Our Pets and Companions

For as far back as I can remember, my family and I have always had pet dogs. The earliest I remember was Doggie, our first dog. We had him back when we moved to our home in Las Pinas in 1984, I think. As you can imagine, we weren't really that creative with our pet names. Hahaha!

Since we lived in Australia, we didn't have any pets until we came back in 1990. Our first dog then was London. I don't remember how he was named that but what I do remember was that he was given to us by my cousin, Christine. I remember that when brought this dog home, he hid under the washing machine. He was so small back then that he managed to fit into one of the nooks there.

After that was Odie. Again, he was given to us by our cousin, Christine. He was London's nephew, I think. Christine had to find a new home for him because she was allergic to dogs by then. What I remember most about Odie was how he had howled the first night we brought him home. We couldn't sleep because he kept it up all night.

He lasted well into old age when he couldn't even stand up anymore. My mom loved that dog so much that she would feed him milk every morning, noon and night. When he died, I spent a Sunday afternoon digging his grave and burying him in the backyard. I wish I could have given him a proper burial.

Then came the pairs, Lab-lab and Chow-chow. My mom named them that because they looked like a Labrador and a Chow-chow. They mated and gave us two litters of puppies. We gave them away to friends and family we knew would take care of them.

We kept one for ourselves, Choc-choc. My brother loves this dog more than the others we had. He calls her his "darling". Hehehe! And Choc-choc knows it. Which is why she is always excited when he comes home from work.

Mig-mig came to us from our family in Pampanga. He is Choc-choc's nephew, one of the litters of puppies we gave was named Lancer who sired him from one of the othr dogs there. He's pretty tempermental; he doesn't like being forced to do anything he doesn't like taking a bath. But he's gotten used to it especially since he knows he gets a rubdown right after.