Laylay

She came to our lives unexpectedly more than a decade ago. A friend gave her to my mother. She was really cute, soft, cuddly, looked and felt like teddy bear with a bad habit of chewing all the shoes and slippers she could sink her teeth on. She was not a teddy bear though but a dog. A mongrel dog or what we usually call “askal or asong kalye” but it did not matter to us. She was playful, intelligent, fiercely loyal, protective and cat-friendly only to our cats. There was even a time that she adopted a kitten or two as her bedmates. She was with us for more than a decade, loved belly rubs, acquired a taste for fruits including durian, loved fish and conceived a male dog, Kibol. She could smell our arrivals a few meters from home and would not stop barking until she got a pat or a hug.

She got sick when she was younger and we thought we lost her but she was a fighter. She recovered from her illness and checked out of the animal clinic after two weeks. After more than a decade with us, Laylay’s health started to deteriorate last year. She fought and bounced back again. I thought she was fully recovered until during the holidays, she started to weaken and ate sparingly.

This morning, my mother and brother brought Laylay to the vet because she has weakened considerably since yesterday. Sadly, the vet said there was nothing we could do but wait. Laylay, our beloved dog, left us quietly this afternoon. I miss her terribly. She was my perennial happy greeter. Laylay, I hope you are at peace and happy wherever you are now. Thank you for the good times and friendship. God bless.