When I was 13 years old, my father spent 35 yuan at the market to buy me a newborn native dog. It accompanied me for 14 years and finally stayed on the back mountain of our village, becoming a small grave.
Many people in our village keep dogs to guard the house, but we don’t have one.
I always ask my father: Why don’t we have a mighty dog?
My father touched my head and said: There are only two chickens and ducks in our family. There is nothing valuable to take care of by raising a dog, so why waste food?
Raising a dog has become an obsession of mine.
After entering junior high school, one time, my father said that if I entered the top three in the class in the exam, he would reward me with a wish.
I took the second place in the exam and asked my father to buy a dog, a very obedient and cute puppy.
The next day, my father went to the market and came back with a puppy from the basket. It was a yellow native dog, small and very cute.
At the market, there was a child selling a puppy for 40 yuan. My father passed by and after thinking it over, he bargained and bought me a dog for 35 yuan.
My parents were not very keen on raising dogs. After the puppy came to my house, I was responsible for taking care of the puppy.
I gave it a domineering name called “General”, took it out for a walk, and introduced it to my friends.
However, relatives, friends, and even parents in the village did not call the puppy by its name. They all called it: Ah Huang.
The puppy has yellow hair, so everyone called it that.
There is a black dog in the village, named Xiao Hei, and when it grows up, it will be called Da Hei.
The white dog is called Xiao Bai, and when it grows up, it will be called Da Bai.
According to the rules, the dog I raised can only be called Xiao Huang, Da Huang, or Ah Huang.
I once thought this name was very rustic.
Ah Huang is very smart. When he is hungry, he will run to my feet, bite my trouser legs and bark, dragging me to look at his iron rice bowl. That iron rice bowl is a stainless steel bowl for serving dishes at home. It is worn out, so I give it a bowl.
Whenever this happens, I will share some of the porridge or rice in the bowl with him.
He is not picky about food. Local dogs are easy to feed. He will eat whatever you give him.
When I was a child, I was ignorant. When I was eating, I would use my chopsticks to pick up dishes for Ah Huang to eat. Ah Huang would bite my chopsticks and be reluctant to let go.
When my father saw this, he would educate me and not allow me to lick Ah Huang with my chopsticks, saying that there are bacteria in the puppy’s mouth and I will get sick.
I made a nest for Ah Huang with old clothes at home, with several layers of padding. Ah Huang lived under the stairs of our house. At night, he would curl up there, a small ball.
My father set a lot of rules for me, which made me very annoyed. For example, I was not allowed to pull Ah Huang’s tail, I was not allowed to hug Ah Huang all the time, because Ah Huang would have fleas, I was not allowed to let Ah Huang enter my room, and I was not allowed to sleep on my bed.
Ah Huang grew up in our house, and my parents liked Ah Huang more and more.
They would tease Ah Huang when I was not at home, and would take him to work in the fields. Ah Huang was very smart. He would hold the basket in his mouth and pick vegetables with his mother. He would run wildly in the fields and step on the seedlings that the neighbor had just planted.
He liked to dig holes in the fields. I don’t know what was so attractive in the holes.
At home, he would chase mice when he saw them. I once thought that catching mice was a cat’s job, but who knew that Ah Huang could do this job.
Ah Huang was just an ordinary dog. He didn’t take a bath often, so his yellow fur turned yellow-gray. He was cute when he was young, but he became thinner when he grew up, and he was no different from other dogs in the village.
As long as I called his name, he could hear it no matter how far away he was, and he would run over to me and walk around me.
When I got married, it was the 12th year that Ah Huang had been in my family. My mother said that Ah Huang had become a spirit.
That day, Ah Huang was listless and stayed at my feet. He would bark at everyone he saw. When the bride went out, Ah Huang ran behind the car, barking as he ran. My father held the collar around Ah Huang’s neck tightly, but he couldn’t make it quiet.
The next day, before dawn, I heard a dog barking outside the door. It sounded very much like the familiar Ah Huang.
I went out to see, and it was indeed Ah Huang, with a white radish in his mouth. It was the radish my mother had planted in the field. Before it grew, Ah Huang dug it out and brought it to me. My
father called me and said that Ah Huang ran out early in the morning and didn’t know if he was missing.
I hurriedly told my father that Ah Huang was at my feet at the moment, eating the meat that I had packed back from the wedding banquet last night, and his mouth was full of oil. My husband’s
family was in the next village. The distance between the two houses was 30 minutes’ walk along the village path. Ah Huang had never come to my husband’s family with me. I was very confused as to why Ah Huang could find me.
I can only attribute everything to Ah Huang being too smart.
In fact, after raising a dog for a certain number of years, the dog will “understand human nature”, eat and live together, and know the owner’s temperament and character.
After I got married, Ah Huang would come to see me every few days, and maintained a frequency of visiting me three times a week.
Occasionally, he would hold something in his mouth, such as radishes grown by my mother’s vegetable garden, or corn picked up and placed in a basket at home, or meat bones that my parents gave to Ah Huang the night before. He would run to my husband’s house, put the food in his mouth down, and start barking, as if calling me.
Until I opened the door, he would wag his tail and bite the food in front of me to take credit.
I told him to sit down, and he would squat aside obediently.
My mother-in-law praised this dog for its spirituality, as if he could understand what I said.
In the second year after I got married, which was the 14th year that Ah Huang came to my house, he was gone.
My father said that Ah Huang was in low spirits for a long time, and he didn’t eat, go out to play, or come to see me.
After a few days, my father asked a veterinarian in the village to come and see Ah Huang. The veterinarian said that Ah Huang had something growing in his stomach and was sick. Ordinary medicine could not cure it, and he had to be taken to a store in the city that specialized in treating dogs.
I went back home and drove Ah Huang to see a doctor.
The doctor said that Ah Huang would not last long. He was old and his body functions were deteriorating. Even if he treated the growth in his stomach, there was little hope and he would suffer in vain.
I did not believe it, so I went to another veterinary store to see Ah Huang, but the doctor said the same thing.
Rural people who raise dogs do not always take them to the veterinarian. They raise dogs casually. If there is rice, they feed it rice. If there is meat, they feed it meat.
Ah Huang is in good health, lively and active. He will run around in the fields and cannot stop for a moment. You can’t catch up with him.
I don’t understand why such an Ah Huang got sick one day.
Less than two months later, Ah Huang was gone. Although we fed him well, we still couldn’t keep him.
I was reluctant to give Ah Huang to a pet store, so I discussed with my parents and found a quiet place in our orchard on the back hill of our house to make a small grave for it.
Ah Huang loved our orchard very much and always ran ahead when my father came to pick fruit. I think it should be happy that it is now staying in its favorite mountain.
I have never raised a dog again, and my parents have never said they would buy another dog.
In our hearts, there is only one Ah Huang, and that is the small native dog Ah Huang that my father bought for me at the market 14 years ago for 35 yuan.
Leave a Reply