Man’s Best Friend….. and more🐶

A pet, Sibling and a child. (Love is a four-legged word)

“Love is a four-legged word.” — Unknown

Approximately 2 days ago, i was having a conversation with my mum and younger brother about my dog “Zeus” and what his reaction would be like seeing my brother later this week after about 2 years of my brother being away from the country. i promise you i painted the scenario perfectly in my head because i knew how excitable and playful Zeus was despite his age. anyway, here we are today the 2nd of November and Zeus is gone because of people’s negligence. The ONE evening i didn’t leave my flat to check and make sure he was secure and well fed is the evening/morning he goes missing and it rained cats and dogs no pun intended all night through the morning.

I woke up this morning, feeling good as usual and i went downstairs, only to meet his spot wide open and he’s nowhere to be found. Called out for him endlessly to no avail. i felt he’d be drenched under a car somewhere trying to take shelter from the heavy rain or something but nah, Zeus is not in this compound anymore. I’m honestly just hurt and devastated it’s happened this way. not like he fell sick and died or something. just plain negligence. This is a dog I’ve had and taken care of for 8 years plus some change. I’ve been two streets away from my house, checked the drainages around looking for my boy but he’s actually gone and I’m honestly so angry and a wreck right now and i don’t want to take these emotions out on someone unfairly. I’m not meant to be at work today but i definitely couldn’t be in that house so I’ve just made my way to work..

I don’t feel he survived the heavy downpour and the flood if he had just been out in the open especially if he made his way out of the compound. No body, no goodbye, no closure, just gone in the fucking w̶i̶n̶d̶ rain. listen, i didn’t even play with him yesterday like i normally did every evening only because i was too tired after a really long day at work. now I’m here trying to even remember what the feeling was like playing with him last. such a shit way to start my month honestly. it’s just been a string of unfortunate events but i really have just been trying to focus on the positives and keep the vibrations high but this right here is an absolute bummer. this time last year, i was on the brink of depression and it just might happen again if i don’t find a healthy way to cope with this.

I feel like i would explode real soon, I’m very irritable, everything and everyone is on my last nerve, my sanity is dangling by a flimsy thread and i pray to God it snaps when I’m on my lonesome. i can’t even begin to imagine the cold and panic he must have been feeling, looking for somewhere safe to hide. normally if he leaves the house we know exactly where to find him- in front of (Rana) his girlfriend’s old house but there was no chance of that because of the brutal weather conditions.

My mum called me while i was at work trying to console me with “Don’t be too sad about it, thankfully it wasn’t a human child, Maybe someone picked him up in the rain” or some shit like that. i just got so irritated and kinda told her off in the heat of the moment and i feel so bad about that in hindsight. i understand her intentions were to console me but that can’t work unfortunately mom. i know for a fact that I’m still going to have a breakdown along the way but i just don’t want it to be right now. i don’t even now how I’m supposed to break the news to my brother cos i know for a fact he’s been looking forward to seeing Zeus again. i don’t think anything can console me honestly, not even another pet. i have invested too much of myself, my emotions and time into Zeus. He’s Practically family. I joke around and call him Pharmacist Zeus sometimes because he spends his evenings in our pharmacy by my mom keeping her company being the king of the castle.

“When you adopt a dog, you have a lot of very good days and one very bad day.” — W. Bruce Cameron

I feel like i lost a sibling or a child. it might sound silly but that was what Zeus was to me and some more.. I got Zeus in August 2013, not too long after my birthday. i had played with a friends lap dog called Bella and i honestly just fell in love with those small cute dogs and made up my mind to get one. Those were also some “lonely” times for me owing to the fact that i was the only one at home with my parents. My elder sibling was married and about her life, my younger one was just starting University so he was never really home. Just me, Zeus and my parents.

Zeus went any and everywhere with me when he was a lot younger, He was so smart, the only thing left for him to do was speak and honest to God, that wouldn’t have freaked me out one tiny bit. Zeus knew whenever i was down or sick, he new when a good time to play was and when to just chill. he was extremely friendly and fathered a whole 13 pups. He was loved and lived the best life a doggo could ever wish for.

It’s crazy how just about under a month ago i was in my feels and did a whole Instagram post of Zeus and Rana when they were puppies and just growing up together. Rana’s gone now Zeus is gone too </3

One minute you’ve got all these plans and images in your head of how you think stuff would go, the next minute you’re grounded in reality. i promise i saw myself in my mind recording a video of Zeus jumping on my brother out of excitement just a couple of days ago. i knew how and where i wanted the video to look like and all that shit but just look at life.

Humans, animals, whatever it is loss is loss and it hurts so much when there’s an emotional attachment. life is just so unpredictable. i wish words could describe how hurt i feel right now, my heart is literally paining me. I’m just at work, fake working and trying to get my mind off this shit. ordinarily, I’d have taken this day to myself and definitely moved to a vice or two just to numb all this bullshit but then i feel I’m past all that now and would like to deal with grief and loss a different way.

04:20pm

I’m back from work and for some absurd reason i have tapped into the dangerous hope around me and i feel like he’s been found and he’s back home safe. I have gone back to his spot and guess what? No Zeus still. it’s hit me a lot harder now and i can even see it’s hit my mom really hard too but i still don’t really get where the sense of hope people around me have come from. telling me maybe someone picked him up. and then what? took him to the Fire Station? lol. I feel anyone who picked that dog up would just go and sell him and use the cash for something else in this mad economy. having pets is quite a luxury in this day and age in Nigeria, especially if it’s not for security purposes. Zeus is gone mannnn and I’m having a really hard time comprehending any of this. it hasn’t fully hit me yet but i feel it coming.

03/11/21 — 06:25am

It’s the next day and I'm out for my morning run but I'm really distracted. Looking into gutters and drainages for Zeus but my efforts are futile and I'm also pretty sure people around looking at me are wondering if this guy has lost the plot. i managed to get 2 miles in and made it back home. had some breakfast, turned off my phone to get some sleep. An hour in and guess what wakes me up? Zeus barking!! 😭😭😭. Guys, I'm in my room thinking this is some fucked up twisted lucid dream or some weird shit and i finally get myself to go downstairs and guess who i see? Damn right! My boy is back home!!!!! Safe, dry and secure and I'm just overwhelmed with emotions that i haven't even had the calmness to ask how he got back home.

This post started with really really low vibrations and could easily have ended that way but for some reason things turned around for the better, i managed to hold it together without indulging in any vices or taking out my red hot rage on the guys who were supposed to take care of Zeus. I'm also really happy i took the initiative to go to work and not remain in that environment to let any anger brew because that could easily have lead to a number of bad decisions and or words i could not have taken back. grateful for the wisdom to unplug and just be in my own zone and not project unnecessarily cos i was definitely a bomb ticking the whole of yesterday.

Honestly, as at this morning’s run, i was just hoping to find a body because there is no way under these bright skies that i felt that dog could survive that night out/morning in that crazy weather but it turns out some little angels saw my boy drenched, delirious and far away from home late at night on the streets and they took him in. Their parents did not approve because they were scared of dogs and they put him out again but these kids cried so much, their parents had no choice but to let them take care of him.

The day he went missing, i had put up a notice of a missing dog on the residents associations platform of where we live; giving a full description of Zeus, his collar, demeanor and 2 phone numbers to contact if he was ever found. the news got to their parents eventually and they finally got a hold of the second number i provided seeing as my own number was turned off all day (I was really going through it i swear)… They left home to pick him up while i was asleep, got there and Zeus was elated seeing familiar faces. those little angels took care of my boy, gave him a bath and bought him some dog food. their parents confirmed ownership and handed him over and that absolutely gutted those kids. they wanted him to stay so bad but life. we sent them some money as a Thank-You and i have made a promise to get them a puppy just like Zeus that they can love and call theirs too.

In the end, this was a lesson in Hope and resilience for myself, learning to be steadfast in my faith and also tapping into the energies of people around me (Which is something i have been preaching for a while now but somehow skipped the practice part 🤦🏽‍♂️) Everyone but me had hope that Zeus was picked up and alive and i feel some shame about that. Ultimately, Zeus will die someday but I'd prefer if it were from natural causes and not negligence or preventable things like this.

I hope everyone else has a better start into the month. if you do, be kind enough to spread the vibrations to someone who isn’t. soooooo until my next entry. ✌🏽

Love, Light and give your dog or any friendly dog a belly rub today. 🐩

“If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it; to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and, prospectively, to equally profound sadness.” — Marjorie Garber

I still miss rana a lot and have a lot of fond memories of her just being a bad bitch. Dogs are the closest things to human beings in my opinion. others might argue monkeys or apes but i haven't had that experience yet. Dogs show so much emotional intelligence and if you haven't had a dog in your life at some point, Too bad.

Rana