Saving COCO

I never had a pet of my own. My elder sister once had a dog named Popsie when I was 3 or 4 years old, and that’s it. I wanted a rabbit when I was in grade school but I never got the chance to own one.

This month is said to be my dog’s birth month, therefore making him exactly 1 year old. I’m not so sure of the exact day for we only rely on what my neighbor told us when this cutie was given to us weeks after he was born.

Coco is not a special breed. He belongs to the ASPIN (short for asong Pinoy) type. His parents were wandering dogs in our neighborhood.

Coco used to be our nightshift dog. I coined that term because he’s only with us in the morning where he just sleeps and eats and then goes out again at night to be with her mom and siblings. But then we trained him to just stay inside the house and just watch from the window while his family roams the village. That actually worked to our advantage because he previously brought fleas whenever he comes home. :(

There were so many times that we already gave up on him. My septuagenarian aunt often says that she’s grown tired of looking after him while I go to work and my niece goes to school. A neighbor once offered P200 so he can have Coco. I almost gave in, mostly because of my aunt’s prodding. But when I found out Coco was to end up as a dish on a table, I said NO. There was also a time that we gave him to another neighbor who’s so fond of him. Eventually he returned home. That was the time I realized that Coco’s real home is with us. Not as a dead meat inside someone’s stomach, not as a guard dog in someone else’s property, and not a nuisance in the surrounding blocks of our subdivision.

Also, this fighter almost died late last year. Based on my research, he suffered from kennel cough. I wanted to bring him to a veterinarian but I know my elder sisters would just laugh at me for spending money on a dog that might die anyway. But thank God for Google! I was able to find home remedies for Coco’s case. But his road to recovery wasn’t easy. I would wake up at dawn just to see if he’s still alive. His breathing wasn’t normal and we had a hard time approaching him for he wouldn’t want to be touched nor fed. Before Christmas time, he was well again. :) But his mom didn’t make it. She got the same disease a week before Coco. She left newborn puppies (the flirt that she was!) who unfortunately died also early this year after being ran over by an unknown type of vehicle. The only family that Coco has is a sibling that lives behind us (there were actually two in that house but my niece told me she only sees one lately so I’m not so sure what happened to the other one). And us. :)

Coco is also your typical dog who damages things when he gets his hands on them. His last victims were four pairs of footwear, including my favorite jelly shoes and Dupé flipflops! Getting mad is out of the question because that wouldn’t bring back the said footwear in their former state. But we now have a stick just to sort of discipline him.

Coco is part of the family, that I can assure him. Let me also add that he’s already left a mark (or marks) in my body (something visual because lately his form of affection would be to jump on me whenever I come home from work). But that doesn’t stop us from loving him and treating him as one of us. He deserves a home, and we’re happy to give him that.