Next week is the month of Ramadhan. It is a month for fellow Muslims friends to fast, to remember the poor, a month for joyous gatherings, goodies and of course not forgetting nice colourful fireworks.
In the beginning of year 2009, a little black pup, most probably 6mths old then, walked into a commercial building in Muara area. When I saw this little black pup, my heart felt pity for him. I saw him skinny and weary, searching for food in the rubbish dump. He was skinny and untidy, most likely has gone without food and water for days. He was very shy and I was unable to get close enough to touch him.
During that time, there were still other domineering strays in that area. Being a new member, he has to be challenge by other dogs to show him that they are the leaders in this area. He was always being bullied and ended up crying and whining and will hide in some bushes till he recovers from his fright.
He liked to sleep at my corridor every night, perhaps sensing that I will not hurt him. I feed him everyday and leave him fresh water at my corridor 24hrs a day. Day by day, he grew bigger and bigger but he has never never disturb any humans being in the neighbourhood. Many people walked passed him but he never bother and he also never disturbed them. Things seem to be going just fine…
Then came the month of Ramadhan, September 2009, this black pup, then has grown to a relatively medium sized dog, met his first Ramadhan in his life.
During this month, fireworks are available on sales in all major superstores. In the evenings, it is the most joyous thing to do after the family broke fast, to light up the fireworks and have fun! Wow, what a joyous thing!
Unfortunately, some teenagers decided to use fireworks to enjoy in a different way. Every evenings, teenagers will appear in groups, laughing and playing. With their pockets full of fire crackers, they will go to every corners, even into the bushes, at the stairways, under the cars and what will they do??? BOMB!!!!! They will dig their fire crackers from their pockets and threw at the strays!
The innocent black dog was of course the victim of the so many BOMBS BOMBS BOMBS….
Each time when he sleeps peacefully at my corridor and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a huge BANG will sound right in front of him. The teenagers will cornered him to a stairways and then threw the fire crackers onto him. NIGHT BY NIGHT, I would like to emphasis here, for the WHOLE MONTH, this poor dog has to suffer all these huge sounds and mockery from these teenagers.
All the sounds and mockery made his character changed TOTALLY in just that month.
From a mild and harmless dog, he has became a bad tempered and aggressive dog. From then on, each time he heard the sounds of teenagers walking passed, whether they are the same group or not, he appeared in front of them and ran after them. He will barked and wanted to challenge them. Other ignorant people, not knowing how much he has suffered to behave in this way, I have to try to stop him each time when he did that, hoping he will not hurt anyone.
But this behaviour caught the eye of a Muslim man and he thought this dog’s behaviour is unacceptable. He went to his car and pull out a parang, the black dog in front of him, he raised his arms with the parang…
Just as when he was about to slash the dog with the parang, one of my worker shouted “Uncle, what are you doing?” Uncle replied “He wanted to bite the children (in Malay)!” In the midst of this, the black dog quickly slipped away….
Out of no other options, not wanting any of the teenagers and children to get hurt, and neither do I want the black dog to be killed too, I transferred him to my warehouse in October 2009.
Till now, he has been in my warehouse for 10months and have been doing perfectly fine. Not only has he grown a lot more bigger, he has also allow me to touch him, stroke him and comb his hair. He is also very friendly with my other dogs in the warehouse and made friends with them.
Now, I named him JACK! :)
I wrote this STORY OF JACK, on hoping that adults to get a chance to educate their children, families and friends that FIREWORKS are meant to display in the air, to fill up the black sky with beautiful colours. Please do not turn your fireworks to our poor strays friends. They feel pain and will be hurt too.
I wrote this story on hoping more teenagers will get enlightened with this. Dogs will not chase you if you do not provoke purposefully.
Jack was a harmless dog before the Ramadhan month. His character changed because he sensed that teenagers are dangerous to him. They are the one who challenged him first. Jack just want to defend himself. People do not normally went to find out the whole truth. Luckily Jack was not killed by the man. However, I believe not many dogs out there were as lucky as Jack.
So please, do not hurt our strays anymore.
PS: This is my 1st time writing a story. Please pardon me if I did not do a good job. :)
Agnes, CAS Volunteer
