I must tell the story about these cute little pets we have here. They make our lives more colourful and merry in this centre. Let’s meet our furry friends:

1) Xiao Bai

She is a super hyperactive dog. Can’t sit still. Likes to bully other dogs but when she sees a bigger dog, she will hide behind us. Forever hungry and joins us for our meals everyday, under the table. She’s also extremely smart. We always try to trick her into staying at home whenever we go out (we just don’t want to bring her along). One person will distract her while the rest RUN for our lives, out of the house far far away. But somehow, she manages to sneak out and end up following us anyway. She once trailed behind us to the supermarket and quietly waited outside the entrance when we went in, coz she has been shooed away before and she remembers. Apparently, they have left her at some place far away and she managed to find her way back. It’s getting harder to trick her now.

2) Da Xiong

He actually lives with our librarian but always hang-out at our place. We suspect that he likes Xiao Bai but she doesn’t give a damn about him. They are forever playing and fighting – we can’t really tell the difference. They will be chasing each other all over the house, run up and down the stairs and bark and bite. It’s super annoying coz our building is a wooden one, and their footsteps can be heard clearly! Da Xiong is cute but he ain’t that smart.

3) Ah Mie

She’s the mother cat in residence and heavily pregnant when I arrived. She normally does her own stuff and only bothers us when she needs food. Xiao Bai loves to bully her and she would fight back ferociously. She was going into labour 2 days ago and meowed non-stop the entire night and the whole of yesterday. It was driving us mad! Some of the volunteers made a makeshift ‘labour room’ for her in a huge box, filled with comfortable cotton cloth and warm water but she did not want to use it! She kept intruding the library and started climbing onto our books and laptops. She finally gave birth at the end of the day before dinnertime and the meowing stopped. Whew!

4) Lulu

This cute little pup is Xiao Bai’s daughter, but she lives with a young boy who is one of our students. He often brings her along when he comes over for class. Lulu likes to shriek with a high-pitch voice. It almost sounds like a baby. Pretty freaky, because she always sounds like she’s in pain eventhough she’s just running around.

So yeah, they are cute but get on our nerves sometimes. We have to play peacekeepers everytime they fight. Ah Mie was so fierce yesterday (labour instinct?) that she scratched Da Xiong and there was blood around his eyes. We had to immediately remove him and sent him home. Xiao Bai was so afraid that he hid behind one of the girls and was very quiet the whole day, hiding in a corner.