Living in China: Entitled Parent Tries To Take Away My Dog [Part 1]
An absurd incident.
Side note: This story was originally written a year ago and recently updated.
Oh man, where do I even start?
The First Meeting
Three to four months ago, we came back home and heard a lot of howling downstairs in the stairwell. Being curious, we had to check it out. Low and behold, there’s this adorable black puppy in a small blue crate. It’s evidently lonely or hungry (or both). Since my significant other and I have a soft spot for pets, we instantly went down the stairs to go and pet it.
We visited it almost every day as we could hear it howling and whimpering throughout the day and night. We would sometimes bring pieces of meat and pet it for a while, before going back upstairs. This was a time when I was teaching online (due to the coronavirus) and was at home all day with my significant other who was working on his graduating thesis.
This puppy seemed to enjoy our company and since we went to visit it every day, we eventually met the owners — a family of five consisting of two parents, one grandparent, and a little boy. Since the puppy was living in the stairwell instead of inside their home, we assumed that it was unwanted or that its owner wanted to give it away.
It turned out that we were wrong and we learned that this puppy was a gift from the grandmother’s side of the family to her grandson. Perhaps the family didn’t want to clean up after the puppy and thought the best solution was to keep it elsewhere.
An observation: I am surprised that their neighbors didn’t call the building manager, security, or the police to file a report about the puppy’s constant howling as a noise complaint.
After a month of almost daily visits, the family (namely, the parents) started to entertain the idea of giving away the puppy to us. I think they were realizing what a handful the puppy was and that there was more work involved than what they bargained for.
Being a First-Time Dog Owner
They knew we visited the puppy often and after some discussion among themselves (and with their son), the parents decided to give the puppy away to us. As with anything in life, nothing comes free. They made several requests in exchange for giving up their puppy.
- Their son would be able to visit the puppy from time to time.
- I would help their son with his English. The operative word here is “help”; I didn’t agree to provide free English classes.
We agreed and saw the mother and son occasionally. Each time we saw them, we invited them to come to our apartment (or go downstairs to grassy areas) to see the dog. The first time their son came to our home, he was anything but pleasant. He went around our home touching various items and despite us telling him not to, opened closed doors to peek inside rooms.
Needless to say, we were not thrilled by this little guest. His mother did not intervene and was merely a bystander while watching her son trot around our apartment doing whatever he pleased. She tried to coax him to leave after a bit, but he ignored her.
I watched unimpressed while my significant other had to tell the child off for opening the bedroom door when we had explicitly asked him not to. From more than one interaction with this mother-child pair, we could see that the son wore the pants at home and dictated all the terms.
Anyways, this was not the only time that the child came to visit us. During the second visit, he got bored with the dog after a couple of minutes and began to draw on the whiteboard that I use for my weekend classes. He spent most of the time exploring our apartment and drawing on the whiteboard than with the dog, which he supposedly missed. The dog was supposed to be the sole reason for these visits in the first place.
An Unpleasant Turn
One day, his mother reached out to me on WeChat (a Chinese messaging app) and asked if her son could come up to see the dog. I said that we would be walking the dog downstairs and that her son was welcomed to join us. She later replied by saying that her son already forgot about the dog and was currently eating dinner. I said “okay” and that was that.
Then, during this week, I received a message from the mother asking what days her son would be able to see the dog. I saw her message and was planning to get back to her at a later time. However, it slipped my mind and I received a very long and nasty series of messages from her the day after.
Translated from Chinese to English, this is what she said:
“I gave you one day to reply back to me, and you didn’t.”
“You didn’t buy this dog from us, we gave it to you with certain terms and conditions.”
“You didn’t live up to your promise of letting my son see the dog nor your promise to teach him English.”
“Every time I asked you if my son could see the dog, you rejected my requests.”
“If you move to China, you should learn Chinese manners.”
“I’m going to take back the dog.”
I was surprised, to say the least. I had never encountered someone that would try to go nuclear because I forgot to reply to their message on the day of. I was also amused because she tried to use the dog as leverage.
