Canny & Fanny

 

This part of the story had to remain a secret within us as our off-shore or on-shore skeleton arrangements to dislodge grandma’s pets failed to yield the desired result. The amount of care grandma showered on them truly irked us as we had to compete for her attention along with a kitten and a pup. Their initial tentative steps became a brisk military walk when our grandma was around. A sad comedown for us the pampered kids thus far. We enrolled like-minded playmates to set things right. Though none of them had experience in dealing with pet animals, they bravely volunteered.

In her absence, we tried to scare the daylight out off them by perching them on the rungs of a ladder or putting them inside a pit in the garden. They shivered, cried and pissed in unison to express their fear. We constantly kept reminding them that they should not think that grandma will be around always to protect them. We were pretty sure that by that time both would have started to regret their entry in to our house.

Somehow these refugees had sensed that more and more trouble will brew for them in the coming days. They started to strike a relationship with the other members of the family to widen their fall back net. Initially they had very little success but trying harder cost them nothing, as their very survival depended on that. Employing eye catching tricks, performed in tandem, they just wanted to paw their way in to anyone's heart. From then on it was only a matter of time to take a hold in the remaining persons’ hearts for upgrading their refugee status to resident pet status.

They started to follow anyone leaving the house to work in the fields. By design, they chose a different person everyday to get in to the good books of every one by rotation. The march itself was interesting to look at – the pup swaggering on a barrel like tummy and kitten tagging along with an upright tail. That became their signature walk, thereafter.

As all these were taking place, we the children hatched and executed plans to get the animals a persona non grata label and expel them, without any success. We decided to pack them in to a jute bag and leave them at a distance from our house. To confuse their senses, we took them through the same street again and again, crossed a stream flowing by a woody patch and finally dumped them in an empty compost pit. The operation was completed at noon and by evening we were sure that once and for all the pup and kitten will leave us in peace.

As the street lights were coming on, we heard a commotion at the door. Yelping and meowing, the refugees had somehow finding their way back to the house. Feeling sheepish, we buried our faces in to the pages of textbooks to pretend disinterest. This incidence only helped them to get a tether to firmly hold on. 

The next emergency meeting between us children hatched another plan to evict the animals from the house. We somehow managed to pack the animals into a wooden box and transported our burden a few miles away from our house. We let them loose among the trees of a forest and quietly ran away from the scene in different directions to confuse their sense of direction.

The next day at day break, we were jolted out of sleep by the familiar twin call signs - the bark and the meow. We wondered what would have gone wrong this time. The answer came loud and clear a little later. Villagers who were passing by on the road easily identified the stranded animals by the familiar swagger of the dog and the upright tail of the cat and brought them back.

The animal sense in them might have woken up after these threatening incidents. The cat and the dog then started a series of parleys to win us over. They dogged our footsteps wherever we went and watched with keen interest whatever we did. Running through sugarcane fields or chasing cattle grazing in the paddy fields or wading through a flowing stream of water or simply dunking in a pool of water – they did it all with equal enthusiasm.

 They show cased skill in playfully swiping at flies or trying to catch each others' tail or simply running short bursts round the boulder lying by the stream. Though it was irritating initially, our friends liked their presence as much as they did our company.

Slowly admiration gave way to affection replacing our dislike for the canine and the feline friends. We christened them simply Canny & Fanny. Extra feeds were managed for them and as if to please us, they wanted more and more of such kindness.  They easily doubled their growth in a matter of weeks.

The next thing that happened was unbelievable as far as Canny & Fanny could have imagined. We bought collars, tin bowls and mats; pleaded with grandma to arrange shelters for their comfortable stay. The mischievous smile on her face had us worried for a moment but turned in to joy as she showed us what we were asking for. She knew that her adopted animals have earned their resident status through hard work. Probably she would have understood our misadventures as simple juvenile pranks.

The pets did not like the arrangement of living in separate shelters. They decided to keep one as a guest house and we had no other go except allowing them to do so. In a remarkable way they had demonstrated how they would carry forward their friendship in to the future. On hindsight we feel it was our childishness that put through Canny & Fanny to needless hardships, though there was no sinister intention.