The work from home set up of my company requires us to do zoom meetings with everyone from the office 5 days in a week. Last week one officemate was missing and we learn Jae was in distress as his dog died. It reminded me about my own loss. We were both fur parents and at work we would always make fun of it treating our dogs like they are real children. Like we would joke how we send our dogs to the same exclusive schools and that Jae is the PTA president and I’m the Vice President of the PTA and that they are classmates with the real kids of our boss. And him being the president of the PTA puts him in a superior position with our boss if only for the school set up of our kids. Our office mates would often join along asking us about our dogs activities and we would invent replies such as we are sending them after school at ballets and soccer practice. Jae’s mom recently passed away last year and she is very dear to him, they live together. And since then he is just left with two dogs to accompany him at home. I could only imagine how this loss would affect him once again. And reaching out to comfort him I’m also confronted with my own loss. Last February I’ve lost 2 dogs. So when I say that this past months of 2020 has been brutal its an understatement.
Typing this just breaks my heart. I’ve lost two dogs in just a matter of weeks apart. First was my baby puppy shitzu named Giambatista, aka Giamba a baby girl. She was hit by a car. She’s almost 5 months with me. She stole the heart of everyone in my family and all the relatives in our compound. I have 3 dogs actually they were four, but had the other one adopted by the family of my helper. She was a chihuahua with a mixed - she is slightly bigger than the usual. I had her so our male chihuahua can have company but she turned out to grow bigger than him and also quite very playful that having 4 dogs at our puny space just got a little too much to handle. For the longest time I only had Dolce, he’s a male terrier sold to me by a neighbor named Dulce. But his name is based on the Italian Designer. A cousin of mine suggested that I raise a dog since I don’t have a child of my own and so I did. I raised Dolce and shortly became part of our family for 7 years. An addition came when a friend gave me a chihuahua we named Gabanna nicknamed Gab or Gabi. We almost gave him to my maid when she returned home to her province because she also became attached to the dog but my father won’t give him up. Soon another addition was added a shitzu, this time a girl we named Giamba who would be Dolce partner when she became of age. Until we lost her one day last February. I did not talk about it because it’s too painful, alas that was not the end of it. Two weeks past and Dolce was gone. As in lost with no trace. For weeks on end we search for him in neighboring villages and subdivisions calling out his name. I also posted in my social media as well as joining pet groups in Facebook. My mother went to the police in my town to report also but to no avail. Most of the townspeople in my town knows Dolce because if I’m at home I would always walk him and all the dogs to the park or he would accompany me or my mom in going to the public market . My boyfriend suggested I would look for him in a pound. Unfortunately we don’t have that here. At first we just suspect that he probably just went to some female dog who is having the fertility stage you know pheromones. But a week past and he never was home. He was probably was taken randomly and brought to another town and was caged or tied. Breaks my heart imagining it. Dogs love their freedom and all the more Dolce because he never experienced being caged or isolated . Like what of tiger king said ,You know why animals die in cages ? Their soul dies. I felt that. What if dolce is crying and being stressed out looking for me. It would be even acceptable if he forgets about me because he’s being treated well than him being depressed and longing to be freed. My dolce has always been treated like he’s one of us. He would demand food while we are eating our meals and he would just sit and stay when I’m at my room doing nothing or he would just follow me around the house or outside. But he is also smart enough to know if I’m leaving for work.He can cross the street and knows the proper timing always looking out for passing vehicles. Sometimes I thought dogs don’t deserve us. They’re just too smart, loving and fiercely loyal. I hope who ever took him would just love him too much And wanted him because why else they have to steal the dog. I sometimes still have lucid dreams about him. I have tears when I wake up.
And so last week upon learning about Kendra . (Jae’s dog- a female cross breed Labrador - chow) Reminded me about the fact that Dolce is also not around anymore. No body to have a proper burial or a proper grieving for me but Kendra was gone due to sickness. She is 5 years old. I comforted Jae by saying that just go through the proper grieving because unlike me I haven’t really grieve the loss of my dolce. the hope of still finding him still hovers over me. I told him about what my fengshui friend said about me losing 2 dogs in a month that my dogs absorb all the negative energy that was supposedly intended for me it’s hard to accept that they have been some sort of shock absorber. Again that just some ways where we attribute and make sense some things we don’t understand happening. I joked him about me assuming the presidential position of our PTA because of what happened but then at least he’s got another kid, an Askal dog named Boyboy.. and me I still have Gab, not as clingy and entitled as Dolce but quite independent .And since the lockdown I also adopted one of the dogs of my neighbor , they have to be temporarily move to another town. I also took it upon me to feed the remaining dog left at their compound. I hope wherever Dolce is he’s not in a cage and just still being a boss. He would have been eight this coming June 20.
Giamba
This is Dolce
No comments:
Post a Comment