Muppy And Random Rememberings

Remember Muppy, my parents’ border collie whom they abruptly cut short their HK visit and rushed home to tend to after she collapsed at the vet’s? So during the Grandparent Tour we got to my parents’ house and only my parents’ Spare Parts Mutt (SPCA rescue mutt who looks like she is made up of various spare parts) is in attendance. The house is conspicuously without the fat border collie’s deafening barks. (Ay, “fat” is already complimentary ok, I have never met a border collie who hates walking and loves eating that much before Angeline and yes, we have met quite a few, considering JD used to train and compete in Advanced Agility events both locally and internationally with the HKCWAC back in the day.)

Old posted-to-death Facebook pic of JD and me during an agility competition back in the day

Finally I ask, and am shown the dog lying at the very back of the house, nose to crack under the back door, so she can still smell everything going on in the back lane. Muppy almost never ventures out of the kitchen, and in the 5.5 days we are there I do not see her walk about at all. She walks when my mother hauls her by a leash, to keep her active.

And this is Muppy showing some life after a teaspoon of baby fish smoothie. She doesn’t look fat in this picture but trust me she’s really fat – vet’s verdict. My mum doesn’t like the vet very much. And Mum’d want me to post a nice “thin” pic 😀

Though she is most certainly not blind, I owe my parents an apology for disbelieving how drastic the change in the dog’s personality is – though we haven’t seen the animal in years, the difference in personality is still very evident. No wonder my parents, especially my mother, was so spooked. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t pissed anyway, thinking she overdid it with the dogs (daily: 2-3 small feedings whereby she washes table scraps if we’ve been out to a meal because the mutt does not eat dog food,  at least 2 neighborhood walks (not counting when they drive early in the morning to Gurney Drive several times a week when we aren’t around), daily half-baths and blow-dries for the border collie who has occasional mild incontinence, twice a week full baths and blow dries for both, not to mention the cleaning of the home every night before she sleeps because dogs shed and are well, animals)… My parents btw, are close to 70 years old. Yes I type the last just dripping with disapproval.

My mother’s raising of me, despite my being an only child, can be summed up by the phrase But Someone Else Needed Me More. Now that’s the dogs. Even as some of their friends say things to me like, “Now we know who they love more” (??!! And then I got jewelry for my birthday in advance.) It was why Mum was often gone even after regular school hours, either assisting in having books transcribed into braille at St Nicholas’ Home For The Blind or, when she was at a public school known for horrible disciplinary problems, giving free English lessons to any kids willing to show up around their often round-the-clock pasar malam (night market) stall manning (think I mentioned before that she quit that one after her new car was carved up with a pen knife for fun the first day she drove it to school, because they hadn’t recognized it as her car). Maybe I “spoiled” them thus, because except for a brief rebellious period that barely lasted a year in my low teens (where I then met my best friend in high school), I was almost fiercely determined to “have my head screwed on straight.” Couple times as a teenager I sought counseling y’know, to be sure. NO, NOT TOO MANY. Just my mildly obsessive compulsive hypochondria extends not only to physical health <sheepish>

My mum had students everywhere. We would be about the malls and various youths might pop up with a “Cikgu!” (trans: “teacher!”). My favorite was the decked out, hair-gelled Ah Beng* whom my mum didn’t immediately recognize out of his school uniform, who concluded with a mixture of pride and irony, “Cikgu beh jin wah (Teacher cannot recognize me) I too handsome.” 

*Sorry, I don’t believe an accurate English equivalent of this term exists. Lemme try to convey the right mood:

pic from memegenerator.net

No? How bout this:

Not best portrayal in Singapore, JB and some say Batam? (pic from simplybeautifulhealthyliving.blogspot.com)

There. (pic from allmalaysia.info)

Ah yes, Picasso had a Blue Phase, my mum had an Ah Beng Student Phase. <blissful reminiscence> They always treated her respectfully. Even that time they found and dragged the guy who carved her car up (she’d never had any contact with him prior, he wasn’t her student at all) to her desk and offered to “teach him a lesson real good”. Because of them I have a strangely fond view of Bengs. But anyway, back to the current…

“Umm….. You sure they didn’t give you a different dog?” I half-joke. It’s not like it hasn’t happened to people we met on the Peak, with puppies they obtained from a little petshop somewhere HK, which then got sick shortly after (in case you didn’t get that, the puppy might be inbred with serious health problems, it was explained to us by someone who actually bought one, so when you return it they say they’ll “cure” it and call you back, but what they really do is call back in a few months with a new animal that they can pass off for the “cured” one. The person it happened to said she was alerted by the “cured” puppy having no idea who she was or any recollection of his (relatively swanky) home and a very different personality from the original)…

One guy we met on the Peak Trail told us he’d spent HKD 800 per dog to DNA test the ones he’d paid purebreed price for, just to prove they were really not (he had no intention of returning them as he’d already grown attached, but just got irritated by the bullshit). He had 5 dogs, 2 or 3 of which were “purebreeds” (later proven to not be), the rest were rescue mutts, he ended up having so much fun tracing their bloodlines he tested all 5 but that’s another story… JD is 10+ years old now, most people who hear that exclaim in surprise. Australians we’ve met randomly on our walks have remarked to her things like, “I knew you were an Australian animal, you’re such a beautiful girl!” (Huh, racist! 😀 Yes I know it’s not an accurate term but I find it funny anyway)

But I digress again; of course my parents have had Muppy for years, she’s the same animal, I see the spark return when she gets a teaspoon of Little Miss’ fish smoothie. After that I am treated to a conspiratorial grin of still-very-white fangs, when I speak to her. But she barks rarely. Rockstar once dubbed her “Grandmum’s Noisy, Naughty One” who, despite a dislike for walks and massive overweight would BARKBARKBARK the whole house down (desirable to some house owners in Malaysia where neighborhood burglaries abound, unlike in HK where two separate apartment unit owners signing off can get your noisy dog kicked out of the building) and bounce vertically 5 feet in the air if you had something to eat.

So… Muppy is a different animal. And my parents have decided she really needs ’em. I got that message with a little ruby set in tiny diamonds and couple gold necklaces. I don’t know whether to laugh or tear up. Sigh.