Elsa and her amazing tricks!

She hates the garbage collector. She dislikes the Dhobi. She strikes terror in the hearts of the local maintenance staff (the lawn mowers, the sanitation workers etc). She intimidates the delivery people. Yet, she is the most wonderful dog I have met.

She does no tricks. She stares at me when I try and teach her to roll over. She refuses to fetch the ball. She may give you a paw, but the look that accompanies it may dissuade you from doing it again. Yet, she will run in if we explain that the sanitation worker are there just to check on the sewers. Of course, she keeps a suspicious eye on them from a vantage point. When she is back from a walk, she will of her own volition, clean her feet. Come bed time and she will accompany you to ensure that the gates are locked. The children sometimes need to be reminded to use the toilet before getting into bed, but she will use the garden,as soon as the last call sounds. What is more, she will make sure we know it, so we do not bug her about it.

She instinctively seems to know who is family and how to behave with visiting members. Not for her, instant friendships. Acceptance comes at her own terms and just because you think that you are good with dogs, there are no guarantees. If you give her a wide berth though, she is willing to ignore you, only because she knows you are a friend of the family. Strangers will never be ignored and while she may not bite their head off, she convinces them that they should not risk it.

We do not know anything about her breed, but enjoy her uniqueness and even revel in it. And as for chasing balls and fetching our slippers, I am waiting for my children to master those tricks on command, before I turn my attention to Elsa. She shares my sentiments on that!

Enter Elsa

"She was abandoned in a bunglow premises. No one was feeding her and she was surviving on the stuff growing there and some food that we threw in till she fell ill. Then I climbed the wall and hoisted her out. She is a beautiful lab. Can you take her?" This was how I came to know of Elsa's existence. I had a three year old black lab, Caeser with me at that time and knew what it meant to have a dog. We were in the middle of moving into a bunglow and were considering getting a second dog.

It was a bit too early for us to actually have the second dog, but a yellow lab coming our way seemed to be an offer we couldn't refuse. We went over to take a look and while she was not a purebred, she sort of fitted in. We brought her home to meet our beloved Caeser and in the excitement, he yelped. Jayant, my husband, who adored him, decided that it was a sign that things were not right. He put her right back into the car and off they went. Her stoic acceptance of whatever fate was waiting for her was what changed his mind. Her first lesson for us, 'In the face of anger, keep your cool and things might go your way'.

Almost five years later, today she is Jayant's favourite. She has convinced him (all of us, in fact)about the value of the mixed breed, the value of female dogs, the value of stoic acceptance and many other valuable lessons. Not only did she win the first round, she has gone on to win many more.