Loving with condition?

Today as I read @JonicaBradleyJonicaBradley's article, I got interested to write about her prompt topic #22: "Love".

It's beeen a month after the Valentines day and who says this subject expires? We can still talk about Love anytime anywhere, not just during Christmas and Valentines day right?

I was clueless of how to start this and quite hesitant at first because maybe I was too late to join this prompt but I suddenly remembered the question in slambook: For you what is love?

As I've got the idea in my mind, I then let my fingers type on.

Many have tried defining the word "love". Many have written the definitions gathered from the classic response that love is blind, love is patient, or might have defined it with their own words.

I know you have your own meaning of love too. Regardless of the different definitions, I believe that love should be shown and be given to every creature on earth- aside from us, humans.

But in reality, not every human is as sympathetic and compassionate to other creatures such as animals, specifically to "dogs".

For example those videos I never searched about dog-cruelty but already appeared in my youtube account. It breaks my heart when I saw some dogs being brutally beaten up. I know they can develop traumas too.

Honestly, I was not the most affectionate person when it comes to animals but with dogs, I never knew it could be my soft spot.

I dreamed of having pets before but my ideal pets are first-fishes, second- birds and lastly are dogs. Although I have experienced petting a dog before but I wasn't really that hands-on at all because we just co-pet or co-owned what we had before with the whole family members. Usually, it was always my father or mother who fed our animals. We are mostly on the playtime or the physical journey of the dogs but we just do that only when we wanted to.

Personally, I prefer dogs than cats because I grow up having them around in the house. Most of my family members before had kids asthma and chose not to pet a cat since we observed that cats hair have bigger effects on my siblings.

Not until my big brother's birthday last Nov.19, 2021. Mama asked for puppies from a friend after we got robbed and then at 6am of my big brothers birthday, a little boy knocked in our house giving the puppies away.

He said that the puppies can now eat solid foods. Kuya( my big brother)'s birthday was the official date that we officially adopted them.

That was the first picture we took during their first day with us.

Meet "Silly" puppy number one on the left and "Lazy" puppy number two whos looking at the camera.

My little sister named them: "Silly" since she's so hyper, always moving around, and biting everything while the other is named "Lazy" because she was the sleepy one and super slow in eating food. She barely drinks water too, we improvised some dropper for her to drink some water or milk.

I don't know much about dog breeds but I know that these puppies are called "askal" here in the Philippines. Mostly neglected because they are considered stray dogs found in streets that can survive on their own. Anyway, regardless of the breed they deserve to be loved also even if they're not the prettiest of their relative species.

During that first day, my sister was the one feeding them since I was busy in our store.

Everybody was fond of playing with our new found pets. However, Silly likes to be with me and even followed me in our mini-store.

I was so fascinated by their different traits. I even mentioned them in some of my posts in noise.cash.

We also had a cute and stout puppy named "tubby", she didn't even last a month with us after she was accidentally stepped on her tummy by my aunt. She had gone so much before she died. My first ever puppy and she's the sweetest among the three.(I love you tubby, I'll make a separate article for you too.)

Everything seemed happy until my puppies got infected by other neighbors dog and cats through daily interaction. They were scratching their head constantly and they were wounded in most parts of their body.

That was the time they (my other family members) changed their treatment to the puppies. They didn't want them around anymore. They beat them with whatever they grab first: stick, slippers, hard cloth,soft broom, hard broom etc.

In addition to their disgust, my puppies no matter how much I potty train them, they still sneak and pee or poop around the house. I can't bear to see them being beaten, they said that it was just part of disciplining dogs. No matter how I defend that dogs can't actually connect their anger and loud voices towards what they've done. That dogs are just pooping and peeing on almost same spot because they just based it on smell.

They decided to cage them. It breaks my heart that we can't do our play time and walk every morning since they warned me. Puppies cried all day and all night long. The cage was old yet I just put some clean cloth inside for them to have a place to sleep. Also a cover for rain and wind.

The scratching and shaking of head still continous and even worsen. I remember it just started with these tiny bumps in their head that formed a line.

Their skin looks red, dry and dehydrated but still I played with them, fed them and put to sleep. I then managed to put some antiseptic to their wounds when they fall asleep everynight. Sometimes I used the topical ointment that I made for them made from "Madre de Cacao". As I searched, it said that it helps improve the dogs skin condition, can repel ticks and fleas too. They were laughing because I shouldn't be doing all these just for the puppies and just let them be. "It's better that they get the disease than to us humans, they're just dogs. When they die, we'll ask for another one". I was caught speechless for what I've heard. I can't bear to just neglect them as my family's suggesting. I treat these creatures as my own babies. They needed help more than just the feeding.

I still like to carry them around no matter what skin condition they have.

It took me so long enough to figure out what I should be doing to my puppies because how will I suppose to address the problem when I don't know exactly what my puppies problem really are in the first place?

I just can't bear anymore to see them silently crying while being disturbed by unwanted guests in their body and wake themselves up just to scratch in the middle of the night.

I just recently discovered also that Silly have an allergic reaction when she eats chicken. Her redness worsen and scratching never stops. One day after she ate chicken, she woke up with really red diluted eyes, swollen skin and very red. I was alarmed yet before I gave her antihistamine, I searched if humans medicine like antihistamine are safe for dogs and the safe dosage. Thank God for everything and thank you google, the inflammation subsided and her eyes normalized.

I felt sorry to these puppies, if only I had enough money. Maybe their nutrition won't be compromise and I'll go all out with their needs. If only I had money, visiting to a vet will always be the first option than to self medicate them but that's not the case.

These puppies helped me discover many things, from terminologies to practices and trainings, to realization that I have this so much love inside me for so long that's just waiting to come out even if they call me crazy.

I suspected it to be scabies and fleas so I scheduled them a weekly medicated bath with the sulfur soap and wash-out that I bought. Wash-out is mixed with water for their last rinse.

I removed fish and chicken in their daily intake, I bought 3kgs of Vitality dog food. It says that its made from lamb and beef which my puppies love, also it can help in regrowing healthy and shiny puppies coat as they claim.

Our neighbor even put a topical drops of ivermectin to the two, with 2 weeks no to bathing them.

I got fleas from lazy's coat also few times within the treatment maybe because her hairs are longer than silly's and they want to hide there.

Their skin improved a lot, just the slight redness for silly and still waiting for her body to regrow her hairs.

This is now their skin and coats condition after a month.

I am just glad that this first-time pet parenthood experience are beneficial to both dogs and humans.

Sometimes loving is way easier when everything was fine and perfect, but if chances don't favor your expectations, and everything goes wrong. Will you go break the bond for your convenience?

Maybe we can't change them, they have freedom whom to love. But we can always do our part to give and always choose to love.

Thanks for your time reading mine.