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TV Smith's Dua Sen. The politically incorrect irregular columnist combines
his idiosyncratic observations and tangential commentary into a blog...
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A
DOG'S BEST FIEND
by TV Smith
23/10/03
Through
a friend of a friend, I heard about a puppy outgrowing
the cage it was kept in. It was sometime ago but
that story would come back to haunt me, to jab
at my conscience, from time to time. Yet, I did
nothing.
Overcome
by guilt, I investigated the story recently. True
enough, at a village somewhere near KL, there
was a dog permanently caged. Sentenced to life-imprisonment,
the female mongrel was already eight-months-old
when I set eyes on her sad eyes. The cage, a chicken
coop actually, was not as small as I initially
feared. Her wardens do not regard the incarceration
as cruel nor unusual. In fact, they do love her,
in their own strange and ignorant ways. Ironically,
she was kept locked-up because they didn't want
her to get into trouble or to end up as a stray.
So she became their pet and prisoner.
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Today,
after some persuasion, the owners finally
agreed to let me 'borrow' her for a couple
of weeks. As I carried her out of the car
into the compound of my house, I was wondering
if I have made the right move. In her little
jail cell, she probably felt safer, protected,
isolated from the big bad world. Emancipated,
she was shaking, quivering, confused and
bewildered. Hours later, she was still keeping
to her imaginary boundaries. She sat silently
still, never moving from the same spot,
not even by a few inches. When she stood
up, she semi-crouched, as though there was
still a ceiling, inches above.
Despite growing up on a diet of mostly plain
rice, breadcrumbs and occasional leftovers,
she looks surprisingly healthy. But for
today, she'll have to make do with my cat's
tuna-flavoured Friskies. I suspect
she'll not like the taste, just like her
first taste of freedom.
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Should
I rehabilitate the dog or her owners? Should I
break my promise and not return her to her cage?
Will she miss her keepers and will they miss her?
For now, there is no indication, no bark, no whimper,
from the dog with no name.
©
2003 TV SMITH
Link to this article: http://www.tvsmith.net.my/duasen/231003_dog.html
Link
to TV Smith's Dua Sen: http://www.tvsmith.net.my/duasen/
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