They call it puppy love...

As a black person born and raised in rural Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, my love for pets, especially dogs, was minimal until recently, when a puppy stole my heart.

- Masoka Dube

It was last month when the painful story unfolded of the puppy that drew my attention and fuelled my love for dogs.

Every day after work my friends and I spend a few hours at a chilling spot near the road. As we were talking I saw a brown puppy crossing the road to the nearby dumping site.

She went back to the residential area and came back again, which was strange and tempted me to follow it to see what was happening.

When she arrived at the dumping site there was a carcass of a female dog.

The puppy sat nearby and looked at the body for more than an hour.

After looking at the dead dog, which I suspect was her mother, she crossed the road to the houses on the other side of the road, which is the action she repeated for the next three days.

There were times where she was chasing away the rats that wanted to eat the carcass.