The Dog Chasing Episode

The Dog Chasing Episode                          9^th July, 2017

       There are several dogs in the lane where I live.  There are stray or somebody’s dogs.  At first I gave them food because I took pity on stray dogs.  At one time there were many more dogs coming here and I found them a nuisance as they could fight for any reasons.  Besides, they also made a lot of noise day and night.  Hence, I decided not to cook rice and gave leftover food for them though my next-door still give them leftover food.

        Nowadays, I only give them chicken or pork bones if I have.  I also see them with a lot of distaste.  On several occasions, they tore the newspaper before we read them when they came into our house compound.  My son did not shoo them out when he came home at night.  Besides, they chased our cats out of our house compound. 

        Lately, my next-door neighbour has complained about our cats toileting in their compound.  My husband has heightened up the fence in the backyard to prevent our cats to get out of our house compound easily.  We know that the cats will not dare to get out in the front yard for fear of the dogs. 

        But these stray dogs rushed into our house compound to charge at my cats whenever my son opened the gate.  He did not shoo the dogs out.  It had become a habit for them to rush into our house compound to chase our cats and eat their food so much to my exasperation. 

Whenever my husband or I came back from town or elsewhere, they were prepared to rush in.  But we honed them to get out and they listened. 

        On the 5^th of July, when I came home from marketing, all the stray dogs would have rushed into our house compound if I had not honed.  However, one of the stray dogs refused to listen despite my honing many times to warn it not to do so.  It just rushed in to charge at my cats out of the house compound.  I flew into a rage seeing this.  Thus it was my turn to chase it round and round my house compound though it wanted to get out very much.  This time, I refused to open the gate to let it go out easily.  I threw at it whatever thing I could lay hand on hoping to hit it to teach it a lesson.  I missed it all the time but I was determined to beat it to vent my anger. 

        The dog was really scared and dodged my chase to escape.  In desperation as the last resort, it tried to get out through the drain in the backyard and got stuck there.  Only then, I stopped.  Then I called my husband to come home earlier from his orchard to help me get the dog out of the drain. 

        My husband did come home earlier and tried to make the dog turn backwards to come out but failed in the attempt.  One of my neighbours who happened to know it also tried to help us but without avail.  The thought that the dog might die there haunted me all the time.  I was restless and upset.  I was thinking of asking someone to come to drill open a hole to pull it out.  But we had to pay a sum of money to ask somebody to do it. 

Then suddenly I remembered how our fire fighters who not only can fight fire well but also help us people solve many kinds of problems in life.   I saw them help a child whose foot got stuck in the toilet bowl to get detached.  A man whose ring was not able to be detached from his finger asked the firemen for help.  Someone who found snake in their house asked the firemen for help.   Someone………….  I decided to ask them for help too.  I Google search for the telephone number of the Sibu Fire Station  and  muttered up my courage to call them.  I explained to them of my distress.  They understood and came as soon. 

 When they had come, I only said a few words and let my husband to deal with them.  I went for my afternoon bath and then read the Chinese copy of newspaper as usual.  I knew that these firemen were so professional and they should know a way to solve the problem. 

I took my time to take my bath as usual.  But when I came out of my bath, they had left already.  I was deeply impressed and surprised and asked my husband how they did it.  He told me that they jet water at the dog.  I could imagine that the dog must have a fright of its life and a backward  lug of itself to get detached and left limping out of my house 
compound and making the dog’s usual sound “ngang…………”.  

Since that day up to today, not one dog has dared to come into our house compound to charge at our two cats.  To teach one dog, all the other dogs have learnt their lesson.  There is a Chinese proverb saying, “To kill a chicken to warn the monkey(杀鸡儆猴)”.