SHERRY and the BONE GAME

SHERRY and her BONE

“Sherry… Sherry… Bone… Bone…”

My father is calling me for playing the “bone-game” but before that let me tell you about my home.

In front there is a huge garden, or rather an orchard, with all types of trees and bushes, and a lush green lawn on which I love to frolic, prance and roll upside down, and lots of flower beds which I love digging up to my mother’s horror.

I love digging up the mud – it’s so tasty – and there is plenty of it in the spacious kitchen garden behind the house where I create havoc digging up to my heart’s content, and the only thing I’ve spared are the tomatoes and some horrible tasting leaves called Alu because they itch.

I’m lucky – they don’t tie me up but leave me free to roam and play around as I please.

And there is so much to explore and investigate, in the nooks and corners of our verdant garden with plenty of trees, bushes and hedges.

There is so much to sniff, so much to dig, and so much to chase - squirrels, mongooses and birds to chase.

The cats have disappeared though; ever since the day I almost caught one.

When I was small, and my gums itched, and my milk teeth began to break through, I could not resist chewing up anything I could lay my teeth upon – like shoes, slippers, clothes, toothbrushes, furniture. I especially loved my father’s favourite Kolhapuri kapshi chappals which were so soft and yummy.

So my father bought me a chewy bone which, it said on the wrapper, was guaranteed to save everything else. 

I don’t know why I did it, maybe by natural instinct, but I secretly buried the bone in a hole I dug below the Mango tree, and I used to dig it out when I thought no one was looking, chew it a bit, and bury it in some other secret place. 

One day my inquisitive mother found out, and she dug up the bone when I was sleeping and hid the bone under the pomegranate tree.

When I didn’t find my bone, at first I was confused, maybe it was my neighbour Bruno, but then he was too old for chewy toy bones.

Then I tracked the bone down with my nose, and when I spied my mother giggling and grinning like a Cheshire cat, I knew who the culprit was, it was my mother who had mischievously hidden my bone.

This started the “bone-game”.

First they (the humans – my mother and father) would give me the bone, and after I hid it they would rush out into the garden and dig it out.

Then they would hide the bone (after locking me in the house so I could not see) and if was my turn to find the bone, which I did using my nose and keen sense of smell. 

I wondered how they found the bone so fast; till one day I caught them, both my mother and my father, spying crouching behind the hedge when they thought I wasn’t looking and the mystery was solved.

So now I first let them see where I’m hiding the bone, and when they complacently and confidently go inside thinking they know everything, I dig out the bone and hide it some other place which they do not know and then watch the fun as they search in vain.

Then when they give up searching and go inside and my father asks me to get the bone, I run out and get it, for which I earn a titbit. 

The way these humans act sometimes, I really wonder who is more intelligent – dogs or humans...?

Apart from my mother and father, who I’ve told you about, there are some more humans who live in my house – my sister, my brother, sometimes my grandmother – and I’ll tell you all about them next time.

I hear my father’s voice again: “Sherry… Sherry… Bone… Bone…”

So he has hidden the bone and I am off to find it…

Till then, Bow Wow…

SHERRY 

SHERRY and the BONE GAME

By

VIKRAM KARVE 

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2010

Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.  

VIKRAM KARVE educated at IIT Delhi, ITBHU and The Lawrence School Lovedale, is an Electronics and Communications Engineer by profession, a Human Resource Manager and Trainer by occupation, a Teacher by vocation, a Creative Writer by inclination and a Foodie by passion. An avid blogger, he has written a number of fiction short stories and creative non-fiction articles in magazines and journals for many years before the advent of blogging. His delicious foodie blogs have been compiled in a book "Appetite for a Stroll". Vikram lives in Pune with his family and pet Doberman girl Sherry, with whom he takes long walks thinking creative thoughts. 

Vikram Karve Creative Writing Blog - http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

Academic Journal Vikram Karve – http://karvediat.blogspot.com

Professional Profile of Vikram Karve - http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve 

Email: vikramkarve@sify.com
Foodie Book:  Appetite for a Stroll