The Biscuit: An Introduction

The Biscuit, although the name is reminiscent of all things British, cannot be dunked into your Earl Grey tea that you sip for breakfast. Nor can he be eaten with your breakfast grits, as he is not the small piece of bread with a firm browned crust, available all across America.

The biscuit that I am referring to is a two month old puppy in Karachi, Pakistan. He is ¾ Labrador and ¼ Golden Retriever, presumably with an impeccable pedigree. When you see him you might agree, but don’t ask me to produce a birth certificate or other document that vouches for nobility in his ancestry, because I have none to show. Does it matter? When your child, Rayaan my son, as in this case, is ecstatic to finally obtain his doggie-pup as compensation for moving across the globe to Karachi, from his birthplace and primary home, Houston, then confirming purity of the dog’s gene pool becomes unnecessary.

Why is Biscuit called The Biscuit, you might be wondering? I was hesitant to call him that, given that I was considering more macho names for male dogs. Like Fang, Wolf, Tiger…Yes, yes…I know so don’t roll your eyes at those presumably vicious dog names for a docile ¾ Lab. Blame the male factor or my mid-life crisis for coming up with those names. Biscuit was the one and only name picked by my wife, Ayesha, who has never in her life kept a pet (dog or otherwise, hopefully I don’t count) till now. So Biscuit it was, No questions asked (she made that amply clear).

Now I think that he’s earned his name for two reasons. One, he looks very much like the puppy Biscuit from the popular American series of children’s books. Two, he enjoys English tea time biscuits, particularly Marie biscuits, for which he seems to be a bottomless pit. Now if he had preferred chocolate chip cookies then the more appropriate name would have been The Cookie. But let’s not go off on a tangent here.

In the one month The Biscuit’s been with me he’s tried his utmost to declare alpha male status in various ways. He poops and pees with abandon and the spots that he picks to relieve himself are somewhat random. He scratches himself in his nether regions, also with complete abandon. He destroys my house plants as if they were placed specifically for his nefarious acts of mayhem, so I think he likely suffers from the ‘destructive male complex’.

Although catering to The Biscuit is a daily reminder that maintaining a puppy is like taking care of an infant all over again, with its inherent hardships, it’s been an enjoyable journey thus far.

The Biscuit is here to stay.   

Post-script: unfortunately, a few months after this story was written, Biscuit had to be returned to his original owner because of unforeseen circumstances related to keeping a dog in the housing complex where the author lives.  

[from the Karachi-Houston Diaries]

Acknowledgment: This article was first published in the Houston Inner Looper Newspaper, November 2014.