Dogs – Men’s Best Friend

Having a dog is the best thing in the world. You have to believe me, dogs somehow can understand your every word, they just pretend to be dumb. For them, life is something to be enjoyed. Eat, sleep, get petted by their master for today, tomorrow, and so on. Imagining that kind of life happening for me, I would not want to go away from my home (unlike some ungrateful dogs. Yes Chewy, I’m talking to you). You see, since I was born, I’ve been around dogs. I love dogs. I am very sure God made dogs especially cute so that humans would adopt them. I myself have 3 dogs at the moment. A Labrador and Golden Retriever Mix, a Mastiff, and a Shih Tzu Mix. The oldest is my Shih Tzu mix called Lucky. As far as I can remember I’ve had a German Shepard (Lucky), two Japanese Spitz (Blizzard and Snowy), and a Belgian Shepard(Rex).

A funny story about Lucky: I adopted her when I was in primary school. During primary school, I had this headmistress named Mrs. Koshy. She was like those teachers that look stern and uphold rules strictly in school. However, in real life, she was like a teddy bear. She is a very gentle and motherly character. Coincidentally, she used to teach my mum back when she was in school. My mon used to study at an all-girls school nearby my school and she, too, used to teach there. One day, they coincidentally met at my school and spent hours catching up. Then, Mrs. Koshy told my mum that she and her husband were getting too old to take care of her dog, called Lucky. Mrs. Koshy then asked my mum if she could take Lucky, as she could no longer bear taking care of Lucky. Mrs. Koshy’s time was too tight because she also had to take care of her husband, who was getting chronically ill. In my house, dogs were not allowed indoors. But typically, Shih Tzu’s were kept indoors. So it would surely be a big change for my family to have a dog running around inside our home. I’ve never expected my mum to agree, but lo and behold, Lucky ended up getting adopted into our family. When we first got her, she was super scared of everything, especially being in a house with other dogs, at that time (about 10 years ago) I had a Belgian Shepard and a Japanese Spitz as pets. They were comparatively bigger than Lucky, so I guess they intimidated her a little bit. However, all things take time, and it proved to be true as not long after that she began making this her home. But, there’s a twist to this story. A month after adopting Lucky, my mum got a phone call from Mrs. Koshy. She said her kids were sad that she had given Lucky away. Mind you, Mrs. Koshy’s kids were already married and had left their parents house. So my mum reluctantly agreed to give Lucky back to her previous owner.

So then, the next day at school, Ms. Koshy called me up to her office and was asking about how we felt after giving Lucky away. I was unable to speak as only tears came out in silence. I had come to love Lucky even though I’ve only spent a little time with her. Mrs. Koshy then realized that it was impossible to make everyone happy. So she reverted back to her earlier decision in giving Lucky to us, and on that day we got Lucky back. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of guilt. I felt like I was taking their dog away from them. But the owners then told me that it was also their choice to give her away. Funny story isn’t it?

Lucky also used to have separation anxiety. Separation anxiety is triggered when dogs become upset because they were separated from their guardians or the people they’re attached to. Escape attempts by dogs with separation anxiety are often extreme and can result in self-injury and household destruction, especially around exit points like windows and doors. Lucky’s separation anxiety was so bad that she would get too excited when we come home and inadvertently urinate on the ground out of excitement. It eventually grew lesser and lesser after we had researched ways to prevent separation anxiety. Now, lucky just get a little bit excited, but not as much as before. It was certainly a major improvement for her.

We adopted Chewy about three years ago. A friend of my older brother said that her dog had just given birth to two puppies and that they were interested in giving them away because they could not handle keeping so many puppies. We drove down to Kuala Lumpur and adopted a cute little baby Golden Retriever-Labrador Mix. She’s now about 3 years old and is currently living up to her name by biting everything she sees, even my hand. She’s a very active dog who loves sneaking into the house when no one is looking. As she is so big, we cannot allow her inside the house because she would knock everything down. My house has a lot of silverware hanging around, so she could easily break things. But that doesn’t stop her from weaseling her way into the house to catch a few Z’s under the couches. I’ve never allowed her in but I indeed like it when she’s in the house (don’t tell anyone).

Our last dog is Max. Max was also given to us by a friend of our parents. Max is a huge Mastiff that scares everyone she meets. I’m sure she doesn’t mean to, it’s just the way she looks. In reality, she’s just a giant teddy bear who loves cuddles. Besides that, she is the laziest dog I’ve ever had. It takes at least two people to lift her off the ground in order to bathe her. Bathing her is another huge problem that we have in this household. Once she sees the hose, she bolts as fast as lightning to the back of the house, escaping every tactic we throw at her. We literally have to come up with secret plans to trick her into showering. We think that the main reason she behaves like that was due to the fact that she used to be kept in a warehouse as a guard dog before she came to us. I’m not insinuating anything, but maybe she wasn’t treated well at that place which is why she still has trauma about bathing. Now, we try to give her as much love as we can while trying to bathe her so that she will know that bathing is a fun thing. Having dogs is like having newborn children in the house. They always want affection and like playing all the time. I think this is why everyone should spend a few moments during the day with your dogs. The only thing they want from you is your attention and it isn’t that hard to give them that. Try to play with them for a while like teaching them new tricks such as sitting and laying down on command. It’s really fun and it also teaches your dogs to be a little more discipline. It will come in handy for times when they are being naughty around the house. Treat them once in a while. I read somewhere that apples are a good source of vitamins for dogs, but be sure to remove the seeds and the hard middle part! So nowadays, I feed them apples. Max loves it the most compared to all my dogs.

All in all, I really feel like having dogs is a blessing in life. They are such a good companion that will always be right beside you in the ups and downs of life. They would never betray you and they would never abandon you. They’re truly the best companion ever existed in the world!