I will never forget the events of this day. The day when our beloved black pug, Garfield, left us.
The night before, I was woken up by his whines. The tone of his whine was quite different from how he usually whines. I jumped out of my bed to check on him before tucking him back to bed.
In the morning, he continued to sleep past his normal waking-up time, which was around 8am. He actually slept till past noon, which was a bit unusual of him. After lunch, I heard him whine once again - apparently he just woke up - so I carried him out for his lunch.
This time, he only ate two small bites before slumping to the ground, evidently too tired to continue eating. We gave him some small sips of water, and brought him back to his bed.
His time was almost up, we knew. All this while, he was weak, tired, and losing weight, but he still ate. With gusto too. This was the first time he refused to eat, and when a dog refuses to eat, it is usually an ominous sign.
My parents and I gathered around him as he slept, and I quickly called my younger brother and told him to return as soon as possible. Garfield was almost in a coma, being very unresponsive.
After an hour or so, his condition stablised somewhat. His breathing became more relaxed, and he started to twitch and move a bit, which was common when he was sleeping normally. When I tapped his "holy paw" (his white paw), he flinched and drew them back slightly. Since young, he has always disliked it when anyone tapped his front paws, and will always withdraw them. (Which was why I coined it the "holy paw".) Feeling quite relieved, we let him continue to sleep. With a heavy heart, I took a picture of him sleeping, as I knew that this could very well be the last picture of him alive.
 |
| The last picture of Garfield when he was still alive. Taken on 14th April 303pm. |
After our dinner, he was still sleeping. My mother smeared some ice cream on his tongue, and to our delight, he actually licked his lips and swallowed it! Since young, Garfield has always loved sweet things, so we gave him a bit more. But after a while, he drifted back to sleep.
At 10pm, I came out to check on him again. And I realised that his eyes were wide open. I quickly told my mother that Garfield was awake, and that we should try to feed him some food now. As she went to get some porridge, I tapped his holy paw again, and... there was no reaction. I did it a few more times, but still, he did not respond. Then I noticed that his eyes were not focused - they were wide open but unseeing.
This time, I knew with utmost certainty that his time was up. All of us gathered around him - my parents, my brother, and I. His breathing had slowed considerably. We patted and stroked him with tears in our eyes, and told him to go. We took turns to cradle him in our arms, and I realised sadly how light and limp his body was, such a big contrast from his youthful days when he was so stout and muscular.
Finally, he took three more larger breaths, and stopped breathing forever.
The time was 1008pm. Our angel had finally left us, after 16 years and 4 months. That seems like a long time, especially for a dog - how many dogs can actually live to such a ripe old age? 16 years is exactly half my lifetime currently. During this time, I graduated from secondary school, attended junior college, got enlisted in the army for national service, went to university, joined an insurer, followed by joining my current company, which I have been here for six years. So many significant life events.
But to us, these 16 years seemed to have just flashed past. He came into our home 16 years ago and waltzed deep into our hearts with ease. I could still recall how he looked - like a monk, because of six "pimples" on his head in a 2 x 3 array! These went away after we applied some medication.
He was a really smart and healthy dog. He was actually given to us by a relative; one of his pugs was about to give birth and he promised to give us one puppy. Dogs usually give birth to a litter of puppies, and a common range is perhaps four to ten. But Garfield's mother gave birth to him and him alone. Maybe that was why Garfield grew up to be so incredibly smart and healthy, because he obviously took 100% of the nutrients.
 |
| Garfield when he was still less than a year old |
Toilet-training him was practically effortless - we let him pee on a sheet of newspaper in the kitchen, praised him, and voila - he is toilet-trained. In just one day!
During that short period of time, we let him sleep in the kitchen at night. Once, I came downstairs to get some water, and just sat cross-legged on the ground beside him. He was still tiny, only around three months. He clambered into the middle of my legs, placed his small head on my thigh, and promptly went to sleep. This was the moment when I knew that my heart has been forever captured by this little black dog.
It didn't take long for him to get "promoted" to sleeping in either my brother's or my bedroom. And shortly after, he rose one more rank to sleeping on the bed. If that was not enough, he still went one step further to try and sleep on the pillow when possible. The audacity! Most of the time, however, he was content with just sleeping around our legs. That doesn't mean he will stop trying, though. I can still remember clearly how I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Before my butt had even left the bed, Garfield had already nestled himself comfortably on my pillow.
Teaching him tricks was also easy. He learned things so incredibly fast! It didn't take us long to teach him how to "sit", "down", "die-die", and "shake hand". Even when he was around ten - already an old dog - he still managed to learn a new trick. Hi-five! During that time, after I came back from work, Garfield would always welcome me by jumping and licking. I would hold out my hand for him to launch his front paws on, and say "hi-five!". I wasn't even attempting to teach him, actually. But after several times, I decided to try saying "hi-five" out of the blue - and he did it. Who said that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks"? A year later, at the age of eleven, he learnt the command "run-run" and would break into a sprint if we were to say that while walking him downstairs.
On a related note, he was very quick in picking up names. He knew all our names, and even some of my friends and cousins'. My mother could ask him to go and call one of us down for dinner, and he will cheerfully dash upstairs to bark at our bedroom doors. We played hide and seek with him this way too; one of us will hide and another will simply ask him "Where is <name>? Go find!" and off he goes.
Garfield's tail was apparently more for decorative purposes, because he doesn't use it. He has probably wagged his tail less than five times during his lifetime. Much to our indignation, the first time he wagged his tail (furiously too) was at the vet. The vet even exclaimed, "Wow, look how happy he is to see me!" and scoffed at us when we said that this was actually the first time he wagged his tail. Maybe because of his inability to express himself with his tail, he has been blessed with a huge variety of facial expressions which have given us countless hours of entertainment and amusement.
Being too close to us during his growing-up years, he slowly thought of himself as a human. He disliked other dogs tremendously, and would shy away from them, even if it was just a chihuahua who was less than half his size. He had zero interest in dog toys. He didn't bite or chew our shoes. When playing with us, if he were to accidentally bite us too hard (just enough to induce an 'ouch!' with no blood, of course) he would apologise. How does a dog apologise? Garfield did it with an apologetic wave and nudge with his paw, along with a guilty expression.
 |
| See no evil. |
Water was probably the biggest fear in his life. Garfield would instinctively know when it is time to bathe, despite having no warning signs prior to calling him. (Or maybe there were, just that there were too subtle even for us to notice.) One call and he would be hiding under the dining table, refusing to come out despite repeated coaxing. We had to resort to yells and scoldings and promises of beating his butt before he finally yielded and emerged unwillingly. It took us some time to find out one of the warning signs which we missed out previously - that of my mother removing her wristwatch, which she does so every time before bathing him. He was just so observant!
(A video of us trying to get him to bathe, taken probably around 2005 or 2006. He knew it was time to bathe even before seeing my mother remove her wristwatch, and fled to safety under the chair. When we managed to coax him out with the promise of food, he went back to the chair once he saw my mother remove her wristwatch, at 00:49.)
When I tried to bring him to the beach, his eyes practically widened in horror as he saw the huge expanse of water beyond what the eye could see. Then he plonked down on the sand and refused to get up.
 |
| I prefer the hot sand to the horrible sea |
 |
| Noooo! Don't make me! |
In our old living room, we had three chairs. Two normal ones and a very comfortable black arm chair, which Garfield was banned from. I call it "the forbidden chair". He was not allowed on it because the black fur he sheds was practically invisible on it, and would end up sticking to my mother's clothes (she uses it the most). So, similar to the Pandora's Box theory, Garfield ended up yearning for that seat. And he was smart (or is it sneaky?) enough to use it only when he knows my mother is not around (because the rest of us don't prevent him from using it). For example, when she has retired for the night, or when she was not at home. So when my parents were using the living room, he will just sleep on one of the normal chairs.
There was one incident, however, when some relatives came over for dinner. My two cousins sat on the normal chairs while watching television. Garfield was obviously agitated and frustrated, and sat there glaring at them. After a few more minutes of futile waiting, he decided that he had "no choice" but to use the forbidden chair.
This incident let us know the extent of his intelligence. We learnt that Garfield was actually capable of
reasoning to a certain extent. And what made it clearer was when my mother strode over to give him a earful - and Garfield ignored her. Previously, if my mother caught him red-handed (or is it red-pawed?) on the forbidden chair, he would look extremely guilty and either get off hastily or try his luck by rolling over, pleading for her to let him sleep. But this time, he stood firm and refused to budge. It's as if he was saying "Look, it's not my fault. The other chairs are taken, so I had no choice but to use this." My mother was so tickled by this that she let him use the chair for the rest of the night.
 |
| On the normal chair... |
 |
| ...and on the forbidden chair |
As I mentioned previously, Garfield loves sweet things like mooncakes, red bean buns, lotus seed paste buns, and so on. These can work him into a frenzy, especially mooncakes. During the mooncake festival, he knew that my parents would always eat mooncakes after lunch, so once they finish their meal and stand up, he starts to jump and spin around with excitement. The same goes for when my father comes home from work at night; both he and my mother would sit at the balcony with a drink and some mooncakes. So Garfield would quickly rush to the balcony and wait for them there, and sometimes he gets so impatient that he would bark at them to hurry up and feed him mooncakes. Ah, such fond memories.
But for these foods, he still knows that they are treats. We don't know when it first started, but to Garfield, watermelon is a
right, not a privilege. When we say the word "watermelon", his ears perk up and he dashes over,
demanding to be fed. If we refuse - or maybe just a bit slower in giving him his watermelon, he gets really angry.
 |
| Back off, pal. This is MY watermelon. |
Due to all the good food that we had been feeding him (but nothing salty or not recommended for dogs), he ended up getting sick of eating dry food for lunch everyday. We had to resort to "agitating" him by pretending to steal his food - that would an angry warning bark from him, followed by him eating the food. It seems that "if others want my food, it makes it more tasty". As time goes on, Garfield became accustomed to eating his dry food only if we wanted to snatch it.
So there was one incident when a guest was at our place, and my father told her that "our dog Garfield is a Christian. He prays before every meal." And we placed his bowl on the ground. Garfield strolled over and bowed his head over his food - really very much like someone praying before his meal! Of course, in reality he was just waiting to see if we wanted to grab his food; his eyes were darting left and right in anticipation of us going over.
Garfield loved the big garden at our old house. It was his playground... and also his toilet. He was free to pee and poo anywhere. Whenever there were any intruders at the garden, we would tell Garfield "bird-bird!" or "cat-cat!" and he will dash out, snorting (like a pig, actually) in indignation to chase them away.
When we shifted house, he took it quite hard. For one thing, his toilet - once the size of a 5-room HDB flat - had suddenly shrank to a tiny patch of soil right outside our door. He refused to use it. In the end, we brought him downstairs around three times a day for him to do his business. He enjoyed those walks, and would sometimes take his own sweet time sniffing around while we waited under the hot sun. And once he was done, he would sprint back to the lift, dragging us behind him.
His sense of time was also screwed up at our new place. Prior to shifting, he knew all our routines - especially the time my father goes/comes back from work. My father comes home for meals, so on weekdays he leaves at around 830am / 2pm / 650pm and comes back at 1230pm / 430pm / 9pm. Garfield grasped all these timings with unerring accuracy, and would usually be at the door ten minutes before my father comes back. But at our new place, Garfield lost all these. It took him around two months before he got used to it again. The stress evidently took its toll on him during this transition period, and we could tell that he had aged considerably that year.
But after he adapted, life became like a retiree's. Every morning, once he woke up, he would walk slowly to the living room and jump up on the dining room chair to have breakfast with my mother. Following that, he would go to the balcony to suntan and enjoy the breeze. Such a wonderful life!
 |
| I want my breakfast. NOW. |
However, he also craved for our company even more. Partly its because we did not have a maid now, so he had no backup. My mother had to inform him verbally before going out; if not he would break out in a fit of frenzied and angry barking when the door closes. So before she goes out, she would tell him to wait for her, that he is a good boy, etc etc - and he wouldn't make any noise anymore.
But that doesn't mean that he can't throw tantrums. And since my room is his room, my stuff would incur the wrath of this black dog if no one is around. He would stand up and sweep everything off the bay window to show his displeasure.
 |
| My room bore the brunt of Garfield's wrath. The things he knocked down were from the bay window (where Yoshi is) |
 |
| Another example - I don't know how he managed to push the things so far from their origin |
To add on to this, as another example of his incredible observation skills, there was once when my mother was tidying her wardrobe and took out some clothes to lay on the bed. This was always what she does before she goes out, and apparently Garfield knows this. Thinking that she was preparing to go out, he immediately went to my room to knock down my stuff in anger. It was hilarious! While at our old place, he would also notice what I wear in the morning. If it was office clothes, he would continue to sleep. If it was casual clothes, he would jump up from bed, hoping that there was a chance that we could bring him out for breakfast.
Slowly, the ravages of time caught up with him. One day, he couldn't jump up on the dining chair anymore and whined for us to carry him up. From that day onwards, this became the norm. His eyesight started to deteriorate due to cataracts, and he started to bite at our fingers whenever we came near, because to him, fingers usually have food. Despite eating the same amount (sometimes even more than his younger days), he began to lose weight. His hearing deteriorated, and his mind too due to dementia. I could still remember him being so excited over mooncakes in 2010; a word of "mooncakes" would send him sprinting over with anticipation. But in 2011, that word did not mean anything anymore. He started to pace around unceasingly, and could simply walk around the dining table or up and down the corridor for
hours. Not long after that, he became unable to control his bladder and bowels. Halfway through, we also suddenly realised that Garfield has not barked for quite some time. All this while, although his mind had apparently been ravaged by dementia, he would still subconsciously wait for me by the main door if I were to come home late. But as he approached 16, even this was lost.
All these happened in such a short while - just a span of around two years plus. Considering that he was still healthy and energetic till the age of 14, the deterioration really occurred at a very fast pace. Before we even noticed it, he was already old and senile. When he hit 16, he was already skinny beyond measure; all his ribs were visible. His neck was so weak that his head was perpetually drooping, and he needed a lot of assistance when eating - we had to support his neck and hold it up to make it easier for him to swallow. And finally, around two weeks before his departure, he stopped walking, too weak to even get up.
Garfield was cremated on 16th April morning. Before the cremation, he looked so peaceful. I read out the letter that my elder brother wrote for him from UK.
Then, as I gently stroked and patted his round but cold head, I spoke to him, digging my nails into my flesh to keep my composure and to prevent my voice from breaking. I told him not to be so anti-social at the other side, and to learn how to make friends and accept other dogs. I told him to wait for us to finish our own journeys first before we go and look for him, and partly for my mother's sake, I said that I knew he would understand that we would take some time to arrive - and that he wouldn't want us to arrive there prematurely. Then I kissed his cold forehead one last time and said our last goodbyes.
That night, I posted an update on my Facebook status. On it, I left the following words for him.
"Goodbye, our beloved angel. 16 years and 4 months was blissfully long and yet painfully short. People have always told us that you were such a lucky dog - but in reality, I think we were the lucky ones instead to have you in our family. Thank you so much for all that you have given us these years. Please be patient and wait for us to finish our own individual journeys before we meet again. You will be in our hearts forever and ever."
I know that every dog is special to their owner. But I could tell that Garfield was the special one among all the special dogs out there, with his human-like thinking, antics, and expressions. To us, he was simply too unique and irreplaceable. The pain of losing him was so much that we have decided not to own another dog again. Because no other dog will even come close in comparison. Even my father, whom I have never seen show any signs of weakness, was in so much grief that I found it heart wrenching.
Till we meet again, Garfield. I hope the concept of time is different over there, and that one day there would be equivalent to one year here, so that you wouldn't have to wait too long for us to join you. And when we meet again, I will hold and hug you so hard and never let go. Please don't forget us, because we will never forget you.
