If you had been to Loyang Offshore Base, you would have noticed the bunch of us, me, Clyde and the rest of our friends hanging out along one of the side roads. The place is so full of nooks and crannies that we can have fun with. It is not the cleanest of places, with dust kicking up every time one of those heavy trucks come rumbling down the road. Sounds dangerous doesn’t it? But being young and restless, we do not feel too endangered as long as we had a place to play in.

One fine day, a lady walked into our part of the neighbourhood and spotted us. I think to myself:
“Hmmm…. What is she doing here? Looks harmless enough, smiling and all. Hey! She is walking towards us. Should I run away? Sniff sniff… what’s that smell? Smells… delicious!”

Some fluffy white stuff that tasted nice and soft, and also our favourite… meat! We were young and needed all the energy to play so we started to devour the food. Turns out that there wasn’t enough to go around, with the bigger dogs having most of the share. Oh well, it’s the animal kingdom after all :(

The next day, the lady came again and brought more food for us. This lady is so wonderful, kept bringing us food, she must really love dogs! She came day after day without fail and we had gotten so used to her that we always waited for her at the same spot, craving for her yummy delicious food.

Ah … life was good … for a while.

Loyang Offshore Base is full of other creatures lest you have the impression that it is overrun by us dogs. Those creatures known as humans pretty much runs the place. We bear with them, always moving things about and talking loudly. For a while, humans and dogs live in peace till one day they started getting aggressive with us, and they came for me and Clyde! CLANG! The metal cages came down on us and we were trapped!! We were kept at a corner where it was dark, dirty and damp. Yucks! And the cages were so small we could hardly move. I realised one important thing:

“How is that lady going to find us?!”

The lady came the next day and looked kind of puzzled at where we had gone. She came in to view of our cage and we barked frantically at her. She turned around; her eyes squinted and were shocked at our new accommodations. She hurried over to one of the humans and pointed at our cage. I prayed that she was asking for us to be released but alas the human shook his head. The lady pondered and walked away. We barked and whined to get her attention.

“Hey lady! Don’t go away! Come rescue us please!”

In the meantime, the cage was really getting very uncomfortable. I could see that Clyde was struggling to adapt and I guess he was stressed out. We were constantly wrestling with the bugs and rats and trying to ignore the smell of scrap metals and diesel. It was dark and hot, we were not given any water, and I couldn’t see what bit us. As time passed I developed an itch on my face and started scratching it. It bled one day and I could feel the rest of my face and my lower body starting to itch as well. Oh horrors of horrors! Good thing that Clyde did not have such a problem. Bless him!

One day, after a month, we heard some commotions near our cage, and we noticed that the lady was there among the humans. Is she coming to save us? After many finger pointing and loud noises, someone opened our cages. Freedom? We were led out and up into a van. Where were these people taking us?

Clyde and I ended up in a place where there were other dogs too. They call this place the Pet Hotel. Yippee! More friends! We were showered and looked over by a vet. Clyde seemed to be all healthy and dandy, just a bit thin I suppose. I was the unlucky one. The bloody wounds on my face hurt really badly and it stung when the vet put some medicine on it. Ouch! We were housed in a much bigger cage this time and the humans that run this place are very friendly. We had a great time chatting up with the rest of the dogs. However, at the back in our minds we were thinking: is the kind lady was going to visit us soon?





And she did come to visit us! She looked worried nevertheless and I think it must be my still raw wounds that caused her anguish. She took us out for walks in the sunshine and let us run about. Ah… the smell of freedom. We were really glad she came and we sure let her know our feelings.
The day finally came when we had to say goodbye to Pet Hotel and start our journey to Noah’s Ark. I heard that the place has lots more dogs plus cats and horses, and we are free to run about. Yippee!

And so this ends our story of our journey from certain oblivion in Loyang to the lush green fields of Noah’s Ark. Clyde and I are healthy and well-fed here. My wounds are still healing so I am kept in a cage lest the other dogs rub at my wound and make it bleed again.

We are really thankful for Agnes and her friends for finding us a safe haven. We will always remember her and hope she visits us at Noah’s Ark soon.