Dog's Philosophy

Animal Life


Philosophy, a subject much discussed, mused over, contemplated deeply and ruminated long for a better understanding of life, branches out Metaphysics, a discipline that regulates ideas of life and physical existence, that provides scope for reaching beneath and up one's material existence. The word meta acts as prefix in loan words having several meanings. A few are 'along with', 'beyond', 'behind' and 'among'. When it is prefixed 'physic', it tends to describe a possibility of overreaching one's presence on the earth. Humans make much fuss over their life and trouble things a lot. Edward Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam' s 'Rubaiyat' is often quoted for Fitzgerald's faulty understanding of the oriental custom and living methods. In one such 'Rubaiyat', Khayyam openly orders people to make the most use of the moment of their lives. Yesterday is dead and tomorrow is not born and one is not sure of its birth at least for oneself, hence think about enjoying life in all possible means not worrying about committing sins, falling prey to diseases and succumbing to emaciation.

I was much worried about some of the imaginative translations of Fitzgerald, though his is the best of Persian translations. I read Khayyam for the first time some ten years ago. However now I would like to endorse Fitzgerald's translation as worthy and to the point because of having observed the life of a female dog that lives on our street. This dog may be six or seven years old and one of the beneficiaries of food from my house. I have been observing its life style ever since it became deflowered and subsequently pregnant. It would have delivered some thirty to thirty- five puppies so far. It is one of the healthy dogs and survives with fine health though some of its sons and daughters kicked the bucket due to illness (not including those that died in accident and faced pre-mature death thanks to grateful humans), after attaining puberty. Due to its old age (a dog is expected to live for only ten years, either a year or two less or more, but street dogs do not sustain long thanks to 'serene' environs of their livelihood), the last three deliveries had been burdensome to it. Nothing deterred it from enjoying life fully. There was a litter of seven in its last engendering and due to lack of nutrition three died in birth and the remaining four (all male puppies) developed rashes on their skin, that alienated public from adopting them (they are usually fond of male ones). It usually allows its puppies to feed first and then eats the remaining. Whereas during pregnancy, it growls at their fight to get food and amasses as much as it could, though the puppies are less than a year old. There was a time when I thought that another pregnancy would be fatal to it. Who is to stop all these things? Nothing is on our hands. Another mating season approached and things went as usual and the dog was very much at them as they were seasonal and honoured with divine respect.

To digress to the subject that was discussed five lines above, the puppies survived but one of them was fatally run over by a motor-cyclist and another one breathed its last due to some mysterious illness (no vet is ready to treat non-volunteered patients and no mongrel is ready to take the ailing to vets) a month ago. The ten year old bitch's progeny are everywhere in the town now and they at times mate with their mother (there is such a scarcity of bitches in places that male dogs have to fight for a small space of 'cock- pit'). In this world of high chaos of human life, no one is bothered by a simple existence of dogs. The protagonist of our story lives with much ease doing what it needs to do each day and doing that with utmost sincerity unminding any consequence and not spending much time in reverie of what could happen to their species in future (may be in immediate future as the threat is imminent). This small piece is worth a lot of much researched out philosophy. Hope the readers are in concurrence with the writer.