Feeding the puppies became some kind of a daily entertainment for my next-door neighbours: aunt Rahma and her husband uncle Jamal. Their balcony was right opposite the wadi, from where they’d watched Mama Dog nurse her puppies until they were big enough to be left alone.
The feeding always took place late in the afternoon, after I finished fetching Rocky from the neighbour’s house and fed all the Kitzanians. It was Ramadhan and the old couple sat on the balcony waiting for the Maghrib call for prayers. I would descend the wadi with a tray that had a plate of dry food and another of leftovers.
The couple would watch me approach the puppies – who kept their distance yet wagged their tails happily – and leave the plates before climbing back and shouting an update to aunt Rahma: “Auntie! This is the blind puppy coming to eat today! I’ve placed an ad for her on Facebook to be rescued!”.
The mention of the puppy’s blindness always brought tears to aunt Rahma’s eyes as she felt sorry for her. She would lean from her balcony and shout in a choked voice that she loves animals so much and if it wasn’t for uncle Jamal – who’s not a big fan of them in general – she would’ve kept pets in their house.
This statement always left Uncle Jamal looking uncomfortable as we both gave him looks of dismay, only to be saved by the prayer’s call that made us hurry indoors to break the fast.
After the disappearance of the blind puppy and her other one-eyed sibling, I was left with the healthy one that Mr T declared to be a female too. I called her Rayga (the cool one) as she was very shy and waited patiently to be fed.
After weeks of feeding her alone, she was joined by another male dog that scared me the minute I saw him. He was big and muscled, as if he’d spend his day chugging protein shakes and lifting weights.
Fearing that he might attack Rayga, I stood and watched him feed with her to discover that they were friendly with each other and even shared the same plate. I called him Van Damme and he became a fixed feature of every afternoon.
Soon, another female puppy of Rayga’s age came to the picture and unlike Rayga, she was full of energy and mischief so I called her Fayga (the alert one). The pack seemed to grow every week, now the three were joined by another three nursing mothers and a puppy that I mistook for a fox with his short body and pointy ears – needless to say how panicky I felt on our first meeting and how I laughed about it later. I decided to call him Hajras (fox puppy).
Even though there were almost nine dogs to feed (luckily, they never appeared at the same time) yet they came with their own abundance. Aunt Rahma sent me canned food for them and for the cats too, Mr T and my friend Peter – with whom I shared their story – sent a few bags of dry food.
Moreover, our neighbour Khadija sent a whole chicken daily to whoever showed up. I became an expert in preparing meals from our leftovers – my own paella! After reading online what dogs could and couldn’t eat. The paella plates were polished within seconds, a happy sight compared to that of my cats pawing the food cheerlessly and giving me the usual looks of anything-else-on- today’s-menu? Even their behaviour was much different to that of cats (to be continued…)
(The writer is a certified skills trainer and author)
