Happy Belated Holidays!

Azuki and I didn't do much to celebrate the holidays. Christmas was spent quietly at home, and she got to go out plenty and run around like a pup on crack, as usual. Then, she came home and slept while Matt and I went to celebrate in nice restaurants ;)

For New Years Matt and I went to Taiwan to see my family for a very brief trip. The night before we left we dropped her off at her usual puppy school, and before we knew it Azuki was wagging her tail and happily bouncing up the steps with the staff members, not even glancing back as we left. Matt and I stood outside of the glass window trying to catch her eye so we can wave goodbye, but she didn't even care that her ma and pa are leaving. She was looking up at her new friends (even though the staff weren't even her regular trainers, she doesn't even know them) excitedly anticipating joing her pup pals, and did not look back at us, NOT EVEN ONCE.

All we saw was our disloyal pup's backside.

In Taiwan although there were definitely some pampered-looking pets, but I also saw many unloved and hungry strayed dogs. I fed some left-over dumplings to a very skinny black dog who came to me looking for food, his ribs showing from starvation and hair and skin visibly suffering from some sort of skin disease. Like many other stray dogs that I saw, he was wearing a collar, signifying that at one time he had owners, who later decided that a dog is too much trouble and abandoned him.

Before I had Azuki, I didn't really think much about stray dogs--growing up in Taiwan meant that I saw many, and it never really affected me. Having my own pampered dog, however, suddenly gave me a love for not only dogs, but all animals, large and small. Now I can't even watch the trailer for the new Lassie movie without tearing up---I get so emotional, which is totally silly, because I can't even undertstand the voice-over in Japanese, but I'm like, Matt, the dog walks from ENGLAND TO SCOTLAND to look for his beloved young master, will Azuki do the same for us?? Matt would glance over and be like, arrgh, NO, she would look for the nearest warm lap and take a nap instead.

I wanted Azuki to realize how lucky she is, that there are many, many dogs out there who doesn't have the good fortunes of being born in Japan, and ending up in OUR home. In fact, there are many, many PEOPLE out there who don't have half as much as the pup has---a comfortable, warm bed, easy access to food, clean water, and , like, primary education. And there is our dog, sleeping on heat pads, 100% all natural cotton beds, eating the best food, getting expensive haircuts, and EVEN GOING TO A PRIVATE KINDERGARDEN, which she doesn't even bother to work hard enough to graduate.

So, I sat the pup down for a tete-a-tete education her on the plight of animals and human kind around the globe. She looked at me, with her tilted, like, oh look, mommy is talking to me again as if I have a freakin clue what she is saying. I wish she would stop doing that.