Tito’s Memoir

We gave in to Dumpy’s insistence on getting a pet in the summer of 1999 and requested my friend Ramesh in Nagpur to search for a purebred black Labrador puppy. We soon found out from him that a Labrador mother had given birth to a litter of six puppies in a well-known kennel in Nagpur.

The initial weeks were challenging. Tito would pee and poop anywhere he pleased. Our impassioned yells, followed by desperate attempts to pick him up in the middle of his act and rush him to the garden, terrified him. I’d read about use of newspapers to toilet train puppies. We decided to use the idea. We

We debated whether Tito should be trained by a professional dog trainer. Most of our dog-owning friends suggested hiring a professional trainer. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a dog who brought you newspapers and shoes and walked docilely by you with the leash held dutifully in his mouth? We decided against hiring a professional

Tito was able to make friends with a variety of birds and animals in the garden. Tito became accustomed to the calls, chirpings, and melodies of crows, pigeons, mynas, parrots, peacocks, kites, warblers, ioras, sunbirds, magpies, bulbuls, greater coucals, woodpeckers, shikras, doves, ibises, and owls - the resident campus birds. Tito would have a great time

Dogs must be groomed on a regularly to keep them clean and healthy. As dogs shed hair on a regular basis, brushing them to remove loose hair and dry skin is the most important part of grooming. We used a wide range of devices, including a large-toothed wooden comb, a self-cleaning soft brush, and a circular

On January 26, 2001, India’s republic day, an earthquake struck Gujarat. The earthquake, which measured more than 7 on the Richter scale, happened at 8:46 a.m. and lasted roughly two minutes. An estimated 20,000 persons were killed and 160,000 were injured because of the earthquake. Over 3,000,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed across the state.

Tito was fed three meals each day, including breakfast, as compared to one meal for adult dogs and two meals for puppies. Lunch was around 1 o’clock in the afternoon, and dinner was around 7 o’clock in the evening. Lunch consisted of pressure-cooked dalia (broken wheat) mixed with pieces of chicken/mutton, potatoes, carrots, and lauki

Our house was at the end of a row of five of the campus’s largest houses, which were allotted to faculty members based on seniority. The house was built on a large plot of approximately 15,000 square feet. While the front lawn was relatively small, the side and back lawns were quite large. Being the

Dumpy was Tito’s best friend. The playfighting with Dumpy was a lot of fun. Tito would start the game by irritating Dumpy by licking his ears and neck or climbing on him. Dumpy would respond by wrestling with him and pinning him down on the ground. Tito would then struggle, twist, and turn to free