wassup dog?

I used to be overly scared by dogs. I won't go near one and turns icy cold whenever I enter a house with dogs. The reason for this phobia is (no, i haven't been bitten by one and thank God) I have once been chased by three (and that was a long distance chase). Funny story, my twin and I were walking aimlessly at our subdivision when all of a sudden there was a pack of dogs approaching us, they were slowly walking at first, quite giving us the tiger look (dogs!), i swear we didn't plan to run because we know that will mean war. They were obviously after us (or our meat) as they approached nearer, and though we were telling ourselves not to run, our weakening legs overruled. As you know, end of story, we outran them, but still never had my heart raced that fast (well there's another time, but that's something positive *_*). From that day on we looked at dogs and see them as carnivores. Never a pet. And that didn't work quite well because my dad is a dog person. The irony of it all was we had about 6 askals that had to be kept away/guarded whenever we roam outside the house. My dad is such a dog lover that he would readily adopt any type of dog (even the sickly ones) - we never got that, the affection - what that's about. Until we had coal. Coal is our Father's day Present, 2 years ago. He was only a baby when my twin and I bought him from a friend. I never hold him then, even if he was small and kinda cute because I was scared of him. The only reason why we bought him is because we know Papa won't want anything in the world than a new dog. I'd never forget the smile in Papa's face when we turned him over to him, with a birth certificate and all. He's our first with-breed dog and my father was happy beyond words.

It would be nice to end this post here but no, i have to tell the not-so-good days with coal. He's not the 24/7 adorable pup you imagined from your stuffed toys. First off, he has this poop-anywhere-urinate-anywhere habit during his first 6 months (that included our sala, kitchen, dining area, my parent's room etc.) I honestly felt our house was a living germfest tolerating that habit of his. Second and worst of all - he ate my clearance papers in Citibank (that time I was newly fired (hehe) and I was already about 75% finish with the signatures). It was lying innocently on a small table and he just ate it to bits and pieces. The excuse 'the dog ate my homework' literally happened to me. I was 21 and I cried like a 6 year old. I called on papa and told him about how coal just ate my 2-day effort away. It was 3 pm and the deadline I set with my friends was the following day (we had to have people from Citibank Makati to sign too), so I was throwing a tantrum when Papa while trying to put the pieces of paper together by scotch tape, told me, ulitin mo na lang anak. With fresh tears and without taking a bath I rushed to Citibank Eastwood.  Good thing, I arrived just in time to recollect the signatures but I would not want to remember how I needed to tell them why I was doing it all over again. 

Now that Coal has lived with us for almost 2 years, I've adjusted (we all have). I never gave him another chance to eat something important again (heheh). Aside from the horrible first 6 months, Coal turned out to be like the 5th member of the family. We don't have a cage for him as he is kept inside the house. He sleeps inside my parents room and eats in our kitchen floor. We bring him to the vet for checkup and buy him stuff he doesn't need (dog shirt, collar, sunsilk black shampoo, etc). We are fond of him as he is our coaley. =)

I gave him that name - Coal, because he was so black. He's the common police dog - the black labrador that looks so serious beside a swat guy. Whenever we go to a mall we often see so many Coal look-alikes, although I must say after being around a lazy, funny, quiet, and adorable black dog for a long time, they are nothing like Coal.