Ronnie

I was born on the 13th March 2004 to a beautiful dark golden-brown colored Golden Retriever named Chikoo. I was one of the nine siblings, jumping on each other, chasing each other’s tails, running towards our mom and the dear lady, Yaman with whom we all stayed. We were so many, all light golden like our Dad – Bluze.

It must have been difficult for our first human parents to remember us. So we were color coded. We all had different color satin ribbons, that’s how they remember our names. I was of course renamed several times, but my first name that Yaman gave me was Ronnie and my code was blue, light sky blue. I remember some of my siblings; they had funny names like Gotya, Bandya, Tikli, Chumki, Pari etc.

When we were two months old, people started coming home to see us, to pick a few of us as pets. I was careless of the lot and would always be doing some or the other mischief, least bothered to be ‘good’ to impress the people who came. But I remember when one of Yaman’s friend Minal came to see us. When she called us out, I perked my ears, tilted my head and looked at her. There was some connection between us. She called me ‘butterfly ears’ and said that I was very sharp and attentive. The other people who came to pick us up were looking for ‘pets’, ‘buddies’, companion for their kids etc. But Minal had come looking for a pup who could be a ‘Therapy Dog’. God know what that was!! No one had heard about it. But then she said to Yaman that I would be perfect as a therapy dog. She had selected me for a family who had a son who was not like other kids. Minal felt that I would be able to help this kid. So it was decided, a month later, I would be leaving my mom to be trained further as a ‘Therapy Dog’!!

For more on Therapy dogs, log on to our website: www.animalangels.org.in