For Choi Choi

I use to call him “Botsoy” in this high falsetto tone as if I’m talking like a child. Often, he will just look back at me and not bark at all. He really is not a yappy dog even if there’s already a visitor at home. Like any other pooch, he is always in this perturbed mode whenever you come home unless he is being caressed in any way. And because he was just in his infantile years, he already damaged a lot of things in the house by playing around. Hehe.

Unlike Angke whom we raised and nurtured from babyhood, Choi Choi was already 5 months old when he was first welcomed in our house. Kuya bought him a month after Milky died. I was going down from the stairs when I first caught sight of him. And being not stranger to dogs myself, I instantly played with him. Ever since that moment, I know he is a keeper for life. He was sometimes an object of fun in the family due to his strange looks. Lem oftentimes call him “daga” coz he looks like a rodent but we love him just the same.

‘Twas a Monday afternoon coming from a 2-day assisting a burial in Laguna, I was walking through the doorsteps when I first heard the news. I didn’t weep at the announcement. I was just deadpan at first. I was thinking of someone to blame for the incident, my mother. She left the door opened so he got out. And if you live in this city where every breed dog can ease your rumbling tummies for a month or so, hardly you’ll expect him to come back. For sure someone took advantage of his meekness.

Mom was out during that time but when she got back, I don’t know why I was just quiet and just being nonchalant about it. The family very well knows how a lost puppy can reduce me back to a bawling 7 yr old. (This already happened before to Milky’s mother Snow White.) I guess it’s because confronting Mama and blaming her will not bring Choi Choi back. And I know neither did she wished for what happened.

Up to now, I haven’t really cried over his lost. Maybe it’s because I’m still hoping that he’ll come back. But I still feel this heavy heart whenever I see Casper’s lonely eyes (our Labrador). He surely misses a playmate. Just when I will have the enough time to play with them everyday, then he vanished just like that. I guess the thing that I brought him with me in a nearby store last Saturday before I left was already a premonition that he will be forever gone. How silly of me to still leave. :,(

God, I hope he’s in good hands. Somebody give me a new pup, please. :(

These are just some happy moments with him:

We'll miss you :(