In summer of 2009, my brother brought home a cute little Chinese Shar Pei and she instantly became the “star” of the family. Her name is Maxene. It was the first time when we had a pure-breed dog since all of our dogs are askal and the others were cross-breeds. She has this distinctive features of deep wrinkles and a blue-black tongue. Due to her wrinkles, we had to spend more time gently scrubbing her during bath time since they are prone to skin diseases.
She was spoiled in many ways. She always had dog treats like Pedigree DentaStix. She has her own dog bone, dog toys and even her own bed. We even bought baby clothes in tiangge for her to wear. We nurtured her like a real member of the family. She was a watch dog. She always follow us wherever we go. She was affectionate but reserved.
One funny thing about her was her selfishness; whenever a dog comes near us, she’ll try hard to grab our attention so that we will not pay attention to the other. When she was young, she never learned to heel, or sit or stay. She did things her way.
Maxene loves eating. Everytime we will eat at the dining table, or even at the living room, she’ll stare at our food as if she’s asking us to give her some. One new year’s eve when all our food were on the table, she stood up in two feet and stayed in that position while sniffing what were served.
On her first year of existence, she gave birth to three little puppies named Luke, Chicken and Lollipop. Unfortunately, Lollipop died after a couple of weeks. The two stayed inside the house until such time when they were uncontrollable that we had to leave them in one cage.
After a year, she gave birth to two more puppies, Bibo and Mixie. Since my father was having a challenging time feeding all of them in the morning, we had to let go of Mixie, who is now with my cousin in Cavite. All of her puppies were caged while Maxene stayed and freely lived inside our house.
One unfortunate event happened last year when Luke had an illness which resulted to his death. A couple of months later, Chicken followed.
We never thought that we’ll get to celebrate Maxene’s fourth and final birthday last New Year’s day. Unlike in previous years, she was less spirited, maybe because she was ageing. Until recently, she got sick. She slowly lost her energy and just remained lying on the floor. She eventually lost her appetite until yesterday when she held her last breath.
There are times when I think I feel that stare, and I reach out my hand to stroke her hair, but she’s not there. She is now in dog heaven and how I wish that isn’t so.
