July week 3

Since my life is nothing out of the ordinary, there's not much to write about here. I want to do this week's journal real quick so I don't intend to go into any heavy subjects. After some thought, I decided to talk about my pet.

I'm actually not that an animal person as I previously thought. I'm not that kind of person who has that genuine love and compassion towards animals but I do still care about them especially if they are my pets. My family got our first pet, a cute puppy of Lhasa Apso breed( quite similar to the Shitzu) when I was around 6 or 7 years old. (The pictures are not mine, from Google. Just an example.) Of course it's cute and cuddly like all puppies are. We named it Kiki as in Kiki Lala! But I ended up calling her with many other weird( really weird) nicknames. I'll be embarrassing myself if I were to name some of them, so I won't. And yes I loved it dearly, watching it grow bigger everyday. However, owning a pet comes with responsibility to take care of it because pets are not humans, they need to be taken care of like it or not. Looking back, I would say we made the wrong decision choosing this breed. Trust me, it's not because it's bad or anything, it's just not the right choice for my family when my brothers and I are barely old enough to care for ourselves. My parents were left with the burden of taking care of our dog. What's the big deal you ask? Well, a dog this breed has really really long fur( I believe it's gets longer than that of a Shitzu)   
Without much experience,it gets tough having to constantly comb and trim Kiki's fur. I still wonder why my parents didn't even suggest sending her for grooming( I only found out much later that there is such a place specifically for washing, shampooing, trimming and such for pets!) instead, my parents did all that by themselves with a little help here and there. Over time, it gets rather tiring. To add more burden, Kiki introduced ticks/fleas into our home and we'd have a killing-the-ticks session on and off. I was blamed a lot for not being diligent in my duty to comb Kiki's fur. So, it finally came that time when my parents thought it was time to bid farewell to Kiki. It shouldn't be called a farewell because it's not. My parents planned a secret mission to silently slip Kiki out of the house and hand it over to, I suspect, some people from SPCA with the help of my oldest brother. Till now I'm not really clear about how they successfully did it. It was about 8 pm, a Wednesday. I kind of sensed something at that time, I think I saw something suspicious of my brother, but I blame myself for not bothering to find out. I came back from tuition at 10 pm and started to notice that Kiki was no where to be seen. My parents finally came forth and told my brothers and I that she has been taken away. I think I shed some tears then. Imagine taking away a beloved pet which you are so attached to out of the blue,so swiftly. Thinking back, I could understand why my parents made that decision. It was just not the right time and a little too much to handle all by themselves. They bought a puppy for the children so that we can be happy, but we can't deny reality and rationality. Still, how I wished we could have gotten a dog that we could handle and not go through a premature goodbye to our pet. Now, after a decade since then, my family haven't gotten a replacement to Kiki, maybe some temporary guppy fish and just recently this year, two guinea pigs, upon the urge of my youngest sibling. But a new pet dog, no. We, my brothers and I, do look back and wonder if we could have done better taking care of Kiki, then probably she would still be with us today. I get mixed feelings thinking about her. Missing her hyperactivity, her company, calling her name, pampering her but at the same time thinking about how she had felt as though I abandoned her as I didn't say goodbye. What's done is done, that's all I can say. This whole experience has thought me a lot about responsibility especially when owning a pet. So to whoever who owns a pet of any kind, uphold your duties faithfully and care for it.
This post it not supposed to be long. Dang it! Never mind then, as long as I wrote something from my heart.