The Dog and the Naan

Our dog Ben, is now a year old. He hardly qualifies as a pup. He's nearly five feet tall, standing on his hind legs. And his formidable size and structure does his dalmatian-Alsatian ancestry justice. However, for the most part, Ben acts like a coy, spoilt, and occasionally retarded child. He barks mindlessly at  suspicious looking shadows, proceeds to ignore my brother and me if we've been spending 'quality-time' together without him, sleeps on as cats strut about his territory. 


So far Ben is concerned, and both my parents, I might add, see it fit to encourage this attitude, he is not a dog. Chasing cats is a menial activity, far below his dignity. So far the aircon is on, and he has a fat pillow and a reasonably thick blanket, Ben doesn't have a care in the world.
Sometimes however, Ben's canine nature overpowers him and gets the better of him. One such incident happened the other night with a piece of naan.


Dad had brought some naan and kebab for dinner. Buro and I were thrilled to pieces because that would mean we could forgo Mum's egg curry. Ben, having finished his own dinner in the evening, sat looking at us dolefully. He had mastered his father, Maddie's talent of silent begging, fixing Buro and me alternately with big, brown shining eyes, looking very sorry for himself indeed. Out of the goodness of my heart, I tore off a piece of my naan from the corner, and tossed it to him.

Immediately, Ben's entire demeanor changed. He began wagging his tail and crouched down low. He then sprang on the helpless piece of naan and killed it with his paw. Triumphantly he picked it up in his jaw and sped off inside the room. After finishing dinner, I followed. I noticed Ben nervously scratching the corner of the room. As soon as he saw me, however, he abandoned the corner and gamboled over, wagging his tail furiously. Overcome by his friendly overtures, I settled down on the bed and switched on some 'How I Met Your Mother'. As soon as he saw that I was no longer a threat. He returned to the corner and resumed scratching. Curious, I strained my neck to see what he was up to. He was doing his best to bury that sorry piece of naan in the stone floor. 


"Ben!" I yelled in exasperation.
Ben growled softly, sensing danger to his precious piece of naan. He looked at me surreptitiously and took up the piece of naan again. The corner was not safe enough, he decided. He spent the next fifteen minutes alternately hiding it underneath a table and behind a pillow. The piece of naan was clearly visible from both locations. In fact it stuck out like a sore thumb in the rest of the spick and span room. Clearly, my poor humanoid-dog sucks at this. 


I heard Ben sigh. Finally, he jumped on the bed avec naan. and proceeded to paw at the matress. To his great delight, this unfurled, unlike the stubborn stone floor. He deposited his soggy naan...
"Ben! I don't want your sad naan! You dare hide it under the covers...just eat the damn thing!" I cried, pulling him by his tail. Mum who had been following the proceedings for the past half hour, collapsed in a heap on the floor, laughing.

"Here-you-go-you-stupid-dog." I said through gritted teeth, holding out the naan, now dripping wet, with one hand and holding Ben down by the neck with the other. Ben looked at me, and then at the naan, as if he was seeing it for the very first time in his life. Delighted he snatched it from my hand and tossed his head around. He pranced away with the naan and went on repeat aforementioned steps for the next half an hour.