Ishan Ghosh’s family has always had multiple dogs, and female ones at that. “The girls simply have better temperament; plus, once the tradition began, we had to stick to a single-sex household to prevent accidental breeding,” he says.
But a few years ago, a family friend was moving out of town and his male Cocker Spaniel Coco needed a home. “We were unsure, but took him anyway. Alas! Coco mated with Butter, our female Labrador,” says Ishan. “Nonetheless, we were happy that puppies were on the way and sad at the thought of having to give away the males in the litter. Luckily, Butter delivered a single pup, and it was a she.”
The puppy was wheatish-coloured, like brandy, so they named her just that. Brandy is now 13 years old, with the body of a Lab, ears of a Spaniel and a heart of gold. “But she can be naughty. The other day, she polished off all the fancy biscuits I had saved from my Rakhi gift basket. They were kept atop a cupboard, but still she managed to reach them,” says Ishan.
Not just Brandy, there’s Whisky too. “Whisky is a white Retriever. Her parents were named Ice and Soda, so she was destined to be named Whisky,” laughs Ishan, who’s preparing for his MBA entrance tests. Whisky is the hall monitor, who alerts the household if any other dog walks into the thakur ghor eyeing the prasad.
Finally, there’s the German Shepherd Dog Sandra, who is calm now, but only because she has braved way too much early in life. “At three months, she got parvo, a potentially fatal disease. At six months, a mango seed was stuck in her throat for a week and she was on saline till it passed out with her stool. And at eight months, she fell off our under-construction second floor,” Ishan shudders to recall the horror.
Today, Brandy is most attached to Ishan, Sandra to his dad Indrajit and Whisky to mom Ishita. The dogs almost have an entire floor to themselves. They walk in and out of the lift when required, and Whisky even manages to open collapsible gates. They love playing in the huge balcony, which runs along the entire length of the house.
“It has been my dream to have a house with three or four dogs – in fact, the more the merrier,” smiles Ishita. “I’ve grown up with dogs, and I wanted to gift my son the same joy. A house is not a home without dogs.”