The bitch

I dont know when she turned up at my driveway, but this mongrel had been around my neighbourhood for quite some time already, together with two other bitches. Of course I know they're bitches as I can see the row of pendulous nipples dangling when they walk. And the males are easy to spot too, besides the absence of the mammary glands, their sex is determined by the wildly swinging balls knocking at each other at the rear when they're chasing after cars out of boredom.

One day, my niece, who lives just a shout away, ran excitedly to me saying that a bitch had given birth to three puppies somewhere under the tree in a padang near our house. Oh oh.... I thought, I neednt be a mind reader to decipher her intention. She was going to keep one of the puppy, and Zidan, her classmate living next door (father must be a football nut or a bookie) was to keep the other two.Normally I wont give two hoots to such petty pursuit, but the last time her pet rabbit, and a big fat one too, was ran over by a car when it escaped, I had the grisly job of disposing the carcass, beside cajoling her (my niece) not to cry, without much success. In desperation, I said "Alright, we'll get a puppy for you...."before I finished the sentence, she looked up wide-eyed, grinningly asked "when?"I groaned and "erm...we'll see". That, to a ten-year-old means "Yay! definitely we will be getting a puppy very soon". Sigh....the price one pays for being a favourite uncle.

And so there it was, a whining, whimpering little mass of white furry ball, hardly able to walk and peeing every two seconds onto the floor, pillow, newpapers and goodness knows what next. And worse, I had to drive to the neighbouring sundry store to buy a baby feeding bottle for that critter! And pronto! Wild thoughts must be racing through the minds of the shop cashier, Did his wife just gave birth? But her tummy was flat when I saw her last week? Or heaven forbid: He's a grandfather now? Sheepishly I paid and hurried out amidst what I percieved to be stifled sniggers behind me. Sigh... the things I do for love.

Mercifully, I was spared the chores of feeding the little thing and cleaning up the poop and what nots.

Days passed and the christianing of the puppy had my niece and her mother, my sister, arguing what to call the little bitch. Lobby? Whiskey? Lassie? Aaargh, what a headache! Why dont you just google "names for dogs" I told my niece, Joanne. Don't bother, my sister cut in, just call her "Snowball" And that was it.

By now, Snowball is three months old already, and I'm beginning to like her. Whenever I visit them after work, I just walk over to them and Snowball would leap and lick at me like crazy. If only my wife were so ecstatic on seeing me coming home, I thought. Anyway, being welcomed in such a joyful way can make a stress-out man happy, no? No wonder people in stress prone city keep pets, its really therapeutic.

I know, I should be putting up Snowball's photos up here, but regretably I havent shot her.... err, I mean taken a photograph of her. But its definitely coming up. You're gonna love it. Wait, I'd do better than that, I'll put it in youtube for you folks to enjoy (my way of baiting you guys to visit my blogspot mah!)