Living away from home was not easy for me. Being a pampered child, I hated getting through life on my own. Although my new job was exciting, Delhi remained an empty city for me. Until I met Nishant.
My cousin was in town so she invited me to her friend’s place. That friend happened to be Nishant. We chatted the entire night and the next morning when I came to work, I was pleasantly surprised by his Facebook message. We kept talking and eventually meeting and it wasn’t a tough decision when we decided to date each other.
He became my go-to person in the big, bad city. And life got just a tad better again. So when did the dog come in the picture? One Sunday morning, almost five months after we had started dating, Nishant and I were all snuggled up on my bed when we got talking about our respective dogs back home. I told him about my two babies and how much I missed them and he told me about his rottweiler and how he was growing up so fast. Amidst all this, he said “It would be crazy if we got a dog together, no?” I turned to look at him, “Yeah, pretty crazy. But so much fun!” For five full minutes we looked at each other with sparkly eyes and talked of what we could name our dog and how this would be an absolutely insane thing to do.
Cut to us adopting our friend’s labrador puppy two weeks later. Naila, we named her. And she was a tiny ball of joy and fur!
If you are planning to adopt a dog, our favourite go-to dog food was this Pedigree milk and chicken pack. (Rs 540)
Initially, even though it was tiring, we’d love running around her. He’d drop by on his way to work to walk her in the morning and I would get out of work early to walk her in the evening. Just a few days later, though, Naila got sick. Neither of us were home at that time and I only found out when my roommate came back. I called up Nishant to ask him to take her to the vet but he said he was at his site which meant it would take him two hours just to get there and I had a meeting I could not avoid at work.
That was the first time I doubted our decision. Eventually my roommate agreed to take her to the vet and I couldn’t thank her enough. Nishant and I, on the other hand, ended up having a fight about this that night.
And so it continued. Her medicines were too expensive, why didn’t he drop by to walk her, we could never go out anymore, there was never enough space – the arguments were endless. It was almost like having a baby together.
Our most major fight happened when both of us were heading back home for Diwali and we had no clue what to do with Naila. After another long fight, we decided that we could not keep up with this responsibility and it would be best to find Naila another home. I cried like a baby, hugging Naila, that night.
It was only three days before we were heading home that we found someone who wanted to adopt Naila. This failure of nurturing a living being together took a toll on our relationship for a while. And the distance of being back home didn’t help. However, we did manage to get back the spark once both of us returned to Delhi but we often talk about Naila and miss her!
Don’t forget to buy this blue collar for your little pup. (Rs 400)
Images: Shutterstock
