When my husband and I started living together in his tiny one-room apartment in North Point, we made the decision quite early to adopt.
The living being in question was a fluffy, white Pekingese that spent the seven months we lived there refusing to go to the toilet anywhere but on the floor of our flat.
Strangely, this didn't deter us from adopting again. And when, several months before our wedding, we opted for a greener and calmer life in Discovery Bay, we decided to take home a brown cocker spaniel, which had been subjected to horrific cruelty and mistreatment.
Perhaps it was our way of testing how ready we were for children. We never admitted as much to each other, and we've been married for six years. The dogs were a testing ground for how well we could manage to keep other living things alive.
We nursed our cocker spaniel back to health and stopped her ransacking every rubbish bin and bag she came across. We treated them pretty well. I bathed them every week. I'd go to the pet shop especially to choose a different dog shampoo each time we needed a new one.
Each dog had its own coat to wear, even though they hated wearing them, until my husband insisted I take them off as it was starting to amount to a form of cruelty against animals. During Hanukkah and Christmas they would always have their own presents, wrapped and ready for the holidays.
