Chapter 2

Chapter Two : A Puppy Born in February

After Rocky was gone, our house slowly returned to its usual rhythm.

Not completely.

There was still a quietness that hadn't been there before, but life has a strange habit of continuing even when the heart wants everything to pause.

Winter passed.

Then February arrived.

On the 18th of February, 2016, a litter of puppies was born at our neighbour's house.

Among them was a little puppy who had no idea that his life was about to become connected to ours.

He was one of Rocky's siblings.

When Nani told us that the puppies had been born, I wanted to see them immediately.

There was something exciting about the idea of seeing tiny puppies after spending months surrounded by memories of Rocky.

So whenever we got the opportunity, we visited.

The first time I saw all of them together, they looked almost like a moving pile of fur.

One would crawl over another.

Someone would suddenly squeak.

Another would attempt to stand and immediately lose balance.

They were tiny, clumsy and completely unaware that humans were standing around them, discussing their personalities as if they were important guests.

I watched them carefully.

There was always one puppy doing something different from the others.

While some were sleeping, he was moving.

While some were eating, he was trying to climb over somebody.

While the others were quietly sitting together, he seemed interested in whatever was happening outside.

That puppy caught my attention.

He looked healthy.

Strong.

Curious.

And there was something about his expression that made me laugh.

It wasn't that he looked particularly funny.

It was the way he looked at people.

Almost suspiciously.

As though he was already trying to understand what kind of household he might eventually be dealing with.

I didn't know it then, but he would spend years trying to understand us.

And we would spend years trying to understand him.

The owner of the mother dog was a generous person.

When they learned how much Rocky had meant to our family, they became even more determined that we should have one of the puppies.

They told us that this particular puppy was among the healthiest of the litter.

Nani was happy.

My family was happy.

And somewhere inside me, there was a feeling I couldn't quite explain.

I was still carrying the sadness of Rocky.

But now there was something new.

Something small.

Something alive.

Something that made me curious again.

We started visiting the puppy more often.

Each visit revealed something new.

One day, he would be sleeping.

Another day, he would be tumbling over his siblings.

Sometimes I would sit nearby and simply watch him.

There was something fascinating about puppies.

They didn't need entertainment.

They were their own entertainment.

A piece of cloth could become a toy.

A person's shoelace could become an exciting discovery.

A sibling could become an obstacle course.

And a perfectly peaceful afternoon could suddenly become chaos for absolutely no reason.

I began noticing that this puppy had a particularly adventurous personality.

He wasn't satisfied with simply sitting in one place.

He explored.

He pushed.

He sniffed.

He climbed.

He investigated.

If something was happening, he wanted to know about it.

If something wasn't happening, he seemed perfectly capable of making something happen himself.

Looking back, perhaps that should have been our first warning.

But nobody recognized it as a warning.

We thought it was cute.

That is one of the problems with puppies.

They can commit crimes and somehow make you smile while doing it.

At that age, even their future bad habits look adorable.

I remember thinking about what it would be like to have him at home.

Would he sleep quietly?

Would he listen?

Would he follow us?

Would he be affectionate?

Would he behave?

That last question now makes me laugh.

Because if someone had told me then what kind of dog he would become, I probably wouldn't have believed them.

The puppy had a lot of energy.

But underneath that energy was something gentle.

He wasn't aggressive.

He wasn't frightening.

He simply seemed determined to be involved in everything.

That would eventually become one of the defining features of his personality.

If the family was eating, he wanted to know what was being eaten.

If someone was walking, he wanted to know where they were going.

If people were sitting together, he wanted to be there.

If everyone was laughing, he wanted to know why he wasn't the reason.

And if something had been left unattended for more than five minutes, apparently that meant it was his responsibility to investigate it.

But those things were still in the future.

At that moment, he was simply a puppy.

A healthy little puppy among his siblings.

And I was a schoolgirl who had recently learned that loving an animal could also mean losing one.

Perhaps that was why I watched him so carefully.

I didn't know it consciously, but maybe I was searching for something familiar.

Rocky had been gone.

This puppy carried a piece of the same family line.

But he wasn't Rocky.

And he never needed to be.

Slowly, I began understanding that.

Rocky had his own personality.

This puppy would have his own.

One day, he would have his own favourite people.

His own favourite foods.

His own favourite places.

His own strange habits.

His own ways of making us laugh.

He would become someone completely different.

And that was okay.

Because the purpose of bringing him home was never to erase Rocky.

It was simply to give another little life a place in our family.

As the weeks passed, we became more attached.

We talked about him at home.

We wondered when we could finally bring him.

The waiting seemed longer than it really was.

For a child, waiting for a puppy feels almost like waiting for a festival.

Every visit ended with the same thought:

"When will he come home?"

Then finally, April arrived.

The puppy was ready.

Our visits were about to become unnecessary.

We wouldn't have to go to him anymore.

He was coming to us.

I remember the excitement surrounding that day.

There was something different about knowing that this time, when we left, we wouldn't be leaving him behind.

We were taking him home.

I didn't know what the first night would be like.

I didn't know whether he would cry.

I didn't know whether he would sleep.

I didn't know whether he would eat properly.

I didn't know whether he would be frightened.

And I certainly didn't know whether he would behave.

But I was excited.

The little puppy who had spent his first weeks surrounded by his siblings was about to enter a completely different world.

Our world.

A house full of people.

A house where everyone had different personalities.

A mother who would worry about him.

A Nani who would pretend to be annoyed with him.

Siblings who would play with him.

And a little girl who was still learning how to live with the memory of one dog while making room in her heart for another.

We brought him home in April.

He stepped into our house with tiny paws.

He looked around.

He sniffed.

He explored.

And then, as if he had been waiting his entire life for this exact moment, he began investigating everything.

The furniture.

The rooms.

The people.

Every corner.

Every sound.

Every object.

Nothing escaped his attention.

We watched him.

He watched us.

Neither side knew what the next few years would look like.

But one thing became obvious very quickly.

This puppy had arrived with a personality.

And judging from the look on his face, peace and quiet were probably not going to survive for long.

We eventually gave him a name.

Topsy.

And the moment that name became part of our house, the little puppy became part of our family.

The chapter of his life with us had begun.

And none of us knew just how many stories that tiny creature was going to give us.