Bulldog or ‘fug’?

The last time I had a pet was eight years ago, so if I should rightfully belong to this page, I am left with really no choice but to talk about my dogs again. Even if they’ve all gone underground.

My husband suggested that I write about why people like dogs and why people don’t. I think the people who like dogs like dogs because dogs are not like people.

Dogs give them joy they can’t get from people. For instance, they don’t disappear from the house and play golf the whole day nor do they karaoke the whole night like the men do. They don’t nag and get emotional and search for their spouse all day and all night like the women do. They don’t abandon their master for another even if they’re fed scraps or they’re never bathed so they have fleas.

An American friend once told me that humans are the worst animals on earth. Unlike puppies who leave their moms after a few weeks and become independent, humans will seek out their parents at age 30 to ask for money.

On the other hand, people who don’t like dogs don’t like dogs because of their fleas and smell. They also liken dogs to terrorists – they strike when you least expect it. I don’t know about this – I’ve been bitten three times by three dogs, yet I still like dogs. It’s just that my husband would rather have cats than dogs and I am not too fond of cats, so we’ve decided not to have pets at all.

But every time I see a pug, I end up missing all the pugs I used to have. All in all, I had five pugs in seven years. I had my first pug 15 years ago when people were not used to seeing pugs. When people see my pug, they’d say I have a nice bulldog. At that time, any dog that had wrinkles and a squashed nose was always mistaken for a bulldog. I would correct them and say that my dog was a pug. They’d say, "Fug?"

Puwede na rin.

I used to bring my pugs to the office to the consternation of some employees who couldn’t stand dogs. One day my pug peed on a roll of imported fabric from Japan. That was it. He was banned from the office and worse, I had to pay for the portion of the fabric that got wet.

Before I had those five pugs, I tried raising a big dog, an all-black German Shepherd called Bracer. Only a devoted dog lover would want to raise a big dog. Try giving him a bath and you’ll get one yourself. His food intake is equivalent to what can be consumed by a family of three plus one helper.

I used to take Bracer for a walk every night around the village where I lived before I got married. On one of our walks, we bumped into this group of people. Suddenly this middle-aged man, most probably a resident of the village, shouted at me and pointed at Bracer "That’s the dog that bit my wife!"

Huh?

Then he stared at me and said, "Hey you! You! You better lock up your dog!"

I stood there stunned and embarrassed. No one took Bracer out of the house except me, and Bracer never bit anyone as far as I knew. Worse, I never met this man in my whole life. I didn’t know what to say. I decided not to mind him. I just walked past while he continued saying things about me and my dog to his companions. What a grumpy old man, I said to myself. I figured that because of his age, he mistook my dog for someone else’s dog.

Indeed, he had done just that. Because after another round I bumped into him and his group again. Bracer started barking at the old man and wanted to pounce on him. The old man started laughing nervously and said, "Sorry I mistook your dog for someone else's. It was another dog that bit my wife."

Bracer continued to bark: "My dog is mad at you," I told the man. Serves him right, I thought. That man should have been bitten instead of his wife.

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You may have noticed my photo up there with a snake around my neck. My editor wanted me to write something entitled "Conversations with my twin snake," but I told her that my twin snake had long been cut up, dried under the sun and sold as a handbag. It’s a good thing that ridiculous stories about snakes in store fitting rooms, roaches in bottled softdrinks, pusa in siopao and "wormburgers" are no longer the fad. Or else, like the Afghan women under the Taliban, we might as well admit we’re back in the Dark Ages.