My Beloved Xiao Bai

 

I was spring cleaning the apartment, and came across this photo. I smiled as I thought of how much my beloved chow chow, Xiao Bai hated to be photographed. The above is one of those rare pictures taken by my niece, Incy, when she was visiting me from Melbourne. Of course, after the picture was taken, my lethargic pet woke up from his sleep and walked away. He just could not stand the camera! Once I took him to the photo studio and it took the photogragher 30 minutes just to take one shot. Xiao Bai kept moving and turning his back to the camera! Hence when the TV crew were filming "5 Missing Hostesses" in my apartment, they wanted my cute chow chow in the movie, but I told them they might have to spend a lot of time coaxing him.!

At Rialto, whenever I prepared a huge mound of pizza dough, and before waiting for the yeast to rise, I would sculpture the above picture. I would put a piece of cut black olive as Xiao Bai's nose and my staff would laugh seeing the resemblance. My beloved staff, Amudah, would smile and say that I love my dog so much, even thinking of him when at work.

Once I showed the above photo to my client, Mrs. Lim, who is in her late seventies. She thought that Xiaobai's ears were his eyes!! Later she laughed when she realised her mistake.

It has been almost two years since my Xiao Bai passed away, and I miss him and my other two dogs, Kamlette and Kambobo. I am glad to be able to find Xiaobai's double in Spike, pictured in my earlier blog. Whenever I visit Aveline, my colleague, I will definitely pop over to see Spike.

Although dogs do not go to Heaven as animals do not have souls, they already make earth like heaven, especially for those who love dogs. At least I know I do, for my life is made so much more beautiful, colorful and meaningful because of my dogs. I am not a theologian, but I would like to think that God must love dogs very much too for a d-o-g is G-O-D spelt backwards!

Gan Chau