Animal Farm

OK, I admit it.

Iam a voyeur.

The first thing I do every morning is look out through my bedroom window at my back-door neighbours, ogling at their everyday routine. It helps that my Mom joins me in my voyeuristic activities. It also helps that my neighbours have such a big backyard. Also, that the subjects of my attention are a pack of delightful animals. G-ruff the watchdog, Snow and White the twin puppies, General, Major, Brigadier and the Ugly Gooseling the geese, and of course, Billy the goat. Welcome to my neighbourhood!

Here are a few snippets of knowledge I've gleaned over my few weeks of surveillance.

Four-month old puppies are playful puppies

Snow and White are a couple of snow-white (duh!) Rajapalayam puppies intent on having a good time. Rolling around in the mud, playing catch-my-tail, basking in the sun and begging for food completes their day. Even the occasional snap from G-ruff or one of the geese fails to dampen their enthusiasm. Its hard to believe that in a couple months time, these would be mean, surly, alert watchdogs. Which makes me wonder, is there something intrinsic to humans, like animals, which causes us to lose the 'joie de vivre' as we grow up? Are we taking the easy way out by just blaming it on more responsibilities, pressures, et al of adult life?

A group of geese is a troop of geese

Four geese, three white and one brown, which display some fascinating team dynamics. As opposed to Snow and White, who are as much at home with the goat as they are with each other, these folks display a remarkable sense of identity. They sleep together, they eat together, they swim in the rainwater puddle together, they walk in formation and almost in step! Hence, General, Major and Brigadier, depending on who's leading the pack. But even within this tightly-knit group, all is not well. The brown geese is treatly aloofly by his brethren. Is it because he is brown, I wonder? Talk about racial prejudices! He is the quintessential Ugly Gooseling, anyways. So while the geese put up a united front when someone like G-ruff emits a snarl at them, the Ugly Gooseling is always seen apart when the geese are alone. And you thought the Indian cricket team had problems!

A dog tied up 24 hours is a bad-tempered dog

G-ruff, I think, is a cross between a Dalmatian and a mongrel. And he's deliberately tied up all through the day to develop his "watchdog instincts". Unfortunately, this leaves him at the mercy of the other animals, which they make use of to the maximum. So as the geese troop by past him, it isn't surprising to see Brigadier suddenly break ranks and neatly snap at G-ruff's behind and run squawking away just out of his reach, which is limited by his leash. Friendly nibbles from the puppies and equally friendly butts from the goat only serve to demoralise him further. As a result, G-ruff is a mere parody of the "top-dog" image he would have loved to have cultivated, in his role of watchdog. Which is sad to see.

A billy goat is a wise goat

Billy the goat is a billy goat (duh again!!), with an authentic goatee and all. Being the largest animal around, he commands the respect of all the others. The geese never bother him, he tolerates the puppies with a sagelike temperament as they climb all over him, and he even treats G-ruff's occasional snarl with disdain. Generally, he always reminds me of some kind of ancient Buddhist monk,...always chewing, never hurried.


Not really sure what I hope to get out of all this, but it sure is fun to watch Animal Planet right in your backyard!

And yeah, a couple of more weeks of this, and I'll be able to decide on my future vocation.
a) become a certified animal psychologist
b) do an Enid Blyton and come up with "Bimbo and Topsy-II"