Once upon a time, in the land of Cebu, this cat felt lonely and found himself some company in a dog named XO. I bought him in Fuente Osmena Circle, where several peddlers sell puppies for as low as 500 up to thousands, depending on how gullible you are.
One late afternoon, I passed by them peddlers and a guy handed me a cream colored puppy that was awfully quiet and behaved. I looked at it and I melted when I saw those sad puppy eyes. He was selling it for 1000, but I haggled and finally succeeded in buying it at Php 500. That's when I had my first puppy which i named XOXO (yeah, gossip girl was the hype those days), and I nicknamed him XO.
The idea of raising a dog by myself was a fine one. I thought "What could possibly go wrong with buying this adorable and behaved little pup which I will raise into a fine and happy dog?"
Boy was I wrong.
On the day I took it home, the dog was very quiet and wanted to sleep all the time. I thought maybe it's just tired. The next day, it was already warming up to me and responded to my attempts to play with it. But it refused to eat the puppy dog food I bought for it, in fact, it refused to eat anything at all. Come second day it still refused to eat anything and it seemed to just want to sleep the whole time.
On the third day I decided to take it to the vet. I couldn't bear the thought of it dying in my care, I mean, what kind of parent would I become if I couldn't even raise a dog? Upon arriving at the vet's clinic, I was made to fill in some info on the booklet they issued to track the dog's vaccine. There was this one piece of info the vet asked me which i found a bit awkward to answer.
"What's the dog's breed?"
"Uhmm... I was told it was a labrador, but I'm not so sure it is."
The vet was being kind, he told me he'll just put in the dog's breed as "mixed." I was grateful and happy at the same time because at that time, I looked around and saw one pet owner with her fluffy, blue-tongued chow-chow, another one with a chihuahua, and there I was carrying a small puppy which dubiously looked like at labrador.
What was initially a Php. 500 dog was given vitamin booster shots, and some vaccines. I also had to buy some dog vitamins for it and I thought "Wait, he gets to drink vitamins when I don't even have any?" That visit alone cost me Php. 1500. So much for being a Php 500 dog.
(to be continued)
