How Ashley and I Found Each Other

For today, I’ve decided to share how my dog, Ashley and I met. She is a Maltese Spitz (crossbreed of Maltese and Japanese Spitz).

We always have dogs in our house but mainly as guards for our house. We only had Askal (asong kalye). Askal is a local dog in the Philippines and you usually see them in the streets. We never bought expensive dogs because we felt they are high maintenance.

One day, my mom decided to ask for a grandchild, I mean an actual baby. I have a sister but I am the eldest. I am in a relationship but too busy to plan for a child so I just ignored her. But every time I call, she would nag me about it, telling me I am not getting any younger. We would have a long conversation about it and I would end up saying “soon” to her to the conversation would end.

A few weeks before Christmas of 2015, our company had a marketing event. It was a Dog’s Day Out – an event for our homeowners with dogs. It was during this event I had the brilliant idea of getting a dog in lieu of a baby. My mom loves dogs, and she always wanted to have a small dog of breed. During the event, I tried asking for the participants if they had dogs for sale at a reasonable price. I met who sells dogs but doesn’t have any available as of that moment so we just exchanged numbers.

A couple of days later, she called me and said she found a dog. She already sold the dog to a friend but found out that he was neglecting her so she decided to buy her back. If I want her, I can buy her. She brought her to me later that day, and I just fell in love. I can see that she was afraid of almost anything – the sound of the cars passing by, my touch, the umbrella I was holding. She had an ash colored hair, and thought of the name Ashley.

I wanted to bring her with me right away, but my current living arrangement does not allow her to stay with me. I made a few arrangements to transfer her to our province where my parents resides. After a week, I had her. She had to stay with me for a night, so I just sneaked her into my place. I was surprised of how quite she was. We played the whole night and she never barked. I was relieved because our building has very strict rules when it comes to pets. I almost did not let her go, I wanted her to stay with me, but I had to.

I initially wanted to tell my mom that I will be bringing my baby for Christmas but I did not want her to expect and be disappointed and suffer her wrath afterwards so I just told her that for the meantime, Ashley will be her grandchild. Until now, she is a spoiled dog and wants all the attention to her. She respects my space when I’m sleeping and eating, but almost always, she asks for my attention.

This year during my birthday, my mom asked for “another grandchild”, one that I will bear in my womb. I joked and said I will get another dog. Her answer? As long as he/she will come from my womb. I guess that’s her way of saying no to another dog. Lol!