Loy Loy

Loy Loy hates having her photo taken. This is our best picture of her. She only looked into the camera because of the treat placed in front of her.

Loy Loy passed away on 9th November last year. She was 13 years old. I adopted her in July 2002 when she was 10 years old. Her owner then was an elderly Cantonese lady named Auntie Peng. Her husband had died 2-3 years prior, and after her husband’s death, she moved in with her son and daughter-in-law. They were not fond of Loy Loy, to say the least, and asked Auntie Peng to give her away. After resisting them for a year, she finally found someone to adopt her. However, when she made follow-up visits, she found that Loy Loy had been locked in the bathroom. That broke her heart and she brought Loy Loy home. A year later, her grandson was born, and the pressure to get rid of Loy Loy mounted. As Loy Loy had been an only ‘child’ all her life, she was not used to sharing her owner with the baby. Whenever Auntie Peng carried her grandchild, Loy Loy would bark and the baby would cry. An ultimatum was given: Auntie Peng had to spend Loy Loy to the SPCA to be put down if she could not find her a home.

Luckily, Auntie Peng had made friends with another dog lover in her neighbourhood. When this young lady heard of Auntie Peng’s plight, she sent out a mass email, which I eventually received. I went to see Loy Loy as I had always wanted a dog. Also, I didn’t think that anyone would adopt a 10-year-old dog and I didn’t want it to be sent to the SPCA to be put down. When I got there, I found out that Loy Loy walked with a limp and ran on three legs, and also had a disfigured jaw, which caused her tongue to hang out all the time. Still, I fell in love with her and that weekend, we brought her home. When we took her to the vet, he said that she was probably between 12-15 years old, that her limp could have been fixed if she was younger and that all her teeth had to be pulled out as they were rotten. We scheduled the surgery for the following week and for the next 3 years, I had a great little dog, who lived for her walks and her cheese, and overcame her disfigurements and health problems with her happy-go-lucky attitude. What Loy Loy has taught me is to live for the now, and to enjoy every bit of life even when it throws you curveballs.