August 26 is National Dogs Day. The culprit of this event that happens every year is Ms. Colleen Paige, a pet and family lifestyle advocate. Her goals is to celebrate furry friends existence and also to let every one know that there are dogs in the shelter or adoption center that are waiting for your love and care. She is promoting abuse and neglect free for all kinds of dogs.

I have 19 dogs by the way at present. They are all stubborn but lovely. They have different personalities but one thing in common for them, they are all loyal and loves there human.

Moving on, for today, I would love to talk about my other pets. My other pets who are already at the rainbow bridge. I have dogs that are very dear to me. In my lifetime, I already have 9 dogs that leave us early,as far as I remember. Unfortunately, i only have pictures of 6 of them. It gives me a lump in the throat while editing their pictures. I guess, regardless of how many dogs that came in my life, each of them left me wonderful memories that I still cherished right now. I expect lots of tears before I able to finish this post.

When I was young. I have a dog named Jaguar. He is a fluffy, golden retriever bread. He was smart. He knows when someone from us is not feeling okay. He is our guard dog. It is not clear to me how he died. What I can recall was he was eating and my sister was reviving him later on. I am not sure if he suffered from heart attack.

When another came, we named him Jaguar too. Jaguar the second, is very resilient. I remember most of us are always out of the house and he is the one who take charge of the cats. He is left at home and we only lock the doors. Even the electricity is turned off and he will just wait until we get home. He stayed with us for more than 10 years and he died because of illness.

After he died, we have another puppy. We named him Totoy. We took care of him like as a child. We even adopted his sister and named her Tutay. These puppies' owner is a friend of my mother. Totoy stayed with us for short time. He died of parvo virus. Since then we became aware of that deadly virus and Tutay was vaccinated immediately. Tutay became our only dog.

While Tutay is growing, I learned that the puppy of my cousin was being abused by her own child. My mother forcefully rescued the puppy and became our another puppy. We named him Totoy. Don't be mislead by the nes, we only use the name because they are all look alike and we felt that the pets of us which passed away are all coming back. I don't know if that is real, yet from experience it feels real to us or we just missed them.

Then, I rescued another puppy from the abuse he is receiving from his owner, my neighbour. The puppy, which is very tiny, was always crying and asking for help. One night, when I heard him cried, I walkout of the house, enter the house of my that neighbour and take him home. Since then, the puppy is freed from all the abuse it received.

Tikboy

He is the puppy I am talking about. Tikboy is one of our smart dogs. He acts like a human. He is sweet to everyone. He loves hugs and kisses. He became like a little boy in the house during his time. We even but him clothes and toys. Certain illness steal him from us. He suffered from it for 3 months and left us year 2013.

Year 2013, since I felt everyone is heart broken I prayed to God to give us another puppy. An old friend passed by me at work one day and he said that he have one puppy that he will give to me. He knows I am a dog lover that is why he looked for me at work. But since the other puppy cannot separated by the puppy he will give to me, he will give two puppies instead.

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Then came Gelo and Dondon. Our dogs became four. I rescued another puppy in the street, named Kimoy. He have leg abnormalities but he can walk. I think he got that from abused too. After 4 months, Dondon died. The vet said that he died of leptospirosis. Dondon loves to lick the floor and anything he sees. Maybe one of the things he licks have rat urine that is where he get leptospirosis.

Tutay

It was 2016 when Tutay left us. She was so fat then and she cannot move at all. I think she died because of a certain illness we failed to know. I was suffering from liver illness that time and we failed her to be check by the vet. Tutay is our dog who can curse. Yes, she always like to say "Inamo" when she is irritated by the noisy neighbor. She doesn't want any noise coming from the outside. She is like a human too. She hates me when I go home late. She will grab my hair and hurt me because she is annoyed with me. When she left us, I was crying every night. I couldn't believe that she had touched my life in so many ways even though she is always mad at me. I remember her every time I worked during the night and I was crying while working.

Totoy

Totoy left us year 2017. He was grooming his nails and I think it became a wound that get severe. He died because the wounds became irritated. He suffered from it for 3 months. When the wounds got bigger, he stayed inside the cage. I am not close to this dog and he has an snobby attitude. One day I do not see him inside the cage. I looked at my mother and the look on her eyes tells everything. Totoy already died and was buried immediately. I didn't cried but I never thought I will feel this certain sadness. During that time my father passed away before him and it was near Christmas when they are both gone. It was the loneliest Christmas we had.

Tikboy, the Second

Tikboy the second is not really our dog, but this dog treat us as his owner. He is our dog that is outside the house. We cannot adopt him because we feel that our dog and him will not get along. My mother will just give him food and he will just wait for us outside. However, during Lockdown last year, we got separated. He stayed very far from us and some people took care of him. From time to time my mother check on him. I just learned this year that someone poisoned him. People hate this dog because he run after people and bark at them. I felt sad that we didn't get to see him before he died.

Uno

Uno is the son of my present dog, Ponyang. I think if he is still alive he is a perfect alpha dog. He is a good leader to his sibling. Before he died, his brother Chewy died of parvo virus again. After a year, Uno died. I think he got pneumonia and he have this certain illness that he cannot control his movement. It was sad to see him suffering. Me and my mother did everything to make him survive that illness but I guess his time is up. He left us year 2020.

Chocolate

Chocolate is the last puppy that left us just early this year. I think he died of parvo virus too. I learned my lesson about that virus so I saved money to completely vaccinate Unnie and the rest of the dog. Chocolate also received vaccination but his immune system was weaken and surrenders his life. It hurts because his brother Brownie is still looking for him. They are so close to each other. Brownie still wanders at home looking for him.

Not even dogs, we had lots of cats and kitten that get ill, got poisoned and died because they get old. Everytime a pets passed, we are really mourning.

I always imagine them in what we call the Rainbow Bridge. Rainbow Bridge actually a poem. They said that our pets who left us early are all there. They are waiting to meet us again at the other end.

I guess being a pet lover, our emotion is at stake when our pets leave us. It even get traumatic on some. Me, I suffered every moment whenever I remember them. I really cried regardless of where I am. I invested my life for them but death is inevitable, we cannot stop it from happening. That is why while we are both here, let us not waste time to take care of them, love them and give them the life that they deserve. Pets are gift that we need to cherished.

Last note, I am not sure if I read it from somewhere or someone told me, not sure if it is true either, that when we died, we will be asked by God on what we did to our life that He gave to us. When the time that we cannot answer it, our pets who passed that are already in heaven will answer God for us. They will tell God what kind of owner we us and what kind of love we gave to them. That story lingers to my brain that is why I treat my pets as a gift and gave them love that they deserve.

Photos are all mine, except for the last one that came from Unsplash.