Mga Istoryang Sinauna: The Mallardog

Growing up in a farm, I had a menagerie of pets aside from the usual cows, rabbits, cats, pigs, and dogs -- and my parents were unfazed when I brought home albino mice, hermit crabs, and ducklings. The hermit crab, eventually, nakatakas. Never to be seen again. Yung ducklings, well, I brought home a pair, naming them Daisy and Donald (napaka-creative and imaginative ng names, ano? hehehe). Unfortunately, my cousin's dog killed the other, Daisy. I was inconsolable for days. The hurt was eventually forgotten, and  Donald grew up and brought us so much fun. I would place him in a huge washbasin where he would swim for hours.

The thing is, he didn't have friends. My uncle had itik (brown ducks), and Donald tried to befriend them -- and tried he did. Susunod-sunod sya dun sa mga itik, like a stalker, hoping to be noticed. Parang kawawang hanger-on or groupie. His efforts were all in vain though. Being a mallard, he looked quite different from the brown ducks -- with a brown body and gray wings with iridescent tips and neck and head that change color depending on the angle. The brown ducks would gang up on him, attack him with their bills, and chase him away, and he would hide behind some bananas, poking his head this way and that, checking if everything was all clear and safe.
 

Credit to http://www.allaboutanimals.org.uk

Finally, he just gave up befriending his "kind." Suko na sya.

Minsan narinig ko panay ang tahol ng mga aso at quack-quack-quack ni Donald. Isip ko, naku, the dogs might be attacking him. When I checked the ruckus, however, he was out there, "barking" along with our three dogs at people walking near our house. The acceptance he didn't receive from his fellow ducks, he got from our loving and accepting canines.