Bobbie

Not sure how many of my friends know that I have dog at home. I do. I really do. He's called bobbie. I just don't talk about how he looks like, how old he is, where we got him from, where's his vet, how is his poop cycle, regular dog talk. In fact, i don't talk about him atll too often.
Why? well, first of all, he came to our house one day from the spca not because we wanted a dog, but because my uncle's friend who volunteered at the spca needed foster homes for some stray pups and my uncle "volunteered" to let him stay for a few weeks... which dragged on for a couple of years. Second, I was going to the US for school when he came along, so the time i spent with Bobbie really wasn't long, nor was it intimate. Third, i like dogs that are not mine, meaning that I like dogs as long as they don't come with the responsibilities attached to being a dog owner. i think tt's pretty much the family mantra too... we are not very good caregivers to doggies, or fish for that matter.
Anyway, it was the last point that finally drove my parents to give bobbie up to the spca. He was like a spoilt and neglected child in some sense. See, while we were its owners, had fed it and gave it shelter, brought it to the vet when it was sick, we never took time to train him, and teach him to poop in one place and to recognise who to bare its teeth at. Bobbie was wild and and untame in our expansive garden, and as long as he didn't escape out of the confines of our home, it was fine.
Unfortunately, sometime last week, he escaped out of the house into the streets and while my uncle was trying to restrain him, Bobbie went berserk and bit my uncle. Hard. Even worst, my neighbor tried to help my uncle and Bob bit him too. It took both of them, and my mum (who endured scratches) to finally rein him in and calm him down.
In the end, my neighbor went for a rabies shot and he naturally got pissed off at how wild our dog was. (fyi, bob had once bit his schnauzer) Luckily, he decided not to pursue the matter any further, or we could have been sued, given how legalistic the society is.
After the whole incident, my parents, with the upcoming move decided that it was too late to tame bobby and we had to let him go back to the spca because he might just go crazy in the new neighborhood and the folks living there may not be as forgiving as this neighbor was.
Today, my parents move, and today bobby goes back to spca. It is a very sad day, he has been part of the family, as neglected and as ill-disciplined as he was, for a long time. There's no telling whether he will ever find new owners and we will probably never get a dog anymore. We just aren't very good pet owners. Most ironic of all, my parents had even chose to rent a house instead of an apartment while they rebuild their new home so that bobby has some room in the garden to run about. Now, the garden is just a garden and not bobby's playground.
We say goodbye to Bobbie, he was a good pet most of time, and sweet whenever I was around...