Meet Dice

If yesterday was a lazy Wednesday for me and today was the exact opposite. I know I did hope that I will be productive today but what kept me busy?

This morning when I went to the living room, I saw my brother and sister-in-law's house slippers placed by the door. I knew right away that they will be coming over so I checked our group chat if they messaged about it but there was none. I was thinking what the ocassion would be for them to come. I know that today is Maundy Thursday but it has been years since they last slept here. They also do not spend the night here during Holy Week even before when we would do Visita Iglesia. Even pre pandemic they have rarely spend the night here as we would usually meet them in a mall. I cannot remember the last time that they slept here. But anyways, I kept on thinking about the reason why they are coming over. I cannot ask my mom since she was taking a bath. I thought that maybe they will go to a nearby supplier to buy some stocks that they could bring to the store on Saturday.

It was probably lunch time that they arrived and when I was about to bring the dogs out, our helper said that Dice is here. Dice (not his real name) is my brother and sister-in-law's dog. Technically, it was the dog of my sister-in-law's brother for more than a decade. Since he got married and lived in a condominum years ago, he let his sister took care of the dog. This is actually what hurts me when pet owners pass their pets to other people may it be family or not because they cannot take care of them anymore. Well at least they did not abandon them on the street right? But it still hurts me everytime I would hear stories about giving their pets away. Dice is a half Shih Tzu and half Japanese Spitz. He has the same size as Doggo and Doggie but a little thinner than the 2.

Most of you know that we have 2 dogs, Doggo and Doggie, which are not really their real name. I first tried to introduce Doggie to Dice and it went good. When it was Doggo's turn, it was challenging especially because Doggo is the alpha here. And Dice being the solo dog in my brother's house is also the alpha. They would clash but I saw how Doggo would want to be friends with him but it was Dice who kept on growling. To think that this is Doggo's territory. I was guessing that maybe Dice is feeling alpha because my brother's family and his driver were still here. By the way, Dice's favorite hooman is my brother's driver. He is the one who takes care of Dice and because he is going on a vacation and my brother's family cannot take care of Dice because they also do not have a helper, they brought him here.

So when my brother's family left, Dice was still in the garage and we let Doggo and Doggie to welcome him. Dice became submissive. When the 3 of them were already good, we decided to bathe Dice as he really smells bad. I brought Doggie and Doggo inside the house because I know that Doggo would pick a fight with Dice after he takes a bath as that is what he usually do with Doggie. It was our helper who bathed Dice and I heard that she had finished bathing him. She brought him in her room and I did not hear any cry or bark so I was guessing that Dice felt refreshed after his bath that is why he was probably sleeping. That is what I think because you will find our dogs sleeping after their bath.

Around past 3PM, our helper told me that she could not find Dice all over the house. Of course the first thing that came to my mind is how is that possible when we do have high walls and gates. The first place that I looked into is our helper's bathroom but he was not there. Our helper said that she had looked everywhere but she really cannot find him. So I also looked around our house together with Doggo but we could not find him as well. I informed my mom and my mom informed my dad and all of us looked around the house together with Doggie and Doggo. If Dice was here, those 2 dogs would have smelled him already.

We all had our own theories:

1. He jumped over to the other house through our terrace
2. Someone jumped over our wall and took the dog
3. Someone let him escape

When we really could not find him, we called my brother right away. I told my brother that we bathed Dice and then the next thing we know is that he was nowhere to be found. I was on videocall with my brother while I was checking every corners of the house. He said that Dice does not like taking a bath so he probably went on hiding. Did you know that my brother even asked me to look for Dice under the sink in our dirty kitchen? I told him that it was a cabinet but he said that he might have gotten there or probably the cabinets were open. But did you know that I still looked for him inside the cabinet? LOL. Kind of funny right? I know that it was impossible for him to get in there but I still checked just to be sure.

Sadly, we really could not find Dice inside our house. So my mom drove around the subdivision with our helper while I still tried to look for Dice inside our house. I even looked for him under the bed of our helper. They came back after almost 2 hours because I also told them if they can look at the CCTV in our subdivision. As it turns out, our house is not covered by the CCTV because we were in the middle. But eventhough it could not be seen in the CCTV, they did not see Dice passed by any of the CCTVs. So where is Dice?

April 14, 2022

P.S. lead image is a photo of Dice sent by my sister-in-law when I asked for his photo so we can send it to our subdivision's Viber group.