In Memoriam

It’s been tough couple of weeks. There was no one to blame and only what ifs. My cousin Isabel asked us to take care of her 2 Malteses while she is visiting the US for work with her husband, Vincent. Mei-mei (little sis) and Dumpling have been to our place before and my brother KY loves taking them out for walks. Since Isabel and Vincent both work 12 hour days, the dogs rarely go out of their house (they use wee-wee pads). The dogs love to go out and basically freak out when they are roaming about. Most of the time, they don’t really listen to your orders and in retrospect, I don’t believe they know about roads and traffic.

Two weekends ago, when my brother was walking them after dinner, they rush into the street. Mei-mei passed away immediately and Dumpling was severely injured. Dumpling was admitted to the vet hospital of my school and was watched for 8 days before they operate on her split abdominal muscles. She will go back Friday to remove the stitches and have the blood works to make sure her liver and anemia are improving. The whole ordeal is extremely difficult for everyone, especially Isabel and Vincent. My brother is also stricken with guilt.

I feel that while it is an unfortunate accident, the bigger issue here is the lack of understanding/respect for pets and poor, or really, non-existing, animal policy. My friend Annie sent me this website, Animals Taiwan, that has a lot of information about the stray animals. Taiwanese people mostly still have the mindset from the agricultural days. For example, my grandma and father thought that we just need to buy Isabel and Vincent another dog and that would be the end of that. While he agreed with us, my father thought that it was the ‘right decision’ to save Dumpling, as if there are options. Not that they don’t like animals, but they don’t think of animals as living human companions, but toys. Another issue is the lack of outdoor space. I think many people keep their dogs on a leash or in a cage at their home. There is only one municipal dog run in Taipei city. While you see people walking their dogs often, a lot of times the dogs are off-leash on busy streets. I am not sure what is the best way to change this but there are periodical events and campaigns to raise awareness of these issues. I can only hope that it will change. In the mean time, I cannot be more sorry about the whole thing and hope that Isabel and Vincent would find it in their hearts to forgive us.