Goodbye to scared Hunter (a.k.a. Brownie a.k.a. Lara's dad)

A little girl whom I knew a few years ago – aged barely three at the time, but bright, perceptive and sensitive to animals – gave me the nicest nickname I have ever had: “Lara-papa” or “Lara-daddy” she called out, whenever she saw me walking Lara in the park. It’s a badge I wear with distinction (though I insist that my feelings are more maternal than paternal, nebulous as these categories can be).

In these photos is my canine counterpart, Lara’s *biological* father – occasionally called Hunter or the generic Brownie – who resembled her both in appearance and in his high-strung, nervous personality. He was mainly being looked after by a family a few houses away (in D-block Saket), though I kept a watch on him when possible and contributed to his daily food. Hunter passed away today, a few days after being hit by a careless driver. Aged around 14, and with a recent history of bad health (I had taken him for an ultrasound a couple of weeks ago), he had become weak and slow in his movements and probably couldn’t get out of the way quickly enough when this car backed up.

Five years ago, something similar had happened with Lara’s mother (whom I have written about in the past, notably in the context of her returning to Saket by herself after running away from Friendicoes Jangpura in 2015) – very old, slow and nearly blind, she was knocked down by a car that shouldn’t have been speeding in our narrow colony lane; I had to eventually take her to the vet to be euthanized.

I could write more about Hunter, but maybe some other time (like many other timid or nervous dogs, he didn’t show much of what Samuel L Jackson called “personality”). For now, here are these pics, including these two that were taken nearly 10 years ago – Lara’s parents having milk and biscuits together, blissfully unaware that they had manufactured one of my greatest sources of joy.

P.S. one memory, from one of the first times I saw Hunter, as a pup, maybe 13 years ago. Abhilasha and I were walking down the colony lane when we heard a desperate shrieking, and found that this skinny little fellow (probably not more than 5-6 months old at the time) had somehow caught his back leg in the bars of a gate nearby – he wasn’t seriously trapped, but was so scared by the sudden feeling of entrapment that he couldn’t free himself. Abhilasha managed to reach out and expand the space, and he bolted out with a prolonged squeal (just as afraid of his saviours) and ran off without looking back.
In his later years too, even after I started feeding him and he seemed glad to see me from a distance, he never stayed still enough to let me pat him. (This was also because he came to associate me with strange men – paravets – showing up to catch him for skin treatments or vaccinations.) That changed, of course, in the past 2-3 weeks, when he became too weak to run away: this was the only period when I could really stroke the back of his neck for some time.

(Earlier goodbye posts: angry Kaalu; Lara's brother Sona; little Kaali; our old Kaali/Prada; and Foxie)