Zorro the dog was brought home – “saved” – by my father from imminent death, because he had a bad leg and the original owner didn’t want to keep him because he was the weakest link amongst his brothers.
So Zorro came to our house while I was still mourning the death of Taho, killed by stomach worms.
He was furry and white and had a black spots over his eyes (hence, the name Zorro), and he really had a limp and was obviously the weakest link.
(As he grew up, though, the black spots over Zorro’s eyes moved further up his head and away from his eyes, giving off the impression of having arched eyebrows and a perpetually surprised expression.)
It bothered me for days that he wasn’t barking. You’d step on his tail and he’d just open his mouth in pain.
Of course, nobody doubted the fact that Zorro was the dumbest dog to limp on earth. At a very young age he exhibited his dumbness by running straight into walls, or never remembering where his food was.
My Father made valiant efforts to redeem Zorro’s reputation, claiming that he was a descendant of Siberian Huskies (the connection being that Zorro’s main colours were black and white).
How it was possible that Zorro, of askal parents, mysteriously contracted Huskie genes, as if Huskie genes were pollen blown in all the way from Alaska to Quezon City, was of no interest to my father – he didn’t care about these details… but still hails Zorro as a huskie.
Siberian Huskies, native to Siberia and brought to Alaska, are said to be intelligent, playful, sled-dogs. They are said to be happy to work for hours on end, and that they have great stamina and need hours of exercise.
With this in mind I poked Zorro with a stick while he slept, hoping he would wake up and playfully bite my head and drag me across the house yipping happily, like a sled dog should. Instead, he groaned and ignored me. A fly buzzing over his head completed the picture.
And so years passed and Zorro never failed to amaze us. His exhibitions of sloth and laziness were so incredible that we bragged it to friends and invited them over to witness the magic themselves.
One time Julien was using the computer and heard an old man snoring and turned around in surprise; it was just me and my brother Tom in the room, and of course, Zorro. Julien’s face filled with wonder (and eventually, disgust) as the three of us bent over to watch this faux Husky snore and twitch from time to time in his sleep.
News has reached me that Zorro has fathered a child, baptised Butchog, who is the complete opposite of Zorro – intelligent, trainable, and not a Siberian Husky. He can fetch, he is playful, and is a canal water-brown colour.
Obviously, Butchog has inherited 99% of his mother’s genes (His mother is my aunt’s dog, Olga, 100% askal).
The remaining 1%, he exhibits during New Year’s eve, where he and his dad Zorro cower under the table, their dog-knees knocking in fear, as my brothers light up Sinturon ni Hudas-es.
Why I wrote a long post about Zorro puzzles me. There is something seriously wrong here.
