A Couple�s Pride And Joy (a Sharing By Dr Wai Kar Men)

The bigger dog is Ben. He’s 13 this year. We adopted him when he was 7. Sweetest dog in the world- loves cats, kids, man, woman, other dogs but unfortunately doesn’t like rabbits very much. He was due to be put down and the pound workers couldn’t bear to so they contacted a rescue group in Adelaide. His foster mum drove from Adelaide to NSW (23 hours!) to pick up whichever dogs she could save from the pounds and luckily Ben was one of them. Surprisingly no one adopted him for 6 months until we came along. I have only heard him bark once and that was nearly a year after we adopted him. He also likes his squeaky toy and sleeps with it.

Smaller dog is chubby. We downgraded her name from her original title of ‘Princess’ as I couldn’t tahan such a girly name. Chubby fits her fell as she loves food and hence Chubby. Also because her waist line and body is disproportionate to her head size. For a foxterrier cross, she weighed 10 kg when she came to us (usually 6 kg) and we had to buy additional space for her transport down to us. She is also a rescue dog from the pounds. All we know of her past apart from her name and age (6 yrs old) was that she was surrendered with another small dog (who has since also found a forever home elsewhere) and the Canberra rescue group managed to get her out within a week. She’s such a paper tiger. Loves to be in action only if she can hide behind Ben. Also knows the softest spot to lie on be it, in the house or in the park.

They have both been lovely and I cant’ imagine a day that goes if I didn’t come back to their happy faces. I will also encourage friends wherever possible to adopt dogs as the older they are, the less you have to train to toilet-train them! Ben took less than 24 hours to train. Chubby took one week but that’s ok, she used to be known as Princess and maybe there’s a reason for her name. The love that you have from your pets is something no words can express.

When Vince and I got engaged, we had to make sure our two ‘monkeys’ could be in the limelight too. It was challenging getting them to pose but our photographer, Daren did a great job anyhow. As for Buster, he got to pose in our family portraits instead. Havent’ received the pictures for those yet.