It\'s Me or the Dog

During the first two decades of my life in China , I didn’t develop any, even tiny little, affection for pets. I reckon it’s more to do with the lack of opportunity to get to know them in a proper way, rather than what’s often portrayed in western media that Chinese people are just cruel to animals or we just eat all that flies in the sky and crawls on the ground.

In reality, for a very long period of time, housing conditions are such that the majority of households in China are in desperate need of room for two-legged members, not to mention four-legged ones. In rural regions, dogs are raised as a watch-dog or working dog, as people are more concerned about making a living.

My personal encounters with dogs are all negative.

I was once followed by a neighbour’s big-sized frightening dog when I was visiting my grandma in the countryside. I knew I couldn’t run, because that only invites it to run after me. I tried pretending to throw stone at it (a trick my dad taught me), but it didn’t work.. I was by myself and felt so so helpless.

Another time is at my uncle’s place where they kept a huge dog. Shockingly it was allowed into the dining room, and it sneaked underneath the table looking for its lunch throughout the whole time. I didn’t have any appetite for the food as all my attention was solely on the dog. I wasn’t bitten or threaten. But every now and then, I felt something warm and furry at my feet or legs, which I thought was scary. To make things worse, if I dared to look down, I would see a pair of hungry and shining eyes, as if it was about to jump at me.

The last straw on the camel is at my mom’s friend’s apartment. I certainly wasn’t prepared for two gigantic Labrador s suddenly rushed into the room and towards the couch where my mom and I were seated. I burst into a scream, while my mom, with her mother-nature instinct, kept out-of-characterly calm and put her arms around me, though I knew she was “notoriously” afraid of animals, even insects.

I must have inherited the phobia from my mother somehow.

It wasn't until when we adopted two lovely cats that I began to have the closeness with animals, and to treat them as my kids or friends rather than predators. One of my favourite TV shows is “It’s me or the dog”, in which the British dog-trainer teaches the failing dog-owners how to see the world from the perspectives of a dog. When you put yourself in someone else's shoes, you will find empathy.  There is a precious life in each and every of them.