Life never fails to surprise you, if you are really ready for it with your heart and eyes and ears open! December means shorter days, darker days, no sunshine, no vitamin D for my body and soul and I feel down on many days. It's not as bad as it was last year, but sometimes it gets onto me. After an encounter about which you are just going to read, I thought life is not bad after all!
It was a normal day for me yesterday when I was rushing home after completing a few chores in the evening. It gets dark by 4:45 pm in Germany and it was already 5:15 when I was crossing the usual patch of small bushes and trees. There are no lights on this path which is a stretch of about 5 minutes and I suddenly see some colorful lights floating in the dark. For a minute, I thought small kids were riding a cycle in the evening and had put different lights for the people to see them in the dark. But as I approached those floating lights, I realized that those lights were neckbands for a group of dogs. And they were looking so beautiful that I couldn't just pass away without complimenting them. I knew the dog attendant as we often saw him with that group in summer. But I saw them after many days after winter started, hence could not recognize them immediately.
The dogs are very friendly and they immediately came near me, sniffed me and went away as soon as the attendant called their names. I love dogs and I am not afraid when they come near me. I don't shout or don't run away from them. I don't panic when they come near me. I let them come near me. I stopped to talk to the attendant and greeted him and started talking to him. I asked him if he was taking them for an evening walk. He said he runs a daycare for dogs and he is with them for around 10-12 hrs every day. He never has a day off. He tends to dogs on all days, he looks after dogs whose owners are on vacation or are perhaps ill and are in the hospital. He knows the qualities of each dog. He knows which dogs are friends and can be left together to play. He knows which dogs are mischievous. I was thrilled to get this information from him. Coming from a country like India, where there is no such system of daycare for dogs, it was pretty funny for me to imagine something like this. There are dog and cat shelters in India, but they are usually confined to that place. The dogs and cats are not taken out for a morning or an evening walk. And the dogs I saw here were so happy and comfortable with the attendant, they were playing, running and taking all the directions from the attendant very seriously. They were definitely trained for it!
I wonder how the relation of dogs with their owners is, if they spend so many hours outside the house with the attendant. Just like kids are sent to the daycare and they enjoy being with the kids of their age, these dogs must have also formed a bond with the attendant and other dogs. Do they also create a scene and are not happy when they are taken home, away from their playmates. I will definitely ask this when I meet the attendant some other time.
I wished the attendant a nice evening and came home to tell T about the incident. I told him that I saw someone today about which I would like to tell him and he immediately recognized that it has to be something related to the dogs. We often see different people with dogs of all shapes and sizes around, dressed in woolens sometimes! He could see the excitement and the twinkle in my eyes. He listened to the story with great attention and wished he was there too!
Daycare for dogs! Really!? With a sound health system in place for human beings in Germany, animals are also not far-behind. Good going!
It was a normal day for me yesterday when I was rushing home after completing a few chores in the evening. It gets dark by 4:45 pm in Germany and it was already 5:15 when I was crossing the usual patch of small bushes and trees. There are no lights on this path which is a stretch of about 5 minutes and I suddenly see some colorful lights floating in the dark. For a minute, I thought small kids were riding a cycle in the evening and had put different lights for the people to see them in the dark. But as I approached those floating lights, I realized that those lights were neckbands for a group of dogs. And they were looking so beautiful that I couldn't just pass away without complimenting them. I knew the dog attendant as we often saw him with that group in summer. But I saw them after many days after winter started, hence could not recognize them immediately.
The dogs are very friendly and they immediately came near me, sniffed me and went away as soon as the attendant called their names. I love dogs and I am not afraid when they come near me. I don't shout or don't run away from them. I don't panic when they come near me. I let them come near me. I stopped to talk to the attendant and greeted him and started talking to him. I asked him if he was taking them for an evening walk. He said he runs a daycare for dogs and he is with them for around 10-12 hrs every day. He never has a day off. He tends to dogs on all days, he looks after dogs whose owners are on vacation or are perhaps ill and are in the hospital. He knows the qualities of each dog. He knows which dogs are friends and can be left together to play. He knows which dogs are mischievous. I was thrilled to get this information from him. Coming from a country like India, where there is no such system of daycare for dogs, it was pretty funny for me to imagine something like this. There are dog and cat shelters in India, but they are usually confined to that place. The dogs and cats are not taken out for a morning or an evening walk. And the dogs I saw here were so happy and comfortable with the attendant, they were playing, running and taking all the directions from the attendant very seriously. They were definitely trained for it!
I wonder how the relation of dogs with their owners is, if they spend so many hours outside the house with the attendant. Just like kids are sent to the daycare and they enjoy being with the kids of their age, these dogs must have also formed a bond with the attendant and other dogs. Do they also create a scene and are not happy when they are taken home, away from their playmates. I will definitely ask this when I meet the attendant some other time.
I wished the attendant a nice evening and came home to tell T about the incident. I told him that I saw someone today about which I would like to tell him and he immediately recognized that it has to be something related to the dogs. We often see different people with dogs of all shapes and sizes around, dressed in woolens sometimes! He could see the excitement and the twinkle in my eyes. He listened to the story with great attention and wished he was there too!
Daycare for dogs! Really!? With a sound health system in place for human beings in Germany, animals are also not far-behind. Good going!
Mast lihile aahes😊
ReplyDeleteIt's heartening to see how some places in the world care so much about pets. It goes to tell how "life" and rights of a living being is viewed. And it's such a contrast to certain other places where any life which is not human is deemed a rightful subject of cruelty.
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