Saturday 17th October

I was lying around in my cage at PAWS feeling sorry for myself. I was three and a half years old, and what a sorry state my life was in. For a society that called itself “Animal Lovers” Malaysians certainly were not very animal friendly.


Since I had been abandoned by my owners for my skin disease, I had been caged up here and left pretty much to myself. Yes, they did feed me boiled rice and a little bit of cheap spare part meat but I was dirty and unwashed.

I had to wee wee and poo poo in my cage in full view of the other dogs. Not very ladylike, let me assure you. The male dogs would bark lustily at me and wink at each other knowingly. *sheesh*

The people at PAWS would hose down my cage once a day. I was given medicine for my skin rash, a condition called Demodex. I had to resort to biting my own front paws to ease the itchiness until I lost all my beautiful white fur and my skin turned red and swollen. I was dirty and I stank to high heaven.

So you can imagine my surprise when an old and balding Punjabi guy came with a Chinese girl and actually paid RM300 to bail me out of jail. I mean, I didn’t know them from Adam! And I was brought up as a proper lady – I wouldn’t follow any Tom, Dave or Harry home just for RM300, now would I?

It looked like I didn’t have any choice in the matter as this guy just literally picked me and held me tight to his chest and took me into his strange metal box with four wheels which moved very fast. The Chinese girl was in control of the machine and from what I could observe in that short time I deduced that she was his master as he listened patiently to her and obeyed all her commands.

Very soon the metal box stopped moving and I was smuggled into a knapsack and taken into another metal box but this one moved upwards instead of forwards. I heard a *Ding! Eight Floor* and then we were in a nicely furnished condo unit. The Chinese girl said “Shh! Good Doggie. You don’t bark, ah? Dogs are not allowed in this condo.”

I thought to myself “Hello! Is that my problem? You bloody dognapped me and smuggled me in here!” but then I took a good look at her and then I looked at the poor hen pecked Punjabi guy and then I looked back at her and she looked kinda fierce so I decided to keep quiet.

The next thing I knew I was in a small room and the Girl was bathing me with warm water and shampoo while the Guy held me gently to prevent me from shaking the water off. He washed the insides of my ears which were black and smelly with earwax.

Then they rinsed me and bathed me again with a mild antiseptic solution. I could hear the skin eating mites scream as the antiseptic hit them. MMmmm! That felt good. I didn’t struggle as I was enjoying myself. I liked to be clean. Maybe these two cartoon characters were not so bad after all.

I was gently towel dried and then the Girl gave me my first fur trim in a long time. “Aiyoh, you poor thing, your hair is all tangled and matted up” she said. Ah, finally someone who understands that I am a lady. She’s not bad at all, I thought, even though she didn’t use proper doggie scissors and obviously had zero fur trimming experience. Still, I didn’t look half bad.

My only problem so far was that they kept calling me “Dawn” when my name was “Lucinda”. Can’t really blame them when the guy at PAWS couldn't give them my history. I was to learn the meaning behind my name later.

After my bath I found out that the guy had actually bought a combination food and water dish, a leather collar, shampoo, dry dog food and a leash for walkies before even before collecting me. Of course the collar didn’t fit. I’m toy sized and the Doofus had bought a mid-sized one. Yeah, I think I’ll call him Doofus even though he’s extremely nice and gentle with me.

I was then smuggled back into the fast moving forward box and taken to a park. Oh what joy! Oh what freedom after so long in the smelly cage at PAWS. I ran here. I ran there. I smelled everything. After a short while a Chinese guy named Patrick came with his dog Jeannie and joined us. Jeannie was a Maltese just like me but she was mixed and double my size.

We quickly became friends and Jeannie told me that my humans were softies when it came to us canines. Good to know, mwahahahah! Time to revive my plans for world domination. She also told me not to let them know that I understand human-speak. After some time frolicking in the park we went to the Punj…I mean Doofus’ house nearby and he fed me some of the dry dog food.

I can get used to this sort of pampering. They sat at the dinner table and yadda yaddaed. I heard him telling the Chinese girl that it was strange that I never barked at all as I drifted off to dreamland. Three hours later I woke up with a start and vomited. And vomited.

And vomited all night until morning. Of course Doofus got worried and started searching for a nearby Vet’s number. I wanted to tell him that it was the dry dog food – I couldn’t digest it after eating soft boiled rice for so long, but I was too sick to talk to him.

The next day when I felt better, the two of them explained to me that I was supposed to be put to sleep and that they had rescued me on my last day. They actually gave me a new dawn, thereby my name.