A Story of a Dog

I watched 'Nasi Lemak 2.0' movie directed by Namewee on Friday, and there was this dialogue being repeated over and over again throughout the whole movie. The man with spectacles who spoke broken Manglish was looking at a photo and with a frowning look he said,

'狗不会瘦，因为狗不会思念。

人会瘦，因为人会思念。'

Many people may think of these 2 sentences as funny verses to laugh at, but definitely not me. To me, it's been unfair to say that dogs don't miss, or dogs can't miss. Because I have a story to tell, a true story that had really happened in my real life.

Now the story begins...

My maternal grandfather (mother's father) passed away when I was 13, and ever since he married my grandmother he'd been living in a small rural village in Seremban. I've always known that my grandpa was an old man who was a very fervent dog-lover, and there'd never been a lack of dogs in his house back in the village. He'd built a big bungalow on a lawn with green grasses and huge trees, and we could always spot some four-legged fury creatures standing strong besides a small chicken farm and running free around the whole house. As far as my memory could accommodate, I knew of this dog which had accompanied my grandpa to his every last breath of life, and which itself had lived a long life of it own too.

It is not some dog with decent descendants, or with blood that flows with the pureness of any noble species. It's simply a male stray dog with golden furs, a pair of kind eyes, and barking sounds that are stern enough to scare strangers away. It has a swollen mole on its black wet nose and my grandpa had always been very proud of it - see, he has a mole on his nose, just like the mole on my arm. And yes, I'd loved the dog very much too. I don't know if it's the loyal nature of dogs that moved me, or I inherited the genes from my grandpa. I seem to love dogs as much as my grandpa loves them too.

It has a simple name - Bobby. Bobby has a simple life too. To him the lawn and the house were his home, and he never needed to be chained up anywhere because no matter how far he went, he would always remember the way back home. Dogs seem to have miraculous minds of interpreting people's thoughts. My mum told me from experiences (she grew up with my grandpa's dogs too), that dogs know if a person loves them or otherwise, and will respond and act accordingly. And because of that characteristic, Bobby loved every family member in the house, especially my grandpa. My grandpa fed him, raised him, played with him and took care of him; and in return Bobby gave all his loyalty to him. And I believe it was this loyalty that might have killed Bobby in his elderly life.

When I was 9 the State Government of Negeri Sembilan wanted to develop the village and thus the land where my grandparents lived in was retrieved with considerable amounts of compensation money. My grandparents never wanted to leave as the house had always been the only home they recognised, but they was left with no choices but to move away. So they took a decision to move to KL to live nearby their children including my mum, but they didn't take Bobby with them. In their opinions Bobby would not be able to get used to the life in a city in which he would have to be locked up behind the gates and with no freedom to be offered. So my grandpa parted with Bobby with great pain by giving him away to a neighbour, hoping that the new owner would keep him under the same environment, and the same amount of cares.

But what you think of others may not be what others are truly thinking about. Once my grandparents left, Bobby never ate, never drank, and never slept. He howled all day and night with such hurtful voice and grievous emotions that pained everyone who knew of him. Every time when the night arrived, he would walk solemnly to my grandpa's house that had already been demolished and lie on the ground where only debris of the past home was left. He would stay there until someone cruelly pulled him away, and would return once he missed my grandpa again. He was waiting for someone to return, and to take him away to the 'HOME' which he defined as a place where he could live with his family - the one he really missed and loved - no matter where it was, as long as he was not left alone.

A few weeks later my second uncle went to Seremban for some business matters and he took the opportunity to go back to the village to visit Bobby. And it was a heart-wrenching scene to look at. When Bobby saw my second uncle, he turned into such active creature that shocked the neighbour who had never seen him so energetic before. He ran towards my uncle and jumped on him with full speed and all his mights. My uncle laughed but what he saw next immediately bewildered him. Poor Bobby was crying. He clung onto my uncle's legs and hot fresh tears poured out of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

That was the first time ever my uncle saw a dog cry. Once he returned to KL he told my grandpa everything he saw, and my grandpa was so upset he cried with all guilt for the decision he had made to abandon Bobby all alone. Immediately he demanded that his daughter (my auntie) drove a van to Seremban as soon as possible and retrieved Bobby back to him. And it was as if Bobby had already known everything beforehand. When my auntie opened the door he quickly jumped into the van and sat in the van silently throughout the whole journey. But according to my auntie, he wasn't exactly silent at all in the van. He was weeping with tears and liquids were flowing out of his nose. He used his front paws to wipe them away and at that very moment, he looked so much like a real human - humans who are known to be the only creatures on the globe with feelings and emotions - and he had them all. His loyalty surpasses everything on earth and outshines every human who calls themselves the brightest living things with brains but never utilises them in a correct way. And I, after hearing the story, started to respect every organism around me, and also reflected on myself of how I'd been as a daughter, a sister, a student, a friend, a lover, and a HUMAN.

Bobby adapted quickly to the new environment and he was once again alive despite his old age. However, my grandpa's health began to deteriorate and when he passed away when I was 13, Bobby was quiet and peaceful all the time. I didn't see him during the entire funeral, but I knew he was somewhere mourning for his owner's death deeply. He continued to live with my grandma who saw him as a piece of memories left behind by my grandpa, and he lived strongly until he grew very old and very ill too. He finally left the world and my grandma adopted another stray dog which is a female with black furs. But whenever I look into her eyes and she looks back at me too, it's as if I'm seeing Bobby's black eyes inside them, and once again Bobby is alive, but in a different body.

So dear friends, do cherish your pets at home if you have one (especially dogs), because to them you're their everything, and their whole world. If you abandon them for whatever causes, it'll be as if their whole lives have been sucked out of them, and they'll be left with only void volumes inside their bodies. Don't be cruel to them. Once you willingly pick up the responsibility to take care of them, be sure you can hold it forever until their last seconds of lives, because they'll love you, and you'll have to love them too. If there's no reciprocity in a relationship, I'd rather that you don't establish it at all.

End of story peeps. Cheers. And please love animals.