Chubby, remembered.

Chubby loved her treats. My wife and I used to kid around that Chubby would easily be the hands-down choice for endorser of Beggin Strips. All you had to do was to crush the foil packaging and she would run towards that sound, wherever she may be.

Once she had the treat, she would find a comfortable rug somewhere and then methodically start to work breaking up the beggin strip into smaller portions before starting to eat them.

A single strip will often take her about 90seconds, as she chews it quite thoroughly. the exceptions happen when she hasnt been given a treat in a week; as she will munch through the entire thing in 2 seconds.

On my wife's first trip to the U.S., Chubby, who knew her pack hierarchy very well, (#1 my wife; #2 chubby; #3 me) suddenly jumped on the bed. this was the first time ever that she did that; I took the picture to send to my wife. Either Chubby was conscious that she was temporarily in top position, or she just missed my wife very much that day.

I could not pull her down. I also was conscious about my pack position. if i pulled her down, she would surely lunge at me. and I make a huge, slow-moving target. hahaha. by the way, this was our new manila house. My wife had her own library and reading room, and I had my own darkroom and cigar area in the attic. occasionally i would have a four-legged visitor who would go up the flight of stairs to hide out with me there. unfortunately, going down the stairs was not her strong point, so she did not visit me that often.

this was at the foot of the stairs, which was chubby's daytime area whenever we weren't around.

chubby ate twice a day, and from the same bowl ever since we had her. her usual meal treats was either ground beef, or chicken. as you can see, she was having chicken that day, so it was a special day. we probably came from Savory the night before.

and this is how she looked halfway through her usual meal.

and this would be how she looked if you forgot to feed her. she would wait beside her bowl. too dignified to let you know.

chubby was also a cultured dog. she used her paws to handle her beggin strips whenever she can. and she chews discretely.

ok, not all the time.

while she would be eating, this is what i'd be eating. keep in mind i was alone for two months.

let me pause for now.


Chubby loved her herb garden. she has had several. way back in new manila, she loved munching on her ferns, but she had to reach across the koi pond, at the narrowest point. She occasionally would need roughage especially after a bout with indigestion. when we moved over to Wilson, I had to build a special herb garden for her, and my wife; not necessarily in that order. the most complicated one i did had basil, tarragon, rosemary, and dill. i planted those as a surprise to my wife when she studied at the French Culinary Institute in New York. I timed them to grow just as she was on her way back. Instead, I was surprised one morning when i saw chubby hovering at the herb garden. after her first taste of basil, she was hooked. hahaha. I think she decimated the herb garden in three days.

Since it took a while to set up a herb garden, if i didn't have one prepared when chubby gets a tummy ache, the fastest way to go is to pop in a handful of mung beans in water, overnight; then plant them the following morning. in two days, they grow to this size. the clay pig on the left was something we picked up in suan lum in thailand in 2005 i think. i handcarried it, not too sure if it would make the 4hour trip in one piece. it did. I originally intended it to be modified into a fountain tip for the koi pond, but never got around to buying the pumps.

occasionally, chubby would stand guard over her puny munggo herb garden, while looking at her kingdom from the balcony. The bamboo chimes were a gift, but i do not quite remember from whom exactly.

when she gets tired standing, she sits and watches the munggo grow. she is a very patient dog. patient, unless suddenly unterrupted by pack hierarchy animal number 3 (me). and she makes sure i notice that she was irritated by my distraction.

irritating chubby was something you wouldn't want to do. although she doesn't turn green, she somehow gets scary when you know she's got your number. she has actually been a very well tempered dog most of the time. with the operative word being "most". I, who takes the brunt of her intolerances, am occasionally fearful of her when she gets jealous of me. the few times she has snarled at me, it was mostly as a warning to back off; to give her space. I almost always did.

i remember when we moved to wilson. whenever she needed to use the toilet (she had her own, and I trained her to use it) which was in the other room and needed someone to wake up to open the door for her, she learned to growl in a very low register, and at a low volume so as it would not be enough to wake up my wife. if my wife woke, she would shout at chubby to stop it and just wait for morning. chubby knew who to wake up. hahaha. and she would "knock" on the door after finishing her business, so i would let her back in again. For some reason, if she woke me up, i knew she had to do her thing at that moment. shouting at her to stop it would only break her spirit. all it took for me was to wake up, open the door, and wait for her to come back.

id like to end this article with a black and white photograph of chubby, as she was staring out towards north east. i think this was taken a few months before she died. she would often look out towards that direction, perhaps conscious that both my wife and i would be in that direction. in her last two months, she often stared in that direction, waiting for her master to come home. you can sense her loneliness, perhaps even desolation, as she probably knew her time was coming up. perhaps she was waiting for her master to come home and be with her for the last time. Louie Aseoche, i vividly remember you telling me that Chubby lunging at my pulse when I assisted the doctors in putting chubby in the cage was "her way of telling me she did not want to die away from you, but perhaps in your arms". I must have really really irritated her sending her off to the hospital. I sent her off because I was hoping that her sickness/lack of appetite could be cured by the best doctors money can buy. She did not want to be sent off because she knew she only had 24 hours left to live; and she wanted the last 24 hours to be spent with someone who had needed to love her. I realized that because of what you said, Louie. I will always wear the watch i wore that day, when she bit me at my right pulse. it will always remind me that things are not always what they seem to be.

i badly miss you, baby.