THE MISERABLE LIFE OF BOB THE DOG

The Andersons were a typical American family living off of one man’s income. They lived in the suburbs with a nice lawn out front and a miniature garden. Their family was made up of carl the husband, Sarah his wife, Caleb and Celine, their twins, along with Maxwell and baby Nora. Finally, there was bob the dog.

Carl grew up in a middle income family. He was the only son of his parents who had instilled in him the values of hard work. He went to a school for the rich and influential in other to build his social circle from an early age. He attended a top college and studied business administrations and graduated with honors in his course. He had had his life all planned out.

In his plans, after graduation, he would be scouted into a top firm where he would build his career from the ground up. After racking up enough promotions, he would go for further studies and get a master’s degree so that he would be able to take up more responsibilities. All this for the ultimate plan of taking over as an executive in his company. He was a true blue collar worker up his way up the corporate ladder.

Carl got married to his college girlfriend Sarah. She was a student in arts majoring in interior design. She was also a socialite and was the president of her class and a chairperson in their college sorority. She had all the making of a perfect house wife and companion. She could cook, host a social gathering, and was proficient in all social norms.

A family is not complete without a child in order to show off to the friends and neighbors what a perfect family one had. In this case carl and Sarah were doubly blessed.

Caleb and Celine were born on the 4^th of July, a very festive day. There was joy in the air and laughter all-around. All their friends came to visit and brought gifts and well wishes, and for them it was more enough. The plan was coming along and they could envision themselves far into the future living the life the had always wanted.

Like all things, plans are prone to change. Carl and Sarah failed to account for the share increase in the amount of work that had to be done in order to accommodate for the higher standard of living. Far into the future when the twins had encountered puberty and hormones were raging, the family of four had increased to six and as if that was not enough they had to go get a dog.

Sarah had to give up the work she loved the most and be a stay at home house wife in order to take care of the family, and carl became much busier. Going on business trips and overnight meetings so much so that the dream was getting much farther away from him. The kids were becoming a hand full and everything was becoming one big roller-coaster ride.

Today was a day like any other day for the Anderson family. Sarah woke up very early in the morning to enjoy a cup of freshly brewed coffee and revel in the momentary peace that she could afford before having to start another hectic day. After making a quick breakfast for the family, she went on to wake the whole house.

The twins were freshmen in high school and Maxwell just started middle school. Carl her husband was not at home having spent another late night in the office. Sometimes she would feel carl was cheating on her if it were not for the fact that she knew that there was an important project coming up in the firm and that depending on his performance, it would affect his prospects for another promotion. Though that would not stop him from frisking his secretary.

Usually after a night at the office, he would come home deadbeat and tiered and would head up strait to bed to take a very short nap before running back to the office again while she spent her days preparing their kids for school, doing the laundry, cleaning the house and admiring the gardener out front at the lawn. Sometimes she would wonder why she ever gave up her dreams in order to help fulfill those of her husbands.

After the kids had gone on their way to school, Sarah just now realized that today was extra peaceful. Usually, even after the kids had gone to school, the house would still be very noisy. That was when she realized that the dog was nowhere to be found. They’d been getting a lot of complaints from the neighbors recently. In recent days’ bob had been misbehaving a lot. He’d either be breaking up stuff in the house, or he’d be making a lot of noise and barking for the whole day. One-time carl, locked him outside and threatened to send him to the dog pound the next time he made a mess of things.

Ever since then, bob would go out with the morning sun and would come back either with a dead rat or squirrel or he’d be digging for buried bones in the backyard. There was one-time bob went digging in the laundry basket and when Sarah went over to stop him, she ended up finding a receipt for an out of the way motel room that she was sure she had never been to before in her husband’s trouser pocket. That led to huge fight in the house between the two of them and bob earned a severe beating from carl. There was no peace in the house for a long time.

Putting that stray thought away from her mind, Sarah went outside to look for him. Outside, their next-door neighbor, Mr. finch, was mowing his lawn. Mr. Finch was a very disagreeable man who just recently had a falling out with his two kids because he would not let his daughter to get married to the man she liked and he would not support his son’s idea to quit his job and start his own business. They never come to visit him again and he was not invited for his own daughter’s wedding nor has he seen any of her kids.

“good morning Mr. Finch”. Sarah greeted him.

“please have you by any chance seen my dog bob”. She asked.

Mr. finch who was mowing the lawn looked up grumpily and replied,

“you’ve gone and lost your darn dog again”.

“you had better keep him in a tight lease because if I happen the find him messing up my lawn with dead birds and rodents, I swear to the almighty I’m going to shoot him dead”.

“darn people not knowing how to take care of their own darn dog. You’d think they don’t feed him in that house with the way it goes around hunting rodents”, Mr. Finch muttered.

Sarah scrunched up her nose in displeasure because of the reply she received before going on her way. That was how distasteful Mr. finch could be, always finding ways to find trouble, and the part about not feeding her dog, she did not mind believing it was said out of spite. She decided to forget about the whole affair and just went on her way to do her own things believing that bob would come back on its own.

By the time bob was seen again, the kids were already back. Tracking in mud and looking very dirty, bob strode across the living room immediately dirtying the whole place. Sarah who was just about to go out to her weekly neighborhood meeting that she hosted saw this and was very upset. As this meeting was one of the very few things that she was still able to participate in by herself, and seeing as she did not want to be running late of end up missing it altogether, she roared out loud.

“bob, bad dog. Look at you bringing in dirt into my house. There will be no lunch for you today”.  “Now get outside to the backyard”. Saying so she called out to her daughter.

“Celine go out to the back and wash bob up so that he doesn’t bring in any germs to the house. I’m on my way out”.

Celine who was on the phone with her friends replied, “sure mom, on it”.

Turning back to her phone she called out offhandedly to her brother,

“max, mom said you should wash bob up”.

“no way mom said you should do it “, Max replied.

“well now I’m telling you to do it. Now get to it”. Saying so she forgot all about the matter and focused her attention on her phone.

It wasn’t until bob came to the front of her carrying his food bowl and still looking very dirty that she looked up from her phone. Seeing bob who she found distracting she was very annoyed and lashed out at him,

“go away you stinking dog. Go play with yourself or bother somebody else”.

Bob did not budge and seeing that he was not going away, she picked up her shoe and threw it at him while screaming, “get out of here. Nobody wants you here”.

Bob had to run away with his tail between his legs and look for someone else to give him his lunch only to be brushed aside again and again.

This was how it continued for a very long time. Whenever Sarah was at home, bob would go to her for his meals but would be punished instead for how dirty he looked and she would hand him over to her kids to clean him up, but they in turn will ignore him since they were either too busy on the phone like in the case with Celine, or they would altogether not care. Besides whenever carl comes home, it would already be a miracle if bob was not beaten and on the occasion that carl had a very bad day or fought with Sarah, bob would have to spend the night outside.

It was not until bob was found collapsed outside the door one early morning that they rushed him to the vet. It was there that they found out that he had been poisoned to death and that he was also showing signs of rabies. Bob was also found to not have been in good health prior to the death and was very malnourished.

It was not until one of the young volunteer came forward that it was known to the family that bob had been seen in the streets hunting down birds and rodents, or scavenging in dumpsters and having fights with the local strays did they know the cause of the dead bodies and bones and why he always came back dirty. Further investigation in covered the fact that all the dog food that bob usually ate in the house were expired and that it was Mr. finch who had poisoned the dog.

In the end all this stemmed from the fact that his owners did not take better care of their pet and went as far as to starve him that this unfortunate event happened.