biscuits & me

Spotty came into our lives as suddenly as he left. I personally believe that the universe has its own plans sometimes and put faith in the trust that everything happens for a reason.

Spotty definitely came into our lives for a reason - he brought joy to everyone who knew him (whether in real life or through our stories and photos) and most importantly, he brought my family closer together when we were probably beginning to drift apart, especially the Lai Sisters because we were all growing up, especially with two of us starting on our careers at that time.

My mum rescued him and took him home without any warning on the night of 7 Sep 2010. I still have the first photo I ever took of him, after he walked around the house and decided to lie down right in the middle of my bedroom, while turning back to look at me sitting at my desk. It was there and then I think he decided he wanted this room for himself.

To be honest, I wasn’t 100% on board with keeping him that night. We had no experience and I wasn’t sure we were ready for this commitment. My sisters were so excited but true to my character, I needed some time to warm up to this new creature in my room. Plus, my Big Sister Instinct kicked in, thinking about how I would probably end up doing most of the care-taking. All that probably went away in a day or two because you know, Spotty was extremely lovable. Who could resist those big, round eyes?

Fast forward 3 weeks later, it was my birthday. As is my practice, I took the day off work to have time to myself and it was just Spotty and I alone at home. I still remember that he suddenly came to me very happily in the middle of the day and I couldn’t figure out why. Soon I realised it was because he had just taken a poop in the shower and was probably informing me about it. Of course, I had to clean it up. On my 25th birthday! You know it’s love when I clean up your poop on MY birthday.

The following month, we took him to a vet for a check-up and it was recommended to send him for dental scaling as his teeth were all brown or maybe even black. I still remember the vet calling us on the morning of the surgery because the condition of his teeth was worse than they expected and they now recommended pulling out 13 of his teeth while the rest could still be saved and cleaned. I still remember my sister and I calling each other at work to discuss if we should proceed. At that time, it sounded so scary that we both ended up crying a bit on the phone because we thought he would have no teeth left. Anyway, it actually wasn’t that bad because Spotty still had many teeth left and now we no longer needed to worry that he was gonna die from all the germs in his mouth. He was still able to eat plenty of things (whether he was allowed to, was another matter).

And fast forward another 3 months, that December I went on my first trip to Japan and saw snow for the first time in my life. It was also the first time any family member was away from Spotty for so long. I found Spotty’s fur all over my clothes when I unpacked my luggage. One of the many #dogownerproblems I have discovered over the years. So now back to what I said about how he had already tried to claim my room on the first night? This was when his opportunity came! We never taught or allowed him to jump on our beds but just a few days after I left, my sisters found him on my bed sleeping!!! He must have figured why not, since I was not around and jumped up by himself to stake a claim on my bed.

Eventually, we realised it was pointless to stop him from jumping on my bed so he was allowed to do so. He really loved copying how the humans slept, putting his head on the pillow and all. He also loved to be tucked under a blanket. Unfortunately, one time months later he peed on my pillow so I had to get that replaced. He didn’t stop there though. Later he also peed on my mattress a few times. I couldn’t save it because we realised that the smell just meant he would likely do it again so I ended up spending $$$$ to get a new one instead. The naughty dog probably just got a few smacks on the butt and showed us his angry face. In fact, we always had a secret theory that he liked to wet my mattress cos it meant that I had to sleep on a mattress in my sisters’ room on the floor next to his bed while I cleaned and dried my actual bed. One time, it was so bad I think I ended up sleeping there for a few weeks before eventually deciding to just get a new mattress for my bed. Of course, some nights he kept sliding closer and closer to me on that floor that he ended up sleeping on my mattress.

Our parents kept saying that Spotty was our responsibility but we all knew how much they secretly and not-so-secretly loved him a lot too.

We called Spotty my Mum’s “favourite son” because well, she really treated him like the son she never had. Always buying his chicken for him, asking us constantly if he has eaten/peed/pooped/walked etc. We always received Spotty updates first from her when we got home before anything else. My dad called Spotty 小王狗 (little king dog) cos we pampered him so much. Well, look who’s talking! My dad was basically Spotty’s favourite whenever he was around because he was a reliable source of biscuits despite our instructions to limit the snacks. I also caught my dad taking photos of Spotty and he rarely used the camera on his phone back then!

Here’s what my parents said upon his passing:

我們大家都感謝他陪伴黎宅多年(他多病在身早去亦是好事小狗自己也知所以大家亦不要難過)

Spotty 洗澡清洁去另一个世界。、永远记得spotty.

We had to change many parts of our lives and adapt because of Spotty. The rubbish bin in the kitchen could no longer be left on the floor if the door was open because Spotty was a very good scavenger. One time he sniffed out the chicken bones we had thrown away after dinner. He was caught only because they were curry wings and his nose/face was now completely stained with the curry sauce after devouring them! I think he might have had a stomachache afterwards too.

After we discovered his kidney problems, his older age combined with this meant an increase in the frequency of his toilet visits in the last few months. This meant we were constantly monitoring his time of pee to ensure he was going regularly and correctly. He wasn’t drinking enough water so we made the chicken soup a nightly meal for his dinner rather than the occasional weekly treat. It also had the added benefit of being better for his liver/pancreas as he couldn’t process fatty foods well anymore and also allowed us to hide all his medicine inside the soup more easily.

If you asked us what we did every Sunday, it was basically planned around Spotty’s activities. My sisters and I would check in with each other if we really needed to head out to do it either earlier or later. Sunday was the day for his weekly bath (or sometimes groomer visit) and then preparation of his whole week’s worth of chicken soup. We also washed his beds, toys and blankets every week as he was getting drool and snot all over them.

I still remember when we took our first family vacation after Spotty joined us. We were so inexperienced and decided to leave him at what we realise now was a questionable pet hotel. We picked it as it was the one closest to our house. What a bad decision. The Lai Sisters spent most of the trip worrying about him, and weren’t able to get any updates at all. Once we reached home, we dashed to pick him up though I think all that happened was just a slightly dirty dog. Never again! After that, it was only reputable hotels but eventually we found that people we trusted was always the best (whom we could bug for frequent updates). In fact, we had been secretly discussing amongst the sisters recently that since Spotty didn’t much time left now, we should probably hold off on taking a full-family vacation for just a year or two since it’s going to hard to find someone who can take care of his special requirements.

Another hilarious story about Spotty was when we decided to be better owners and signed up for a Basic Obedience Course, making our mum drive us to Vivo every Sunday for 10 weeks for the lessons. Back then, the incredibly smart Spotty had this trick where he was able to do a small wiggle and then slide out of his collar during our walks. One time when it happened, he ran away so fast I ended up running a full circle around the car park after him at full speed before I finally caught the runaway dog. We told the trainer about this problem and they didn’t believe us as they thought it was not possible since the collar was already so small and his neck was so round! But guess what, during one class while all the dogs were supposed to do their practice walks with their humans - Spotty decided it would be a good time to “show off” his party trick. I ran around the bushes trying to catch him during that class and it was so embarrassing! All our hopes of him getting that Top Student award were obviously dashed after this incident. Up till then, he had been doing so well and we even did our homework nightly.

Spotty came to us as an overweight and rather round dog that he almost didn’t look like a Jack Russell Terrier from some angles if you were not too familiar with dog breeds. We have lost count the number of times strangers have asked if he’s actually a corgi cos of his butt and tiny tail.

Over the years, Spotty has had a few health issues. One of the major ones was when his kidney wasn’t functioning properly and the vet wasn’t able to diagnose it until after a few visits and ruling out other possibilities. This just so happened to coincide with a week where I had two consecutive work trips so it was a real stressful time. I still remember landing and coming home to find that he was still vomiting out bile and having to clean it up. Fortunately it all passed and we were told it was a manageable condition. We were advised to do a saline drip at home for him daily for the rest of his life. I learnt how to do it at the clinic and my sisters and I would wake up at 6am to do it before going to work cos it took us that long to figure it out and calm him to finish the drip. Eventually we stopped doing it when he got better and found that he was still doing well so thankfully we could put our 6am days behind us. (If you know us, none of the Lai sisters can be described as morning people but the best time to do it was in the morning when the dog wasn’t fully awake to realise what was going on with the needles.)

Another time we had to rush to the vet was when Spotty was attacked by a trio of cats when we went out to the neighbourhood pet store for a walk. My memory is a bit fuzzy on the incident now but I recall 3 cats surrounding him. We thought he got away with just a scratch and went on with the rest of the night as usual. Some time that night (and this was one of those nights I was on that floor mattress next to him) he woke up to vomit and then in the morning I realised he was bleeding on his back and it had gotten really swollen. I rushed to the vet with my mum - I still remember it was a Saturday thankfully -and turns out one of the cats might have gotten their claws on him, punctured his skin and left a claw inside. They cleaned up the wound and he recovered quickly, going back to his normal self after a few days. As a proud pure-breed dog, Spotty probably hates this story but thankfully the only permanent damage done was probably a dent to his doggie self-esteem or pride.

In his time with us, we have seen Spotty get healthier in terms of his weight so he had a brief active period which thankfully we have captured on many, many photos and videos. We took him to the beach and he was so tired that he slept the whole ride home. We took him to the pool but all wanted to do was get back on land. He had a couple of fun doggie parties, where he got plenty of attention. We joined the world’s largest Jack Russell gathering and walk though he was actually carried for most of it while the humans did the actual walking. We have videos of him transforming into Speedy Lai as he ran along the corridor.

When he was younger, he used to wake us on the weekends for walks or playtime or maybe just so he can get his breakfast already by licking us or jumping onto the bed to attack us with his kisses. He would watch us as we get ready for work and purposely rub against my jeans all the time so I always went to work with some of his fur. He would dash to greet us when we got home to ask for belly rubs. Eventually I think he also adapted to our way of life, and started sleeping in. Of course, part of it later was due to his age so we were the ones now waking Spotty up to make sure he ate his breakfast and greeting the dog when we got home in his last few months since he always seemed to be prefer watching us from his bed or sleeping instead.

More recently, Spotty started to have some recurring health issues again like the vomiting. Hence we had been visiting the vet a lot recently to make sure his liver and kidney levels were normal and stable. We were recommended to restart the weekly saline drip to manage the kidney problem so we had a quick refresher on the steps. Remember when I said we had to wake up at 6am in the past to do it? I guess Spotty knew it was good for him so he was generally calmer now and after a few times, I actually got the whole process down to 7 minutes in total and even managed to do once all by myself while my sisters were away on vacation. This moment is captured on a time lapse video too!

He also developed cataracts earlier this year and probably wasn’t seeing very well anymore. On top of that, his legs were growing weaker with age so he had some trouble walking a lot and supporting his own weight. We tried to ensure he still walked for 10 minutes daily so the muscle loss wasn’t that bad. This was likely why he preferred to lie in his bed more and more often. He was also showing early signs of dementia lately and we had to block off corners and dead ends in the house where he often got stuck.

In the end, I think we can all say he was still pretty healthy for a dog his age and was doing as best as he could. After all, he had a wonderful life with us and didn’t suffer too much. Whether it was his decision or the universe’s plan, it was his time to leave.

He will always be our favourite Spotty - our doggo, our doggers, and our precious - and lives on forever in memories like the ones I’ve shared. There are no words to describe the sadness I am feeling now and nothing to stop the tears that keep coming at the moment, but we couldn’t have asked for anything more from Spotty. He gave us his best nine years and we will cherish that forever.

Rest in peace my favourite doggo. You can run free in doggie heaven now and probably have unlimited biscuits and chicken. Your humans love you always and thank you for everything.