My Guyanese Pup

Floyd.

My little friend in the animal world. I loved him the moment I met him and still do wish I could have returned home with him by my side. But because of financial troubles my mum wasn’t able to get his shots or anything so we ended up leaving him in Guyana and it broke my heart that I gave affection to a street dog and two days in from me and my mom going back home he had strayed out from my grandmas yard and to my knowledge was then dead in the street.

The dogs out there usually are not domesticated but for me I wanted a puppy so bad that I had purposely crossed the line which now do sort of regret because I still had held him close to me and gave him my love and care which dogs out there are not used to. He was from a litter of sick puppies where I forget how many of his siblings he had and how many had died from having worms. But this puppy was special to me and to this day I regret not playing with him more than how much I did.

I forget exactly when it was but it was some time around my 16 birthday when I had gotten him and to my amusement he wasn’t too much of a fan of my birthday cake (but I was because all cake is delicious (at least to me) so I thought maybe sharing it with him would have been a good idea.) The dogs are considered “rice eaters” so to my dismay giving him birthday cake may have been a bad situation because he would miss all of the luxury once I had to leave.

Funny story: Floyd brought a smile to my face and a slight panic in my heart when this one time me and my mum were looking for him in my late granny’s house. We spent about five minutes looking for him and to my surprise had eventually found him nuzzled in the crotch of my grandmothers doll. Probably needed that warmth of something I could not give him. Me being human and him being a dog. Possibly missing it’s mother. Writing this I fail to not feel guilty because I miss him so much. It’s been about 7 years now since I’ve lost him. Although I had him for about a week or so it was still a week I wish I’d get back and enjoy more if I had only known I would have lost him too. Possibly a little less than a week because I am quite time disoriented. Regardless of that Floyd was my first puppy that was all mine and brought me joy and comfort to being a pet owner.

Growing up we had three dogs at three different stages in my life. Our first one was Fluffy. A golden retriever. I was quite young when we had her so I don’t remember much about her but she was our first house pet and I always felt bad for our reasons of giving her away. The reason being because we would travel often and my mum felt as though Fluffy would be better off in a home that could care for her more than our family did.

Our second dog was Sydney. I was quite young as well when we had him/her as I don’t remember the gender. But Sydney was an interesting dog and because we had not known to have trained it… Sydney would go wild and would try to take off more than often. I remember this one time that Sydney made a small jump in the air and caught a bird in its mouth which honestly is my best memory of having him/her besides this one time a wasp stung me and I was too incapable to let my mum know that so she believed the dog bit me instead.

Our third and last dog was Sasha. My older sisters pick and our pupper may have had spots but was certainly no Dalmatian. I’m not sure of her breed and we didn’t have her for much of a time. I guess just the issue of my family travelling constantly that we could not afford to bring our pets with us or were able to find someone to babysit them.

In all fairness I would love to find or adopt another dog someday but I’m in no mental space to care for it. Which breaks my heart because animals really are a humans best friend and I just wish that I could’ve done more in the past to enjoy time with them and practice my ability at caring for something.