There is a saying in the countryside: A dog cannot be kept for ten years, otherwise it will become a spirit. After the dog that accompanied me for 16 years left, I really understood the meaning of this sentence, and since then, I have never kept a dog again. After
experiencing it myself, I realized that the so-called spirit is just a compliment to the loyalty of the dog, and it is also a recognition that after raising the dog for a long time, it will gradually understand human nature and become sensible.
Dogs are the best companions for rural children.
I remember when I was seven years old, my aunt sent me a fluffy puppy, all white. The puppy was only three months old and timidly curled up in the black leather bag hanging on the handlebars of my aunt’s bicycle.
It is more than ten miles from my aunt’s house to my house, and the puppy came all the way in fear. Hearing us talking next to him, the puppy poked his head out of the leather bag and looked at this new environment carefully.
At that time, I was at the age of mischief, and I had no interest in small animals, and I didn’t know the importance of my hands. Seeing that the little thing was so timid, and it was only as short as a small bench, I reached out to grab it and lifted it up.
The puppy was even more frightened by my grabbing, and cried twice. My mother saw that I hurt the puppy and scolded me. I put the puppy on the ground and went out to play without paying attention to it.
In the evening, after playing for a day, I returned home dirty and saw a small house in the yard. Inside was the iron cage I used to raise rabbits. The white puppy was lying in the corner of the cage, looking at me with panic eyes.
We gave it the name Xiaobai, and my family thought it was easy to call it. In the first few days, Xiaobai was still frightened and curled up in the nest and didn’t want to come out. I didn’t pay much attention to its existence and went to school and went home normally.
After more than a month, Xiaobai became familiar with my family and was no longer afraid. When he saw me coming home from school, he would wag his tail while dragging the iron chain, and occasionally make a “wangwang” sound. Although I was too lazy to pay attention to it every time because I wanted to finish my homework as soon as possible and go out to play with other children in the village, it still did so, and when I passed by it, it would jump up and hug me with its front legs.
Slowly, Xiaobai recognized his home, and he no longer cried or barked at night, and the dog chain tied around his neck was also taken off. Xiaobai, who was completely free, wagged his tail in the yard every day and ran around with me. When I went out, he ran a long way with me. Every time I squatted down to pick up stones to scare him back.
When I came back from outside, as soon as I entered the door, Xiaobai would wag his tail and run up to greet me. In the past, I was very annoyed, but slowly I developed a deep affection for Xiaobai and was willing to play with him.
My family planted four or five acres of peach trees. During the summer vacation, my brother and I would go to the peach orchard to see the peaches. Before Xiaobai came, we were quite scared to stay in the peach field. After bringing Xiaobai, I felt much more at ease. At that time, Xiaobai had grown into a big dog, almost as tall as me when he stood up.
Every summer, we went out early and came back late. At noon, we took Dabai to the river to take a bath. Dabai, who was born to swim, was happy to pick up the slippers we threw out again and again, and then stretched out his tongue and panted.
Life in the countryside in the 1980s was very monotonous. There were not many toys, let alone Internet technology. Before Xiaobai came, I played in the mud and played marbles with my friends every day. The arrival of Xiaobai suddenly made my life more colorful.
A greedy bite of meat costs half my life.
When I was a child, my family was poor and we could only eat meat a few times a year. We could only eat meat and dumplings during festivals. There was not much oil and water in the usual meals. When Dabai was still young, we gave it the leftovers and it could eat almost all of them.
But when Dabai grew up, his appetite became very large. After dinner every night, he could only mix bran with the leftover soup. It was a big bowl full. Although the taste was not good, Dabai never disliked it and ate it very happily. From time to time, there were sounds of eating. It is said that dogs do not dislike poverty,
which is absolutely true. However, dogs are born to like to eat meat, which cannot be changed. Some people just seized this characteristic and did something that was harmful to the world.
I remember that it was a snowy winter, and there was a thick layer of snow on the road. In the morning, when I opened the door of the house, Dabai, who used to run to the door to find me, was nowhere to be seen.
At first, I thought it was too cold and Dabai was hiding in the kennel, but I still didn’t see Dabai after calling a few times, and it was surprisingly quiet, without any sound. At this time, a bad premonition suddenly came over me, and my back felt cold.
I walked to the doghouse, and the scene in front of me was despairing. Dabai, who had always been lively, was now lying on the ground weakly, with a pool of vomit with white foam next to his mouth. I quickly called my mother, and when she saw the situation, she guessed that it was poisoning.
At that time, there was no veterinarian in the village, so we could only ask the elderly to see how to rescue it. I rushed to my great grandfather’s house, explained the situation, and hurriedly followed him back. At that time, I placed all my hopes on my great grandfather, thinking that he would have a panacea to rescue Dabai.
But when my grandfather saw Dabai lying in the nest dying, he shook his head and said only: “This is poisoning, I can’t do anything, I can only rely on its own luck.”
I still didn’t want to give up, crying and shouting for my great grandfather to find a way, but he just shook his head, then left my yard with his hands behind his back.
In this way, Dabai made a “woohoo” panting sound, and opened his eyes hard to look at us, as if asking us for help. But I was really powerless, and could only stroke his head and neck back and forth.
Maybe it was not his fate. After a while, Dabai vomited a big mouthful of force, and his sharp-eyed brother found a piece of dry pork in the vomit. I pointed it out to my mother and confirmed that it was the poisoned meat that was eaten by mistake.
After vomiting it out, Dabai gradually recovered. We brought water to it, and it tried to drink a few sips and continued to lie down. Around the afternoon, its condition improved significantly, and in the evening, it finally opened its mouth to eat food. Only
then did our family’s hanging hearts finally let go. It was also at that time that I realized that Dabai was no longer just a dog in our family, but a member of this family, and we had a deep relationship with each other.
A few days later, a dog dealer came to the village, and several dogs in the village died in the past few days. Although I knew that it was probably the dealer who poisoned them, there was no evidence.
Dabai was the only dog who saved his life by vomiting meat. At that time, I remember it was 1999, Dabai was five years old, and I was in junior high school.
The deep scratches on the ground seemed to be scratching my heart, and they lingered in my memory
until 2010, when Dabai accompanied our family. During this period, Dabai almost never got sick. The vitality of the native dog is very tenacious. Basically, there is no time when he is not active. He is happy every day.
In addition, Dabai is very loyal. Even if you leave home for a year or longer, as long as you come home and stand at the door, even if I don’t open the door, Dabai can smell my scent, and then wag his tail and run happily behind the door to wait for me to open the door. After opening the door, he jumped directly into my arms, just like meeting a long-lost relative, warmly welcoming my return.
Those days of living together day and night are vivid in my mind. If it weren’t for answering this question, I would not touch it easily. Especially Dabai’s departure is even more unacceptable, and the miserable scene, the pain that Dabai experienced, as well as the helplessness and despair, can’t be let go for a long time after the incident.
With the improvement of living conditions, life in the countryside has become better and better, and the frequency of eating meat and fish at home has also increased. Dabai has been eating meat more and more often. After seeing it so many times, he no longer finds it strange. Moreover, after returning from the gates of hell last time, Dabai has learned his lesson. Those who wanted to poison the dog have never succeeded again.
Despite this, the accident still happened. In 2010, my father and mother saved money for many years and finally saved 100,000 yuan to demolish the dilapidated tile house at home and prepare to build a bungalow. After the house was demolished, our family squeezed into a small house next door. In order to facilitate construction, the walls of the courtyard were all demolished, and the outside was filled with sand, steel bars, bricks and other construction materials.
Dabai was tied outside the courtyard. First, they were worried that it would be injured by the transportation of materials during construction, and second, they could help watch the materials at night to prevent others from stealing them.
It was during this period that the bad guys who wanted to get something for nothing saw the opportunity and dragged Dabai away.
Because building a house was very tiring, we slept too deeply at night and didn’t hear any sound. I don’t know how they got close to Dabai, sealed its mouth, made it lose the ability to shout, and then dragged it for more than ten meters.
The next morning, under the poplar tree where Dabai was tied, deep claw marks were engraved on the mud for more than ten meters. These claw marks are crooked, and there are obviously traces of struggle. At the end of the claw marks, there is a pool of coagulated blood. That should be where Dabai was dragged into the car.
During the whole process, Dabai should have been muzzled and could not make any sound. At that moment, it must have tried its best to wake us up, hoping that we could save it, but in the end it failed to wake us up and could only let the dog thief drag it away.
These scratches are not only scratched on the dry and hard soil, but also scratched in my heart. Seeing these deep scratches, my heart really hurts, as if I was scratched again and again, and the more I scratched, the deeper it got. Since
the dog I raised for 16 years left, I have never raised a dog again.
There is a saying in the countryside: If you raise a local dog for ten years, it will become a spirit. Although this saying has some superstitious elements and is not accurate, it is actually a compliment to the loyalty of local dogs, and it is also a recognition that after raising local dogs for a long time, they will gradually understand human nature and become sensible.
Xiaobai came to our house when he was two or three months old, and accompanied me throughout my childhood, adolescence, and even most of my youth. During the years when our family was the poorest, he ate chaff and drank cold water, and gradually grew up to be a sensible Dabai.
Every day and night that Dabai was around, I never cared about its existence. Especially when I was a child, when it was still a puppy and I had no interest in animals. I even treated it as a toy, stroking its soft body when I was happy, and kicking it away when I was unhappy.
When it was hurt by my kick, it walked away very tactfully. After a while, when I went to tease it again, it would put aside the past and play with me happily to make me happy. It was not
until Dabai was ruthlessly dragged away by others and saw the deep claw marks left on the ground that I realized that it had already become a part of this family. It is like my own family, accompanying each other every day. This kind of companionship has long become a habit that cannot be separated.
During the days when I lost Dabai, I still couldn’t let it go. I blamed myself countless times that I shouldn’t have tied it outside alone, but should have tied it next to my cabin. After all, it is a part of our family, and it is the only one we can rely on. More than
ten years have passed, and because I was afraid of losing it again, I never kept any dogs or any pets during this period.
The
life span of a dog is usually about fifteen years, which is only one-fifth of our human life span, and the life span of a cat is even shorter. The reason why dogs cannot be kept for ten years is actually just to warn everyone that after ten years or even longer of living with dogs day and night, not only will the dog be inseparable from you, but it will also be difficult for you to give up your feelings for it.
In these wasted years, it will accompany you from beginning to end, and never leave you. Most people have many difficulties. Sometimes they have to say goodbye to the dogs they have kept for a long time. That is a painful parting, so don’t try it easily.
Of course, if you decide to adopt them, be prepared to keep them for a lifetime. Don’t abandon them halfway, don’t give them away halfway, and don’t be careless like me and cause irreparable losses. To them, once we have established a relationship with you, we are everything to them!
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