If there is something that makes me fear and love it at the same time, it will be my friend’s German Shepard - Baloo. Baloo belongs to my best friend Jennifer from elementary school. I still remembered the first time when Jennifer called me over the phone rather excited and asked me to go over and check out her new puppy. Well, let’s just say our definitions of puppy weren’t exactly the same. A puppy to me is something small and no taller than above your ankles. Imagined my surprise when I opened the door to her house and what came dashing to the door was a rather big and heavy puppy. I thought it was the father or mother of the puppy she wanted me to see! That was my first encounter with Baloo.

I went over to Jennifer’s house a few times after that and played with the dog. During one of those play times, I guess it wasn’t such a good idea to play ‘the ball is mine’ with a German Shepard. At first, Baloo carried in his mouth a soft round plastic ball toward me and gestured for me to throw it so he can play catch. We did that for a few rounds until on the last round I held onto the ball as he was trying to pull it away with his teeth/mouth. He got upset that the ball wasn’t freed so he started to growl and within few seconds, before I realized what had happened, bit me hard on my thumb. I was so shocked that I did not feel the pain at first. The wound on my thumb goes from the middle to where the nail grew. I can see a bit of my bone and yet with a rather calm voice, I called out to Jennifer at the time saying ‘Um, hey Jen..do you have a bandage of some sort?’ It was so calm that Jennifer thought I just had a paper cut. She was horrified to find out what had happened the next minute and grabbed my injured hand straight to the sink to rinse with cold water. I saw Baloo looked so sad as he was getting scolded by Jennifer so after my thumb was bandaged, I went over to pat Baloo and told him it’s ok. Jennifer of course thought I was nuts to do so. She said she will never want to get near that dog if it were her. What can I say? I still love him.

Last week Jennifer and her family had to go on an urgent leave out of the country and told my sister and I to help take care of Baloo. The first three days were not so bad but somehow he managed to lock himself in one of the small bedrooms overnight on the fourth day. Yes, he left a mess of pees and poo for me to clean. When my sister and I had to leave after making sure everything was ok in the morning, Baloo looked upset and depressed. The same day we returned at night to give him fresh water and food, he threw a fit on us. When we tried to open the door, he laid right next to the entrance door, blocking us from opening it. He is so heavy that I can’t budge it open wider. When my sister and I tried to talk to him and asked him to please be kind and let us in, he laid down his head as well to block the door even further while letting out two big sighs. After trying to negotiate with him for about 10 minutes outside the door (yes I felt silly doing so but I didn’t want him to be hungry and want to make sure he is ok), my sister and I pretended we gave up and told him we are leaving. We closed the door and walked away, waiting outside in their lawn. After about a minute, Baloo started to bark so we walked back and called out his name. This time when we opened the door, he was wagging his tail and happy to see us. Gesh..talk about hard to please. Even with all these, my sister and I still love Baloo. Go figure. For this dog, I have been waking up before 10am which is NOT something I do on daily basis.

Well, below is the famous dog. A dog that I fear and love.