My Dog

 Domestic animals in the olden days were kept for either as pet or hunting or commercials.

Most common dogs that serves multi-purpose-any of the purposes or all.

Children are too happy to have the domestic animals been bought for them by their parents to be taking care by them.Parents too tested their children to show how caring to the animals to judge them of the love for them when the parents are old and need to rely on their children.

Let me recount my childhood experience with a pet.It was a dog.I dont know why my father chose  dogs for us my cousin and myself .The reason might not be far-feched been a farmer himsef;when he had already paid for the two dogs and asked us to go to pick them one by one.

We were at the place picking the dogs been carried indeferently .when almost gotten home the one i was carrying started behaving funnily that warranted swapping the two innocent dogs.We had peace of mind after they had been exchanged.

At home my father then looked at each of the dogs to ascertain the sex of the dogs and ruled that each of us owned the one we carried home.Alas!mine was a male dog while my cousin had a female dog.It was not dawn on me until later years when i learnt lesson that i want to share with my readers.

The two dogs were named Eyinlaro (male) and Aje (female).The dogs lived long until they were disposed off.

My father was a farmer with his cocoa plantation in Ibokun some 20 kilometers from Osogbo. He lived there coming home every fortnight on his bicycle  with the two dogs going with him.

On this day the dogs left as usual with the old man running after him on his bike to Ibokun but the following morning we woke up to find Eyinlaaro (my dog)at the doorstep of our house in Osogbo.

My mother was too frightened and questions were been asked as how Eyinlaaro managed to come back from Ibokun unaided,or whether it followed others to Ibokun at all or when sad things had happened and if he had traced its way back to Osogbo would my father not been thinking whether it had been killed hunting. My mother was waiting to be intimated with happenings that warranted the male dog to had come all alone from Ibokun leaving behind her husband and the female dog which confounded her.

Not to have raised false alarm the poor woman kept it to herself the ugly incident but waiting eagerly for the announcement of demise or bad news.No news was heard counting days until my father returned as usual after two weeks. Also,my father had almost forgotten that Eyinlaaro was alive since he had presumed it was missing.The poor dog welcomed my father home and swinging the tail to show its happiness of the re-union.This adventure -following the old man but returning following day to Osogbo until it was sold for token.

My readers i believe you have learnt one lesson or the other from this piece especially the dog's truancy,its calculative way of locating home and bravery to move a  distance of 20 kilometres unaided and the destiny -at- play of the ownership of the dogs.The lesson(s) here can then be used to shape both the people and the society to be a better place to live.

Akintunde Adegboye. 

 (akintunde59@gmail.com)