Jitesh Jaggi

My wife showed me a picture of her grandmother petting a lion cub.

and said, we need to at least adopt a dog ASAP.

I knew this day was gonna come.

She grew up with a family that owned entire animal zoos, lived all her life with pets capable of immediately devouring her.

My last relationship with the dog was when it had its teeth in my butt cheeks.

I was nine years old in India and was dancing in front of the stray dog that often rested outside my grandma's home.

To think that she still continued to feed him, pained me in my heart and my ass.

So I asked my wife, how about we get a foster dog instead?

Meaning,

We get to host the dog for a few days temporarily until someone else can adopt them permanently.

The foster agency heard our request and my wife came home with coconut.

A Shih Tzu mix with a silky black coat covering entire body.

It looked like my wife brought home a bunch of synthetic wigs.

Coconut had a cone around her neck

reminiscent of one of the characters from The Handmaid's Tale.

That was because she got spayed that morning.

She was 10 years old, she is 10 years old, and to think that she hadn't been spayed until now, painted us a grim picture of her past.

I work from home, by the way.

So from the next morning, Coconut and I became involuntary housemates.

On day one, I learned that she doesn't really make eye contact and stays hidden under a table all day long.