By David Christopher Hizon
I have five Asong Pinoy or aspins.
The oldest is Ranger, a black and white aspin who we got back in 2014. He was a pup when we adopted him. We felt like our then senior dog Cola (who has crossed the rainbow bridge) needed a friend as he was our only dog for almost 10 years. So we got him his puppy buddy in the form of Ranger.
The next puppy we adopted was a “semi-rescue” because he was rejected by his mother and was nursing off of a cat. This was Buster Bear, a hairy brown aspin. He was only a few months younger than Ranger, and they soon became best of friends. He was such a baby that he tries to nurse on Ranger’s belly when they're lying anywhere together.
Fast forward two years later and my mom adopted a dog from her co-worker. This was when Juego came into our lives. Juego first lived with my mom for a year. Because my mom was getting older and her activities required her to be at the church or in the province all the time, Juego was usually left with her co-worker when she is gone. Instead of Juego being a constant transient guest, we welcomed him to our house permanently. There was a bit of an issue at first as Ranger is used to being the alpha male and Juego was also used to living alone. They used to clash but soon enough, they started finding their place in the pack. That brought my total dog count then to three (3).
Our next adopted pup is Princess Lina McLadybabe, or lovingly known as Lady. She was our true 100 percent rescue off the streets. While filling up gas at a station along Aguinaldo Highway (Imus), we saw a puppy running around without a collar, dirty and mangey (skin disease or galis) with patches all over. I rushed to it, picked it up, and asked around if anybody owned it, and the gasoline boys said it arrived at the gas station with an older stray dog the day before. The older dog (presumably the mother) left Lady. We decided to bring her with us on the motorcycle and take her home. She was very tiny, almost just as big as the palm of my hand. That was in June 2017 and she is very healthy and happy now. This, despite the fact that on her second month with us, she was diagnosed with parvo. We thought she would not make it but with prompt veterinary action, she survived. She was confined for four days at EMC Clinic in Imus and was released when she started eating again.
And last but not the least, the youngest is Holly. A fellow member, June, from the group Guardians of the Fur mentioned that she needed homes for a group of puppies being nursed by a mother dog. The mother dog is owned by an old lady somewhere in Imus. The old lady wanted to throw the puppies away. So I reached out to June of GOTF to share my interest in keeping one of the puppies. We chose the white one and named her Holly, because we were scheduled to adopt her sometimesecond week of December, 2017. She was so tiny that she fit in an ice cream bucket layered with a thick jacket for warmth. She was such a crybaby and she grew up to be one of our sweetest pups. She never outgrew the “babiness” in her.
Aspins are great for many reasons.
First, aspins are very smart. They are not just intelligent that they can do tricks, they are street smart too. Usually they know what to do, where to go, and can find their way home if they accidentally escape—at least based on my experience.
Second, for some reason, I feel like aspins are more thankful and appreciative of humans taking care of them. They show their affection all the time and are very, very fond of their people. This is true specially for stray dogs that you adopt. They become the most loyal and trustworthy companions.
Third, based on my experience, they are somewhat hardier or stronger than most dogs. Because of the mixing of the genes from different breeds, I feel like they are able to withstand the most compared to purebreds.
Lady is not my first parvo survivor. Clairebear, another aspin in our family, also survived parvo. Ranger, on the other hand, survived a rat poisoning incident with the help of Buster Bear who was his blood donor.
Fourth, aspins are generally low-maintenance dogs who have high durability. You can never go wrong with an aspin who is well-fed. They're also the least picky eaters and can eat almost anything—although I'd have to say that Buster Bear recently developed an allergic reaction to any type of meat except lamb, so all my 5 dogs are on a strict lamb dog food diet.
Fifth, I love how different aspins look when they grow up. The transformation from puppy to adult dog is amazing.
When you adopt a puppy aspin, you never really know what he/she would look like when he/she gets bigger—and that, to me, is always an exciting surprise.
Pure-breed dogs would always look the same (although they are beautiful too in their own ways), but you would never know and can never tell with an aspin. Sometimes they would look exactly the same as how they did when they were young (just like in Ranger's case), but then you would get dogs like Buster Bear who started out looking literally like a bear cub with that fluffy brown hair and black snout, but then all of that would go away and he would look so different in a year's time!
Watching your aspin grow older is always a beautiful experience.
About the Author: David is an accountancy graduate who has been a communications trainer for a BPO company for the past 5 years. David wants to do volunteer work in shelters. If he has the funds also, David wants to build a free-roam shelter for dogs. A pet owner since he was a kid, he has taken care of dogs, cats, hamsters, rats, pigeons, and budgerigars.