Wednesday, May 03, 2006

all dogs go to heaven

just read junkgirl's blog entry of the passing of her dog. a painful experience.

brings to mind my own doggie friends who touched my life. scrappy, nicky, peggy, may, shorty and horny (yes, he was named horny, not a good idea when i come home after a night of gallavanting and he runs out of the house when i drive my car in. imagine screaming. "HORNY! HORNY!" down the neighbourhood at 3am. the tip to naming a doggie is to scream the chosen name a few times standing outside your doorstep, if it sounds ok, then go ahead. if it sounds bad, choose another name). there were quite a few others as my paternal grandfather had a kennel. oh yeah, there was also tony, the psychotic dog. he should have been put to sleep. too agressive for a pet. even bit my grandmother once. the woman who feeds him! he belonged to my equally psychotic auntie yin. the only person who can control him was my dad. hated the dang dog.

scrappy was a daschund mix breed. he was very good at hunting and catching snakes and rats. the game dog in him is really dominant at times like that. it's a good thing, coz there were quite a few snakes in my grandad's backyard at the time as it was near a jungle which is now been developed to a great loss of some green lung. scrappy loves car rides. he would stick his little head out the car window and his long ears would flap out behind him. great dog. one of my 2 favs.

nicky. i have no idea what breed he was. all i know that he's white, big and shaggy. we had him and peggy together. peggy was a poodle mix, she had curly hair. nicky was nicknamed 'mad man'. he goes wild when it rains. he just loves to play in the rain. funnily enough, he hates bathing time. the moment he hears the big aluminium can being dragged out, he runs and hide under the car. my auntie catherine and i used to take nicky an peggy for walks. she'll have peggy and i'll have nicky on my leash. i think it was nicky taking me for a walk, the way he'd drag me around. he was the other of my 2 favs.

may was a great dane. i was really young when may was around. i used to think that may was a pony! she was very gentle and sweet. nothing of her hugeness frightened me at all.

shorty. shorty, shorty, shorty. shorty loves to fight. he was an alsatian mix. goodness knows what he was mixed with, all i remember that was shorty had very short legs, hence the name. very original, i know. he was the paradigm of the alpha male. he protects all the dogs in the kennel. woe comes to any other dog coming to the kennel area. he even climbed over a 7 foot chain-link fence to fight dogs OUTSIDE. he's fine with the other dogs, but no outsiders. he's great with people. loves eggs and bananas and tummy rubs. he looks as though he's got a perpetual grin on his face.

then there was dolly. dolly, my ex-neighbour's tormented pet. she used to hit dolly with a rubber hose til my dad had a word with her. the next thing we knew, dolly was no longer around. she must have dumped the dog somewhere. a couple of years after that, we saw a dog looking exactly like dolly, looking into my neighbour's home from the street. the dog left after a long, lingering look. dolly never came back after that. it was almost 20 years ago.

mary's also no longer with us. mary was my auntie catherine's german shepard. when my cousin melanie was a new born, mary was her baby sitter. mary sits and sleeps just beside melanie's cot and would always run to get my aunt about 2 seconds before melanie starts to cry. mary was pretty smart too. she could open doors. back then, homes seldom used doorknobs, it was mostly doorhandles. mary could open those while standing on her hind legs. mary was a very regal looking creature. i'll never forget it when i was in primary one, aunt catherine dropped me off to school, and mary was in the backseat. my aunt's car was surrounded by kids, petting and cooing and just plain excited by mary. mary just sat there, tall and straight.

all these dogs are in doggie heaven now.

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