Every friend that has been with us for more than 3 years will know that we used to own a dog... a beagle... name Ace (For those who don't know what is a beagle, look at Snoopy).

Today marks the 3rd year that he has left us...

I was not the one who raised him from a puppy, my wife did. From the day she brought him home, they were inseparable. She would walk him, feed him, bath him... Ace was one of the dowries that followed my wife into our new home, so I shared the responsibility of feeding bathing and walking him too.

I had never owned a dog before that time, not directly at least... my neighbor owned a stray,
althought it was a female, they named her "Bobby". Don't ask why...

Anyway, back to Ace...

He's like any typical Singaporean, loved Durian... he can smell the aroma of the durian sealed in a tubelware placed in a fridge. There was one occasion where he managed to open the fridge and single handedly took out 7 pieces of durian seeds in the middle of the night, swallowed EVERYTHING... including the seeds. Can you imagine the shock when we found him lying on the floor with a bloated stomach, the fridge was wide opened with its contents ransacked.

The next morning, he threw up 5 seeds, pooped out 1, which means, there is one more in him. For the next few days we observed his bowel movement and his behavior, it was very obvious that he began to have fever, and has no appetite, not even with his favorite fried drumstick swinging before his eyes can we get him to stand up.

He was brought to the vet where he was diagnosed to have something blocking his intestine and an immediate operation is required. We agreed to it, and on the same day they went ahead to cut him up.

After the opt, the doc showed us the durian seed slightly larger than the diameter of fifty cents coin... hardly chewed on. As for him, he's up and running 2 hours after the opt.

You'll think he has learned his lesson, but truth is, it happened to him twice. Once when he was 2 years old, the other time at 6 years old. Both caused by durian.

He's really intelligent, he knows when we are talking about him, he'll look at us from the corner of his eyes, trying to sense what are we going to do to him. Dogs don't lie, their body language shows their emotion... fear, happy, depress, stress, envy...etc just like a person.

I can still remember clearly how he'll sneak up on to our bed in the middle of the night and sleep in between us. I would end up waking up with my arms around his hairy body and open my eyes to see his big brown eye staring back at me.

Every morning I would I ask him: "Ace, got anyhow urine or not?" He'll give one of two answers... either he look at me and wag his tail (meaning he did nothing wrong), or tail between his legs and run to hide. If its the later, I would have to began my "treasure hunt" he is sure to have wee-wee some where... It could be at the TV console, curtain, sofa, fridge or shoe cabinet.

Every evening when we return from home, he'll be jumping around and running about... next is, he'll smell our shoes and pants trying to find out where we've been. He'll even go thru our bags to look for goodies.

We love Ace... We missed him still
Even after 3 years...