IF someone kicks my “best friend”, I will kick him back. But I won’t beat up his “best friend” because I’m an animal lover.
A dog is said to be “man’s best friend” but recently the beastly acts of two men who claimed to be dog lovers have left the Malaysian public howling in anger.
During a dog show in Petaling Jaya, the owner of a dog aimed several kicks at a fellow participant’s dog when the two canines confronted each other.
It’s just as bad as a man going to a school to slap a student who had fought with his son.
In another video that went viral, Singaporean Terry Yee insisted that he “loves dogs” after he was seen viciously battering a guard dog in Puchong, Kuala Lumpur, after it startled him and his pet dog. It is so hard to believe his claim of “loving dogs”.
Shooing a dog away or even kicking out in circumstances of self-defence would have been tolerated by the public but not in the brutal manner that Yee vented his fury on the dog.
But animalistic justice was done when Yee, after terrorising a hapless dog, was left licking his wounds, image-wise and business-wise.
This came after Netizens sank their teeth into Yee, so to speak, and some even called on people to stop doing business with him.
Consequently, two American and one British companies terminated their outdoor equipment business with him over the incident. So, beware of dog abuse.
Dog abusers should be identified, shamed and tagged online.
It’s understandable if some people have cynophobia, which is a natural fear of dogs, and react with hostility to them. But not when they make “false barks”, claim to be dog lovers and attend canine shows.
What would dogs think of their masters in future? According to evolutionary biologists, dogs understand humans far better than previously thought.
A study shows that dogs have the ability to interpret and predict human behaviour due to thousands of years evolving together with humans.
A research predicts that future generations of dogs will become much “smarter”, and that they will be able to perform basic chores like retrieving newspapers, without being told due to their increased cognitive abilities.
As dogs get to know particular humans, they pay more attention to them and this may mean they can read, and even predict human behaviour with more efficiency as familiarity grows.
That a dog is a man’s best friend was famously summed up by American lawyer George Vest in a trial in Missouri in 1870.
The case was about a dog named Old Drum, which was shot dead by a farmer. The dog’s owner sued the farmer for compensation. Vest, who acted for the dog’s owner, brought the jury to tears and won the case with these stirring words:
“The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful.
“Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith…
“The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honour when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.
“The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.”
Chan Wai Kong, is the NST deputy sports editor. He sees life differently after waking up from a coma following a car accident in Vancouver. He can be reached via kongster@nst.com.my