What does it take to abandon a dog?

To get to the root of that question, maybe another question needs to be asked - What does it take to bring a dog home?

Maybe the need for security - you needed a watchdog or a guard dog.

Maybe you were lonely and needed a companion - someone to hold and give you attention.

Maybe you wanted a cute little toy to travel around with and show off to friends.

Maybe you brought a dog home because you kids wanted one and you had to bow to their whims.

Now comes the aftermath of desires that led to the purchase or in a rare case - the adoption of this animal- who incidentally has the emotional maturity of a 4 year old and believed with all his heart that you would love and care for him forever, because that's what he would do.

If he were a puppy, he greeted you with kisses and wet licks and peed a little from all the excitement of meeting your family. If he were an adult he would wag his tail in a dignified way and give you an appropriate amount of kisses.

He would have served his role faithfully and religiously - barking at the arrival of strangers, greeting you with an obscene amount of love and kisses when you got home, coming over to comfort you when you were feeling down and played with your kids, keeping them safe with his innate protectiveness.

Then one day the purpose for which you brought him home remained no more... You moved to a safer neighbourhood with a watchman at your apartment gates, or got a girlfriend or got married or your kids grew up and left for college leaving you to care for an ageing dog - who now falls sick more often and sometimes cannot control his bladder and pees inside the house or throws up after chewing on your house plants. 

He has tried to catch your attention in many ways like barking, howling at the moon, digging up the grass in the lawn or the soil from potted plants, chewing on the furniture or bringing you his drool coated old ball or waiting at the door for you to take him for a jog. However you do not have the time for him anymore. The priorities in your life has changed. An ageing dog or a sick dog needs more attention and you just don't have time for that old nuisance anymore.

Your conscience though won't let you off that easy and you know it - so you ask your garbage boy or a local urchin to take him for a walk somewhere far off and leave him, chained to a post near some place where people might take pity on the poor soul and feed him or free him when no one comes to get him.

So off he goes, wagging his tail... not knowing that he is never to return again to this place that he calls home. The boy you paid to do your dirty job does it well, almost too well, cursing him and yanking on his chain unnecessarily because the downtrodden of society do enjoy the rare opportunity to exert power over another soul. He leaves your 'forever dog' chained to a pole near a temple and goes away without even giving him a second look.

He waits there, your 'forever dog', for you to come and take him home... but what comes instead is the darkness of the night and a pack of aggressive strays. They lunge at him, using his helplessness of being chained to their advantage, attacking him from different directions till a night watchman notices this and drives the pariahs away. The watchman is not in the least a compassionate man. He just wants peace and quiet in the neighbourhood as he patrols it dutifully. An old dog chained to a pole is not an uncommon sight for him.... he has seen it before - it doesn't bother him much.

Dawn breaks and in the rush of the early morning walkers, newspaper delivery boys, tea vendors and snack vendors - people hardly pay attention to an old dog chained to a pole, tired and anxious, except perhaps a stray look of curiosity.

The day peaks to noon and the heat of the day leaves the old 'forever dog' panting. By mere chance a sympathetic shopkeeper offers him a bowl of water. By now people in the neighbourhood have understood his situation. Another abandoned one... they just seem to grow in numbers. Someone talks of unshackling him, but they are afraid if he should lunge or bite. 

Twenty four hours, a whole day without food, your 'forever dog' goes to sleep on the muddy sidewalk from the heat and exhaustion. He has worn himself out by barking and whining, without much help from anyone.

The next day, his dignity fails and he begins to eye and whine at the local vendors for scraps of food... they oblige him nicely enough along with some more water. His wounds from the nightly fights with strays have drawn looks of sympathy and pity but hardly anyone has the courage to unshackle his chain or nurse his sores.

A week goes by like this... he is now a tick infested, flea bitten, mud coated abandoned pedigree that even you wouldn't recognize as your once 'forever dog'.

Luckily for him, his suffering comes to an end, when an animal rescue team member spots him and takes him to the shelter. Slowly but willingly, he lets them clean his wounds and give him medicines. The care and soft spoken words reminds him of you. After the shelter closes for the night, he lays there in semi-darkness, surrounded by other like him, all once 'forever dogs'.

He got lucky... your 'forever dog' - not that all of them do. Some just die from their wounds on the streets before anyone rescues them or they just stop eating and go into an unrecoverable depression with their childlike emotional intelligence.

Anyway, he got adopted in a month or so - he now spends his last years with a young couple who love him for who he is - old but gentle, a little worse for wear and worn out but loyal and loving. His love for them has grown and is now just as strong as it was once for you. Not that he has forgotten you... he still remembers you fondly, wonders what happened to you.