The Dog House Of Calabarry - By Dandy Ahuruonye © 2000 - 2014

 The Dog House Of Calabarry.

"If I hear one more bark I will put you in a time-out", shouted Yalarine. "But Mum...now you keep quiet, I don't want to hear any more buts", replied Yalarine. After this exchange Zarrot the oldest puppy slowly went to the playground for little dogs, and began to play with the other puppies. Meanwhile Calabarry the Papa dog sat at the front door and kept watch over the puppies, just to be sure none of them were behaving badly. Because it was late afternoon, Yalarine was a bit tired after breast-feeding the little dogs.

This doghouse was where Calabarry lived with his family. His wife Yalarine gave birth to thirty puppies after a long pregnancy that lasted for ten years.  Now Calabarry had to find food for his thirty little puppies and also for himself and Yalarine. Yalarine ate a lot because she had to breast-feed all the puppies, but this afternoon they had ran out of food. Calabarry's mind was busy trying to decide what to feed his large family for dinner when he realized that Zarrot was no longer at the playground.

"Zarrot!! Zarrot!!" He called out. But there was no answer. Calabarry got up and quickly and went to the playground, he looked around for Zarrot but could not find him. He asked the puppies but no one seemed to have seen Zarrot. "Yalarine!" He called out to his wife. "Yes darling", she answered. "Come here quickly please". When Yalarine arrived at the playground he told her that Zarrot was missing. "Where could he have gone? He was here just a minute ago, right, I will go and search for him."

 Calabarry told her to rest up, "oh don't worry, please go back to the house and rest I will find him". Yalarine went into the doghouse and lay down for a rest while Calabarry went into the woods to find Zarrot. "Zarrot!! Zarrot!!" He called out, and suddenly he heard a voice in the distance - "Daddy is that you? I am coming, where are you?" Replied Calabarry. "I am over here Dad." When Calabarry saw him he ran and hugged Zarrot. "Where have you been my son? We have been looking for you everywhere, why did you go out without telling me or your Mother?" "I am very sorry Dad; I went to look for food. I could see you and Mum were very tired, therefore I decided to go and find some food. Over here Dad, come and see, I found lots of food, we will never go hungry again".

He then took Calabarry into the woods and showed him a large heap of food he had hidden under a tree. "Where did you get all this food from?" asked Calabarry. "Erm.. Dad I saw a big truck drive up the road and into the wood, when I heard the roar of the truck I hid behind a tree so the people in truck wouldn't see me". Then I watched as the rear side of the machine began to rise up, it kept rising until one end was very high up. It was then that a man opened a door and came out, he went to the side of the truck and touched a button. Immediately the latch at the rear opened and all sorts of thing spilled out of the truck. When the truck was fully empty the man touched the button once again and the trailer descended slowly until it returned to its normal position.

After that the truck left the woods. When I was sure no one was around I went to check what the truck brought, I was very surprised to see so much food, therefore I hurried and collected as much as I could and hit it here so the other animals would find it.

Before he finished speaking they heard footsteps in the clearing, his Dada gave Zarrot a sign to stop talking and keep quiet. They saw several animals arrive at the dump to search for food. Some of the animals were fighting while others argued. Calabarry and Zarrot became afraid that the others might see them. Hurry, Calabarry told Zarrot, they put all the food in a large bag and quietly dragged it to their house. The other animals were too busy arguing that they failed to notice Zarrot and his Dad.

The bag was too heavy for Calabarry and his son to carry because it was full of food. Calabarry was a very strong dog, so he was pulling very hard while Zarrot pushed the bag from behind. Their home was still far away but it was getting dark now.

Meanwhile, Yalarine waited for a while hoping to hear from her husband and her son but they were taking too long returning. Therefore she decided that she and all the puppies would go and look for them in the forest. They took torches and lamps before leaving their house. Once in the forest Yalarine called out to Calabarry – "Calabarry are you there? Calabarry can you hear me?" Yalarine told all the puppies to make a bit of noise so they might hear them. By now it was dark, Calabarry and Zarrot couln't see where they were or where they were going.

Suddenly, Calabarry felt he heard something, "Shhh.. be quiet for a minute", he told Zarrot. "Did you hear that noise?" "Which noise?" Listen! Yeah, I can hear it, replied Zarrot. It sounds like the other animals are coming to take the food from us. Hurry, let us hide the food.

Yalarine asked the puppies to be quiet for a minute, she then called out once more "Calabarry – are you there? Calabarry!!"

"Come on Zarrot, it is your Mum, yeah! Yeah!! We are here". Yalarine and the puppies saw Calabarry and Zarrot hiding under a tree. He showed Yalarine and the puppies all the food they had in the large bag. "Where did you find all this food? It wasn’t me, I was searching for Zarrot. When I found him he told me he wasn’t actually lost. He found some food and was busy hiding some of it so the other animals would not take all of it. See! We have so much food, we will not be hungry anymore for a while". Waoh! Thank you so much Zarrot, Yalarine said as she gave Zarrot a big hug. All of them then helped Calabarry to bring the food back to their doghouse before they ate some for dinner and then went to bed

The next day the puppies were very quiet, so Yalarine asked them if everything was ok. They all replied – yes. "Why aren’t you making any noise like yesterday?" They told her that they made all that noise yesterday because they were hungry. But with all the food they brought last night there was enough for everyone to eat. So they just wanted to play instead of yapping and making noise. From that day on there was quiet in the doghouse of Calabarry

Edited by Rachel K Ahuruonye.