I SPENT the last summer vacation at my grandparents’ house in the village. My grandmother had a beautiful German shepherd dog. His whole body was a pretty shade of brown and black, except for his paws which were white. Despite liking the dog, I was scared of it as the dog was very big, a little shorter than I was.

We were not familiar with each other so I never dared to go too close to him alone. My grandma called him Doggie and so did everyone else in the village. Grandma had trained him well and everyone in the village loved him. An interesting thing about Doggie was that he would not eat until he was permitted to eat. Whenever my grandmother would go to give him food, Doggie would wag his tail in excitement and watch grandma fill his bowl with food. He would wait for the signal before pouncing on the bowl. When grandma would say, “Eat Doggie!” only then he would jump to start his meal.

One morning, I finally gathered eno­ugh courage to face Doggie alone. I saw him curled on the floor, sleeping. When I got closer, he woke up. He looked up to me and made low, soft sounds. I petted him but I noticed Doggie was still making low sounds which were unusual for an active dog like him, just then I saw his food bowl which was full of food.

“Eat doggie!” I said, and the moment words slipped from my mouth, Doggie jumped on the bowl and started eating; I realised that my grandma had forgotten to tell Doggie to eat and this devoted and obedient dog had starved himself.

My love for the dog grew. Now every morning, I would go and play with Doggie. One day, as usual when I went to see him, he was not there and the door was open. A sudden wave of fear ran through me. I went outside and saw that Doggie was wrestling in the dirt with a larger black dog. It was a horrible scene! I was scared to death but when I saw Doggie was being bitten hard in his leg by the black dog, I shouted and ran to rescue Doggie without knowing what I would do.

The black dog let go of Doggie’s leg and turned to me. I was frozen with fear. The dog made dangerous growling sounds and jumped on me. I dodged him and searched the ground for something to defend myself with and found a thick stick. I hit the dog immediately when it pounced at me again. The stick knocked him to the ground. He was about to get up again when I heard a furious shout from behind me “You hit my dog!”

A big boy came and pushed me hard on the ground and I hurt my head. The commotion drew everyone’s attention and my grandparents also rushed there. My grandpa picked me up and took me inside the house while grandma remained there to solve the problem and then took care of Doggie.

It took a few days for both me and Doggie to recover from the trauma and the wound on Doggie’s leg to heal. One day, I was petting Doggie, when I heard the door bell ring. I opened the door only to find the same boy with his black dog. I was scared but gathered all my courage and asked “What now?”

Both the dogs recognised each other and started growling.

He began, “I want to apologise for what happened that day. I just arrived and saw you hit my dog. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I understand that you did it in self-defence.”

I didn’t know what to say so I just nodded. He held up his hand to me, “Friends?” he asked.

I smiled and shook his hand, “Friends!” I confirmed. “But we will have to work a lot on these dogs ...” and we both laughed!

This incident gave me and Doggie new friends. And now it is even more fun to go to my grandparents.