull at the shelter who hung around watching…

 

 

(Also see this post about our Kaali - one of the most important dogs in my life - who died in February this year)