I've never been so close to a pet owner until my second year in school. My landlord had a local dog that accompanied him almost everywhere he went. The guy was a young man, in his early 30s back then, and used to engage in a lot of 'big boy' activities, like bringing many ladies home. Whenever the ladies who didn't like having dogs around visited, he would either cage the dog or block its access to his house. The dog would start to bark due to the slight mistreatment.
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During those moments, I used to wonder a lot about how a dog could get jealous of its owner being with ladies. Most times, I would jokingly say to the dog to go and change into a lady when its anger reached its peak. Hehehe🤣
This thing continued; our landlord never showed concern and tried to appease his pet. No, he kept hearkening to his girlfriend's wishes, which was somehow normal because naturally guys can not avoid ladies. The dog would bark endlessly, and when it got tired, it would reduce the intensity of the barking. My friends and I would go to the cage to throw some pieces of food to calm it down, which oftentimes it wouldn't eat due to anger.
One day, when we returned from school around 3:00 pm, we found the landlord outside with his shirtless body soaked with sweat. We asked him what was happening, and he said he'd been looking for the dog since morning and hadn't seen it, which was very unusual. We didn't pay much attention; we just told him to relax and that it would return before nightfall. It's possible it went to have some fun outside with its friends.
He didn't agree because he knew his dog and sensed something was wrong.
We went in, had our quick lunch, and came out to help him search. We moved around our vicinity and even went out of the street, but we didn't see it. We saw other dogs playing around, dogs that looked like it, but they weren't.
Night came, and we still didn't see it, neither did it return. That's when we concluded that something was wrong; it was obvious the dog was in danger somewhere. Although our landlord was so restless from the evening to midnight, he really felt it, and thankfully, no lady was around that night because I'm sure he wouldn't have been so concerned.
That's how we slept, and very early the next morning when we woke up, we saw the dog sitting on the veranda. The landlord checked its body to see if there were any wounds, but nothing was found.
What happened to it? What held it from coming home last night? These were the questions we kept asking and imagining, but we couldn't get an answer because dogs don't talk.
Since that day, he changed his approach towards the dog whenever a lady was around. He would pet it, feed it well before going to meet the lady, and with that, the dog would forget to bark or get angry that its owner was leaving.
Thanks!
This is my entry to the #aprilinleo prompt, Day 23.
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