Three Black Spots

Three Black Spots

The evening that we got Yoda, I lay down on the floor beside him, and let him climb all over me. He settled down on my chest. Three black spots – two eyes and a nose. Lots of hair. After a while he licked my face and went off to sleep, with a gentle snore. I knew that we would get along. He and I could snore in synch.

Mina and I got Yoda on Valentine’s Day – February 14, 1994. He was five months old, and a present to us from John and Nancy, friends who live in Chicago. 

We traveled from Bombay to pick him up. Nancy had sent us a picture, so we knew what he looked like. The breeder was holding him up, stretched out on the palm of her hand. He looked like a flying sausage in need of a hair cut.

A friend of John’s who had come over that evening, saw us with Yoda and asked “Does this dog have any idea how his life is going to change?” Here was Yoda - a little puppy from rural Illinois- being whisked off to New York, and then to Bombay.

Would he enjoy the change? Would he like traveling? Would he suffer from jet lag? Would he like the smell of Indian curry? Would he miss his mother and brothers and sisters? How would life on Paradise Lane compare with life on the 13th floor in Mount Mary Road, Bombay?

I guess the real question is “Did we have any idea how our life was going to change?”

That night, Yoda slept on the floor. We were too scared to let him sleep on the bed with us. What if we ended up crushing the guy? At night I woke up, and could not find him. I woke  Mina up in a panic. ‘I think we’ve lost Yoda’. Five frantic minutes later, we discovered that he had burrowed deep under the bed, and was fast asleep. Still snoring.

All the books said that he would cry a lot for the first couple of days. Not one peep, thank God. Maybe he was just happy to leave rural Illinois. I know I would be.

Armed with Yoda, we set off on our new adventure.

On our first plane flight from Chicago to New York, I came up against the FAA rule that the pet in the cabin has to be firmly zipped up in its bag. Yoda was trembling, and we wanted to hold him in our hands, but no way. The flight attendant who looked in need of a hot bath and a soothing massage, came up and laid down the law. She patrolled past our seat every few minutes, to make sure we were in compliance. The world is divided into two groups – people for whom nothing is too good for a dog, and the rest.

By the time we got to New York, Yoda had bonded with Mina. She was the fearless leader of his pack, Alpha Dog, and soul mate. I was the one who carried his bag. Our roles were set, and have remained to this day.