Published in January, 2026
A little background: In my childhood, I was dead scared of dogs. I would always be atleast a mile away from every dog I could sense! But, as I grew up, dogs started to seem nicer compared to human beings, and I ended up wanting to have one as a pet. Of course, my mother didn't allow me to have a pet in the house. So, the first thing I did after moving out and renting my own apartment was -- I adopted Goldie.
Who is Goldie: A female golden retriever, she was bought by a guy from a puppy farm when she was 2 months old. The guy failed to look after her -- she got a terrible flea infection and lost a lot of hair. This scared him and he gave her up for adoption for good when she was 3 months old. That's when I found her. Goldie. The guy named her; if I could, I would have named her Butter!
Goldie as a person/dog: Goldie is super friendly -- the other person/dog, or any living being for that matter, does not need to be friendly to be "friends" with her. She manipulates anyone and everyone to be her friend, by wagging her tail relentlessly, smiling with all her teeth and tongue out, and staring right into their eyes without blinking. She has the energy of a typical Golden Retriever, but she "retrieves" only when she wants to!
Goldie's likes and dislikes: Anyone who has spent 10 minutes with Goldie knows that she loves food - all kinds of food, except the ~zero calorie ones, like cucumber or watermelon. She also likes eating grass, used tissue paper, and bird poop. Activities that she likes include going on walks, riding on any >2 wheeler vehicles, chewing on bones/sticks/my scrunchies, humping on my leg, and begging everyone for treats and pets. On the top of the list of things that she dislikes is taking a bath/going in water. This is followed closely by being fed medicines, going home from walks, not being allowed to meet guests who visit our home, and being denied table scraps. One thing which did not make to any of these aforementioned lists is "cats", in which Goldie is very much interested -- but both of us are still in the process of figuring out how we feel about them!
Goldie's list of scary things: She has her own list of things which she is scared of. Although I do have a rough idea of the list, I have no clue as to how something makes it to the list. Anyway, here it goes -- hair dryer (irrespective of whether turned on or off), the pressure cooker in which her food is cooked, stools/chairs turned upside down, a random keyring with a rubber car, cows, the cactus toy which wiggles and echoes every sound it hears, foldable staircases, and so on.
This is it for now, I will write more about her later. Ciao!