Jake & Me

Jake is missing!

Gosh! I feel like a failed parent.

Two days ago, Babai was so tired he did not go and feed Jake. He promised to feed him yesterday morning on the way to work. But when I woke up, I still saw that the ice-cream container that we used to keep his food were still on the sink. So last night we heat up extra rice and liver for him to compensate for what we did. When we were there, normally before we opened the kitchen door, he would already barked in excitement, or banged on the steel door to show his dissatisfaction whenever we were slightly late in feeding him. But last night it was unusually quite, and he did not respond at all when we called his name from inside the house. True enough, the backyard was empty, no Jake!

Actually, there were few incidents that he managed to escape through the flimsy backyard fence, and when he grown bigger, we put up some planks over the fence. When he grown stronger, he even can escaped that until we had to leash him up. All my life I never lease any of my dogs back home, but I had no choice I had to do it for his own good. We were really worried that the same thing happened to the puppies last year will happen to him again.

Normally, when he escaped, it means that his leash loosen or broke-up. However, he would just play around the neighborhood, and by the time we got back, he would hang around the front gate waiting for his feeding time. While waiting for us to come home, he would sometimes chased whoever was on the street, and his behaviour really made us concerned that the neighbors might complaint. That was the reason why that we had to keep him on the leash.

But last night, there seems to be no sign of the lease broken, or the fence being dug up at all. No sign of him escaping. When we found it out, I felt sick at the pit of my stomach and quickly went out from the house and head to the backlane. I screened the street, but the neighborhood also was unusually quite, there was no stray dogs too. We drove around the neighbohood twice, and Babai went to check-up the back lane once more, before we locked up and headed to our own place.

Thinking about the possibility of what might happened, we seriously hope that Babai's distant cousin (the cousin's sister) might have brought Jake to her own place. But this morning we found out that she only came to feed the fishes for his brother. Now other possibility that we thought of was that the guy from the council might have sedate him, went over the fence and took him out. Another possibility is that some Vietnamese workers from the construction nearby had taken him to be... I rather not say it!

Let me explained why I feel like I'm a bad person over this matter and why I feel like I'm a failure as a parent. I think whoever have rare animals, or even having kids must have feel at one point that it took up so much energy and effort to have one. Think of Marley & Me movie, where the couple did admit that some point or another they do feel that it was overwhelming to have kids and sometimes regret their decision choosing kids over their career in the first place, but it was a decision that they have made and they must do the best they can. It does make them feel bad by thinking that way. On the other hand, given a choice, they would not ever trade their kids for anything else in the world.

And to admit that I myself do feel that way with Jake sometimes is such a big feat, and I feel ashamed by it. Is God unhappy with me by taking Jake away from us?