The big giant and the little boss

I grew up in the hills of Arunachal Pradesh and had my first pet when I was seven. I have always loved dogs and cats. And I always knew that I will have a dog once I started working. Life took a few turns and it was only a few years after graduating that I could get Zorro, a Bullmastiff boy.

When I was a child and had dogs, there was always help around and my role was to just play with them. With Zorro, I became a mom. And boy, they grow fast!

A Bullmastiff packs up 2-2.5 kgs every week for the first seven months. So I had a super energetic, rapidly growing puppy and had to look out for ways to keep him occupied and give him adequate exercise. So, we started running together. I had started on his basic training after reading up on the data available on the internet. And he was a very fast learner.

A couple of years back, we got Zorro a baby sister, Bella, a Shih Tzu girl. She brought out the puppy in him. Today, Zorro is seven and Bella is two. And they are the perfect brother-sister duo. Bella loves her toys and Zorro loves his food. They are very attached to each other; they will never walk too far away from each other.

Bella is a mischievous little girl who loves her tennis balls and has a fan following in our apartment complex. Each dog is different in his or her own way. She learnt a lot of things and traits from Zorro. He taught her to bark at the mosquito-repellent-machine that comes to our complex every alternate day. She bosses around other male dogs in our complex and the ‘streeties’ who we meet during our walks. You’ll usually find her sleeping below my work desk as I work from home a few days of the week. She loves to get her hair done before walks and has a large collection of hair bows. On our walks, many a time, we have had people taking their pictures.

Both their birthdays fall in the same month - hers on December 3 and his on December 29. On Bella’s first birthday, we had 14 kids over for a fun celebration. We celebrate their birthdays every year.