The Wordsmith

The first dog in my memory was Snoopy. He was a dachshund. I was four. Maybe three. Perhaps five. There was Bingo too. She was Snoopy’s daughter I think. Snoopy was such an old man dog. So mature. Like an uncle. He looked after me. I think he played with me because he felt obliged to. Like an adult babysitting a kid.

I wanted to be a vet because of Snoopy. He was just so…grown up. He taught me how to plan grown up stuff.

And then it was Shandy and Brandy. Both dachshunds. Shandy was named for the colour of his fur, a rich golden brown. He was such a girlie dog, even though he was male. He would go under grandma’s flowers at 2pm sharp, ‘cos it was hot; and come out at 5 with tiny flowers stuck to his head. Like clockwork.
Brandy was a boy dog, very macho, a bit overweight. He had a brother, Whisky, who lived with my cousin.
Charcoal was a little black dog with a hip problem. We believe he was dognapped. He looked like a Rottweiler. But he wasn’t one.

Butch and Dozer were brother and sister. A lovely lovely set of German pointer-boxer mix. They were truly intelligent. Butch would wait for my sister everyday after school. Dozer could open doors. She used her brains to get food. And because she was so smart, she got really fat. In those days, a man would come in his van and sell fresh meat and vegetables out of it. He would wrap it in paper and tie it with string, and grandma would saunter back from the van to the house. Butch would walk her out. More than once, by the time she got back, the lovely fresh piece of meat would disappear from her packet. Without a trace.

I was about in college overseas, about to get into university. I couldn’t go through with veterinary science. Couldn’t even bring myself to euthanise a living creature. Couldn’t even think about it.
When I started work, Sheba was the newest addition. She was a furry black fluffy ball. A Rottweiler but with long curly fur. We suspect she had a hint of retriever in her. She learned how to open doors from Dozer. And then she taught herself how to sing, especially when there was food around. She loved to eat buah langsat. She would take them out of the plastic bag, one at a time, peel it and eat the sweet fruit inside. We would buy her her very own pack of buah langsat and sit around the TV, eating it together. One time I caught her taking a nap next to mum, her head on the pillow. She had stolen in and decided she wanted a share of mum’s headrest. That’s what I call, a dog living dangerously.

My friends, cousin and I would give her hair cuts once every couple of months. She loved them, and she loved baths because her hair was so thick. Sheba recovered from paralysis caused by tick fever. We made her a wheelchair, gave her daily therapy, got in a TCM practitioner to massage her. She was the catalyst that brought my uncles closer to us, a closeness that remains strong today. She died of bone cancer and is buried with a gravestone.

Sheba taught Pepper about car rides and how to be queen of her domain. Pepper sings a little too, though a different song. She came to us at nine months old, given away because her first humans did not have time for her. She rules over her boy dogs now - Obi, Max and the others. She even has her own bed. Spoilt silly because if there’s nothing else in the world, her humans know that dogs love unconditionally.

I believe dogs teach each other things, little behavioural idiosyncrasies like opening doors, singing and car rides. For me on a very personal basis, that’s how my dogs pass their heritage on to the next generation.