My Love-Hate Relationship With The Animal Kingdom

Great to see OREO, my cousin's doggie just now. Grandma was just relating to us how fortunate this dog is. Mom was quite surprise to see me stroking OREO coz. for the good part of my life, i was realy afraid of dogs.

On the contary, i grew up with a German Shepherd at home. That was a long time back .. probably my primary or secondary school days. It was fear all along and getting in and out of the house was a real challenge every day. Can u imagine, there were many times when we (as kids) were being chased by the dog all the way to our rooms on the second floor and we will all just quickly slam the door. For many years, i also had the same recurring dream that the dog wanted to bite me. In fact, i had to use both hands to open the dog mouth just to prevent it from biting. Well, that was just a dream. The dog could have just been playing with me.

I wondered why i had this dream many times.In fact, it was a dream that 'haunted' me for many years. Perhaps, i was bitten by dogs when i was really young. Not sure! But well, funny thing is that when the german shepherd was put to sleep because he was really old and ill, i actually miss 'him' around. Call me wierd but i remember the first few weeks after 'he' passed on, i could still hear 'his' faint howling in the middle-of-the nite. Perhaps it was just imagination. But poor dog, i think 'he's' really lonely coz. my dad doesn't bring him out for walks.

Surprisingly, the fear went off gradually when i studied in Melbourne and my friend, Pearly had a really cute and tame white Maltise & Shitzu. It was as if for the first time in my life, i realised that dogs can be quite manageable and loveable. The dog just went around doing his own thing while we were all in the room. That was the time when i decided to face my own fear. I plucked up my courage to gently pat the dog. And of course, the rest is history.

I guess i've not been really exposed to many dogs. So far, the most frequent is Benji, Alvin & Cheryl's friendly doggie. Anyway, the other animal which i really dislike & scared is cats. My apologies to all the cat-lovers but i just can't handle cats. Will never forget the shock which i had back in uni when i went to my room, opened the door and saw my neighbour, Yoki's cat on my study table, staring at me. Good grieve. OK ... enough of my love-hate relationship with the animal kingdom.