If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.
– Woodrow Wilson, 28th US President
I was very distressed when I lost my four-month-old puppy, Bailey, for almost an hour recently. Although it was only an hour, it seemed like ages.
The puppy had followed me to my backyard garden when I decided to trim some of the overgrown branches of my mulberry tree and other trees. I was busy pulling the weeds which had overtaken part of the garden when I realised Bailey was missing.
I called and called and there was no response. That was when panic set in. I looked high and low for the naughty and curious puppy among the bushes but there was no sight of it.
“If it is lost, lost lah. Never mind. That means it is not fated to be with you forever. But first, you must look hard for it,” I consoled myself.
Actually, my family has a history of losing puppies. In the last 15 years, we have lost two puppies. Both were a few months old and were lost when they slipped under our front gate and went out.
One was white and black while the other was black. Both were mixed breeds. By the time we realised they were not around, they were nowhere to be found.
My nephews combed our neighbourhood and called out the puppies’ names while doing so. But no puppies came forward.
Up till today, my niece, Ah Hong, insists our black puppy was taken in by someone in our neighbourhood. Everytime we pass by a house about two or three lanes away, she will say,” The owner of this house took our black puppy, auntie. How do I know? Because when I called out the puppy’s name, a black puppy came out and wagged its tail,” she said.
Frankly speaking, I have never seen a black dog or any dog in that house. If I see it, perhaps I will know for sure whether it was our puppy or not.
Looking back, I realised my family had made a big mistake when we failed to put a collar or tag on both the black and white puppy and the black puppy.
Even if we had found them, how could we prove the puppies were ours?
Learning from this grave mistake, I made sure Bailey, our latest puppy, had a collar from the start. When Ah Hong came back for a short holiday, she bought Bailey a collar with a bell. The bell will ring everytime Bailey moves, making it easier for us to locate it.
Now back to the day when Bailey went missing for nearly an hour.
“Bailey, Bailey, where are you?” I shouted as I walked on the lane at the back of my house and other houses.
There was no barking sound except for the sound of my slippers on the cement path.
I checked the lane from left to right twice, peering into all the gardens and the drain. I went round twice.
For the first trip, I brought along my old male mixed dog, Cookie. I put it on a leash and the gentle dog just walked nonchalantly past my backyard garden. Other dogs in the neighbourhood gardens came out to bark when they saw Cookie walking by.
“So if Bailey is not here, where did it go?” I asked myself as I became more worried.
One of my nephews, Kiong, had given Bailey to me when I told him I needed a puppy to keep Cookie company after my pet cat, Mi Mi, died recently. Kiong told me that it was a gift from his friend. Bailey is a mixed breed female, brown puppy with a long nose, long body and sharp claws.
Cookie lost its appetite, became depressed and listless after Mi Mi died.
I was sweating profusely by the time I took Cookie back to the front porch of my house. It was hot and sunny that afternoon.
Refusing to give up, I decided to make a second trip to the back lane shortly after. This time, I walked alone, armed with a smaller dog chain and a long stick.
Calling out Bailey’s name, I again peered left and right into my neighbours’ gardens. As I approached the back of my house, suddenly I saw something moving in the drain.
When I came nearer, I was surprised to see Bailey. It stood in the big, deep drain full of dirty smelly water from households in the neighbourhood. It tried to climb up the cement path but the drain was way above its head.
When I pulled Bailey out, it was trembling and could not stand up straight. The dog chain was useless because the puppy refused to walk. It must have been shocked when it fell into the drain. I had no choice but to hug and carry the dirty and smelly puppy home.
Since that incident, I do not allow Bailey to play in the garden. I don’t want to lose it again. Once is enough.
