Bobby's Tale - Love

I call him Bobby,  Baba, Boy, or Boy Boy, or, on a day when I feel particularly funny, Mr. Bobinsky!  Soon after I adopted him I found out that he was a mischievous sweetheart.  Sometimes I stayed in one room of the house, looking at him through the door in another room, he would stare at me straight for a long time. At first I couldn't figure out why he was doing that, then when I moved a bit and was able to see his tail, I realize that he was wagging his tail really hard the entire time to show me that he was happy. That was him, always happy and sweet, all the time. After that I realized that whenever Bobby saw me, even just a little head perking out, he was always wagging his tail.  It brightened my heart like nothing else.

Every few weeks or so I gave him a bath, I could never forget how he looked so small and bony with such sad and large eyes after being soaked with water. He felt afraid and special at the same time, it was the only time I would completely pay attention to him without the little white dog bothering him. After the torturous shower was over, I dried him with a large towel, rubbed his belly and used a blow dryer and comb to dry his hair, and he liked it! Those moments when I took care of him, I really grew to like him too.

Periodically in my life, I would have frightening nightmares. It started when I first left home to live in a boarding music school in Beijing at 15 years old. Away from family all year round except summer and winter vacation, I lost sleep night after night, and had bad dreams when I did finally sleep. The problem stayed with me for years after. I'd dream about blood, dying, and woke up soaking in sweat. One such night I dreamed of being stuck inside a castle like slaughter house. It was dimly lit by candles, I looked down, the stone floor was covered with blood, and when I looked up, human body parts hang off the high ceiling. Frightened, I ran out to the door, within blink of an eye, I was back in there again. I woke up, sat up in the dark alone. Bobby had snuggled up to Kelly in a dog bed in another room. The door was open, I whispered his name, and a second later I heard a small rumbling and he showed up.  It sent a comfort that no words could describe. That night I let Bobby sleep on the bed next to me, it took away my fear, and from then on, my bad dreams disappeared.

When I moved to my new house, I let my mom took care of both Kelly and Bobby while I got the house ready and furnished. Since my husband was never used to living with any pets, I decided to take one dog in at a time. One day I went to take Kelly to the new house with me. I grabbed her leash, her bed, toys and some food. Bobby seemed to realize that I wasn't going to take him with me. Usually, when this kind of injustice occurred, he would cry on top of his lungs, but that day he was silent, he didn't make a sound at all when we went out the door. I drove away feeling quite uneasy. According to my mom, that day Bobby fell to the floor, he didn't move or bark all night, he didn't bark when other dogs walked passed her house, or ate anything when she tried to give him food. Maybe he thought Kelly was being taken away forever because her bed was taken too, maybe he thought he was abandoned. I went back to get him a few days later, and decided that I was never going to do anything to break his heart again. 

We had so much fun together at the new house. We threw parties and Bobby was always the center of attention because everyone loved him. My husband and I took them hiking, to the dog park, walked long walks, played fetch, cooked salmon and cheese dinners, they slept on real children's bed with mattress, duvet, pillows and ate lots of treats. Two days before he died, I grabbed my purse and took him and Kelly for a long walk, we went around the neighborhood and through a park until we reached a shopping plaza. I bought coffee and sat with them there for a little bit. That day Bobby jumped on short brick walls and bathed in the sun. He loved being outside and he loved to play, and this happiness spilled all over me. I thought to myself, how could life be any better?

He followed me everywhere at home, that include me taking a trip at night to the laundry room, or putting together furniture in my blue room, or sitting with me on the sofa while fell asleep from reading. If I had closed a door on him and opened it a moment later, he would be right there tilting his head, wagging his tail waiting for me. Since he was gone, home have not been the same, and I have not been the same. I often wondered if I could believe in the afterlife. If when I opened the door to heaven, will I see him waiting for me right by the door, tilting his little head and wagging his happy tail?

Bobby's Tale - The Rascal

After I first got Bobby, I decided that Kelly and Bobby should be separated for a while when I was not home until they get used to each other better. So, Kelly got the living room, Bobby got the kitchen, and a door was closed between them. After a few days I thought, ok, this might be the time to risk it and put them together in one room. I was very busy then, going to school and working took a lot of time. One day when I came home, Kelly was in perfect condition, but this happened.

Exhausted, angry and shocked, I chased Bobby around the house with a magazine stick, he had fast legs and ran all over the place. Finally him and Kelly hid under the desk in the back of my piano room. Bobby being slightly bigger than Kelly, he turned out to be the one hiding behind her. I looked at the trouble maker and suddenly sat down on the floor and laughed.

Last winter when the weather started to get cold, I bought a red hooded jacket for Kelly, she loved new clothes and especially loved to wear it when I walked her in the early mornings when it was still pretty cold. After a few days I realized that I should get one for Bobby too, so the next trip to the pet store, I took the both of them and picked a green hoodie in the same style but a slightly larger size for him. He looked just handsome in it!

Around that time Bobby got ear infection, when I took him to the vet's office, I let him wear the green jacket. Everybody at the vet liked him, he looked like a little kid, and behaved really well. After we finished the examination, I let him sit on the floor while I paid the bill at the counter. In a matter of few minutes I lifted up the leash and there was no Bobby on the other end, I turned around and looked down, Bobby had chewed off the leash and he was free! Everyone laughed at how funny he was, including the other customers, me, and the receptionist. So with no leash, I lifted him up and held him in my arms and carried him to the car. On our way home, I purchased yet another leash.

Bobby loved to play, and he invented many games, one of which was to run after Kelly from one end of the house to another when someone "dared" to walk pass our street. Kelly would jump on the bed to get access to the window, Bobby knew he wasn't allowed, so he barked on the floor. Often times if I wasn't in the room and he forgot the rules, he would jump on the bed too, but the second I stepped in, he immediately jumped off, wiggled his tail and pretended like he didn't do anything wrong.

That night when we came home from the vet's office, I let him wore the jacket around the house, and I went into my piano room to study. When I came out, I saw him sitting on my bed with the most awful look on his face and he didn't jump off as soon as I came in the room. He just sat there and froze. I knew something was wrong, as I walked over to look, he had peed on my bed!!! I didn't scold him this time, it was my fault, and I felt sorry for him. He probably didn't know he could move or pee like normal wearing a jacket and was holding it in for a long time. I took him off the bed and cleaned up the mess, it was another night staying up late waiting for the laundry cycle to end and then another to start. From then on, no more clothes for Bobby, not that I didn't want to dress him up, but I didn't think he enjoyed wearing anything.

There was no question that Bobby liked to explore the house and find stuff to chew. Between him and Kelly, at times they went through $20 worth of chew bones in a matter of a couple days. On top of that, he jumped on table tops rummaging through perfume bottles and papers and find tasty chewy things. His philosophy? As long as mommy wasn't watching, she would NEVER know! He chewed my high heel pumps, tassel off my loafers, button off my cashmere cardigans, pillow from a full set of bedding, expensive leather handbags, CDs, razer blades,  you name it, he even chew on my blouse while I was wearing it whenever I lifted him up and carried him in my arms ( I have to admit, that was freaking adorable though!) . But the worst time of them all, a brand new pair of Ray Ban reading glasses. As usual, I kept them on the night stand thinking Bobby wouldn't get to it, I forgot that he had extremely mobile paws, he could reach almost anything with them. When I came home, the glasses were not on the night stand, it was on my bed all chewed up. I must had my jaw dropped and lost my mind for a second, coming out of the shock, I jumped up and started chasing him around the house to spank him, frightened, Bobby went hiding under the bed. I couldn't reach him, so I called Jeff. He was on the way to see me on that day, and I told him to take Bobby back to the pound as soon as he gets here.  The 30 minutes it took for him to get to my house, I had already calmed down. I went to the bedroom and called him out, he slowly crawled out, peeking out only the nose, seeing that I wasn't going to spank him again, he came out, wiggling his long hairy tail, licked my feet and walked around the house and started sniffling and playing with Kelly again. Then, the idea of sending him back to the cold and harsh shelter to die became unimaginable to me.  Jeff got to my house all prepared to take him back to the shelter only to find me hovering all over him refusing to let Bobby go. After a lot of back and forth, he finally said, "ok, I see how it is. If I took him today, we'd just be back to the shelter an hour later to pick him up. AND I bet the shelter is going to charge us another $80 bucks for adoption fee." I burst out laughing and that was the end of that.

Over time, all these behavioral problems waned off. Whatever problem remained with him, I accepted him as the way he was. After all, how much "chewed up stuff" is worth a best friend forever? If I could have him back for anything in the world I would. He could chew up anything in the house and I  wouldn't give a dime. Pulling on the leash for example, I got used to it, in fact, it always made me laugh because it just felt so comical and he always seemed so silly and happy. After Bobby was gone, I missed terribly the little bundle of energy pulling on the leash and just loved to run and run and run.

Bobby's Tale - The Athlete

Bobby was a athletic dog. I sometimes wondered if I could enter him in a dog competitions for something because he had excellent coordination and loved to exercise. Unlike many other dogs, Bobby had no fat, he was all lean muscle everywhere. His legs were extremely sturdy and no matter at home or outside, he never had a lazy walk, it was always just this very rthymical stride and he looked very light!

When he ran, he shot off like a bullet and then always hop for a couple jump like a light bunny with his little pointy ears flopping in the air. He was frisky, mischieveous, funny, smart,  and most of all happy.

When it was time for a walk he would go to pick up his leash and dropped it right in front of me. When he got to outside, he always couldn't wait to run and so he always pulled on the leash. He would use all four arms and legs and pull with all the muscle power he had and yank me along with him. Towards the end, it just became one of those flaws that I adored because I loved him so much. Can you blame a silly little dog that LOVED being outside and running around? He knew every single dog in the neighborhood. Which house they lived in, which gate they hang out at. Some owners cut out a peep hole for their dogs on the wood fence, so he always peeked into them to see if a dog was in there. At my old house, a couple of neighborhood dogs were his play buddies. I'd let him off the leash in front of their metal wire fence. They would both ran to one end of the fence, bark once, and immediately ran to the other end and bark again, and they did this back and forth, it was a game that Bobby invented. Later one of the play buddies moved away, weeks after he was gone, Bobby still went up to their fence to see if the dog was out there. It made me sad. He loved to walk on the curb, and jump on short fat fences. He would jumped on them then jumped off then jump back on as we walked, and that was his little game.

Whenever there was a cat or squirrel, he wanted to chase after them. If he was on a leash and he couldn't, he would scream, remember Bobby didn't bark? He screamed.

Bobby was a excellent tennis ball player. He knew the word "ball" from very early on. All I had to do was whisper "ball," then he would have this surprised look like, "omg omg omg mommy is ready to play ball, gotta go find them!" And then off he ran to look for them. On a lazy day when I didn't feel like playing with him, he would drop one tennis ball in front of me, and if I didn't move, he would go and find another tennis ball, somestimes where we hang out there would be a bunch of tennis balls in front of Bobby. I also sat on the couch sometimes to throw the ball in the room, Bobby would fetch the ball and jump on the sofa to bring the ball back to me with fierce energy, often placing the ball right inside my hand, but nobody tought him that. He did it on his own. When it was serious play time, he would gauge the tennis ball with his eyes, stepping back according to how far he thought the ball would land and shot out to get it when I threw them. And what did he do if the ball got under the bookshelf or sofa? He'd reached out one paw to try to grab it, or he'd go to the room immediately behind the sofa to see if the ball came out on the other side of the wall.

Today is exactly one week since Bobby was gone. I wonder where did his little spirit go? The world seems to never have noticed that he had ever existed, but my heart is sad and lonely without him. Nothing will be the same ever again.

Bobby's Tale-- The Adoption.

These were two of the first few pictures I took of Bobby, probably from the first day or two after I got him back from the animal shelter. You can see that he was super skinny, because there was basically no meat on the bones, he didn't even have a butt cheek!

I didn't know what came over me that day when I went to the animal shelter. I had a broken old Blackberry that had a internet service worse than a go phone, and after I decided to search for an animal shelter address for the first time, it led me to the middle of a residential area. I almost gave up but tried another address and ended up finding the shelter I wanted to find. Did I suddenly gained a interest in sheltered animals? Or was Bobby calling me that day to pick him up somehow? Who knows! It was, at least I heard, a very high kill place. Pets are kept there for only five days. It was Bobby's seventh day. When I went there, my eyes immediately spotted him because he was standing up with his paws holding the metal bar and cried the loudest in there and shaked his tail very very hard. He was locked in the middle of a row of cages, very dark inside and he kind of blended in, so I didn't get to see him very well other than that he had very shinny and large eyes, and a very very big black nose, it was dry and cracking. He had this thing that never quite changed, when he was very very scared, he screams, I mean, not like a bark, but a scream, like a mad little girl on top of her lungs. Our groomer later laughed and told me when I sent him for a hair cut the first time that she had never met a dog who screamed like that, I cracked up and said, "yep, that's just him." So then I bent down to see him on that day, he reached out both paws, squeezed my hand and pulled it into the cell to lick it. He also grabbed my heart into the cell. When I got up and ready to walk down the hall a bit more, he started crying, it kind of surprised me, so I went back. I looked at his perfectly round shiny eyes and cute black nose, couldn't believe a dog like that had to be locked up in a cell. It was such a sad place that I almost cried looking at all the dogs there. It took all in all ten minutes to take down his number and go up to the office to fill out an application. Then, he was mine.

I was told that he would be ready to be picked up the next day after he was spayed. After I paid a meager $80, I grabbed my wallet with both hands and walked away, but then immediately turned back to the counter. I have this annoying habit of repeating myself many times of the same questions when I know perfectly that I am being redundant. I walked up to the cashier and asked him again, "so this procedure that's going to be done, is it safe?" He rolled his eyes, and said, "woooooo noooooo it is very dangerous, is it very dangerous?" He asked the girl behind him, and she said, "yep." I still had my wallet in both of my hands held high up to my chest and said, " O.K., thank you." And then turned around and walked out. When the emotions started to chill, I thought to myself, "oh, no, what have I done?" That night when I got into bed, I thought, "the little black dog is having a tough time right now, but he doesn't know that after this day, tomorrow he will get sunshine and lots of running on the grass!" Then I fell alseep.

The next day I shopped for a new dog bed, new food bowl, a new blanket, and putted it in the passenger seat and came to the shelter again to pick him up. I could barely contain my excitment, imagine my first time rescuing a little dog from the shelter, it was a good deed! I was directed to wait outside a mobile building where Bobby would be released to me, then I saw the vet, he had a big belly and a greasy apron on, and he looked kind of like a butcher. He said to me, "ok, let's see the paper work, hmm, yeah, ok, this little guy right? haha, very energetic! Wait here!" He went in, shut the door behind him, a while later he came out and handed me a stack of papers and a dog. I looked at him not understanding what he meant by "very energetic," but I was soon to find out. I took a couple of hard stares at the little black dog making sure it was the same one I picked yesterday, and took a look at the paper work that he handed me, on the column of Pain medication applied at this time, it said, "None." So are you telling me that you cut off his balls without giving him any pain medication???

He certainly didn't look like it. Right off the bat he was jumping up and down, smelling everything around him, pulling hard on the leash dragging me left and right with him, then I finally got a good look at him under the sun. He was much skinnier than I thought, his hair looked really dry and messy, it was not the all black and shiny coat like I imagined at all.

The whole riding home I put this little guy near me on the passenger seat. He behaved really good in the car, but looked a little unsettling, not knowing where he was being taken to now. And I felt a little unsettling, not knowing what to expect, kind of felt like I just randomly picked up a homeless person and putted him in my car and took him into my private home. When I opened the door to my house, Kelly jumped up like a cat and viciously barked. I had to separate them for a little while, realizing that perhaps she didn't "really" understand that serious heart to heart conversation I had with her the night before about bring in a new dog. After realizing that the new dog was not going away, Kelly got mad.

The first night was really hard, Kelly soon went from being mad to afraid, she hid in the little space between the bed and the night stand and stuck out her fluffy head to check if Bobby was there, and only when I took him out of my bedroom, did she came out to play. Not knowing this new environment, for a couple of times, Bobby tried to bite Kelly's neck, not for real, but to scare her. That night, afraid Bobby would attack Kelly, I decided to put him in the bathroom right next to my bedroom. I had a sizable bathroom that's a little bigger than my bedroom, don't ask me why, it just was! So I putted Bobby there and closed the door, he immediately started to scream, I right away felt bad, so I let him back into the room and let him slept next to my bed. I was amazed at how sturdy he seemed, he just got spayed, had a bit of a high temperature, and yet he was very happy and excited. He couldn't take a bath for the first week because of the surgery stitches even though his hair was quite dirty. I ran my fingers on his rib cage and butt and felt nothing but bones, and felt so much sympathy for this little guy. The shelter said he was a stray, but who abondoned him? Where was he from? What had happened to his last home? How did he look like when he was a baby? If only he could tell me... The whole night I was half asleep, half awake to keep a watch out for him and Kelly, and so did the next several night. It was a little stressful, a little funny, and a lot of excitment.

Later my boyfriend came to visit me, and he name the little black dog Bobby, after Bobby Kennedy. So that's how it all started, a really plain and humble beginning, nothing exceptional, but what turned out to be the most amazing and precious 13 months I had with the most amazing little dog in the world. My home was old and crumbly, my kitchen was crammed and small, but I felt lucky because I had everything that I needed.