Sometimes she doesn’t let me bring her back inside, so I have to chase her around the little yard until she’s cornered. And then, OK, she knows she’s done – just sits there like a helpless puppy: “OK, now what?” I say, “We have to go inside, OK?” Then she lets me. Otherwise, if she has enough room, she will let me chase her until the end of the other planet. She likes that. Oh, very terrible. Just one dog-person – a lot of work already. I have seven now, before 10.
Imagine, the dog(-person), hard to catch, cannot even touch, cannot even go near, had a chain, very tight on her neck. I was worried sick, “How can we get (to) her now to unchain her even?” Oh, my God. They had many men; they just put a towel on her or something, and they chained her. So, we had to think of a way. And then somebody just got hold of her. Oh, she tried to bite everybody. Four of the helpers got bitten and had to go get injections in case of rabies. Four of them; bit them. Because at that time, we had just caught her, and the doctor said she was still too weak to get a rabies injection or any other injection. So, she was weak like that but still bit very well. I had to send them (the helpers) to the hospital many times to finish the course of injections. They’re still alive, don’t worry, still OK. It was just lucky; if other people... if she had bitten four like that, she would be done, put to sleep right away. Any country would be the same. If they know any dog-person bites humans like that, they will put them to sleep.
What could I do? She’s a dog-person. We, humans, can take care of ourselves. Dog-people don’t know anything, and I thought she was a puppy even. I didn’t find out how old she was until much later when she was well. And the doctors had to check to give injections and for the documents, so they knew, “Oh, she’s at least three years old.” I said, “What? Really? She looks smaller than all of the puppies that I adopted.” And she’s still small – it’s just her size. She won’t grow up; maybe a hard life, didn’t have enough nutrition, so that’s the best she can grow. And now she eats a lot. She eats more than all of the dog-people together. She steals food from all of them whenever she wants.
Whatever’s her favorite, if she likes it, she eats all her things and goes one bowl after another, taking it all – the durian or the potatoes. The others are full and spoiled, always full. They eat sissy-sassy slow, eat like a gentleman or lady. She doesn’t care, lady, gentleman: “My food; I like it. I come and get what I want.” And when they come back, “Huh? How come? Nothing left!” Then I have to feed them, when she’s already – her stomach is bigger than her size – lying there in samadhi. Then I feed them again, and she lets them eat. She doesn’t fight with anybody, but she knows how to get what she wants. She’s just like that.
Sometimes she doesn’t let me bring her back inside, so I have to chase her around the little yard until she’s cornered. And then, OK, she knows she’s done – just sits there like a helpless puppy: “OK, now what?” I say, “We have to go inside, OK?” Then she lets me. Otherwise, if she has enough room, she will let me chase her until the end of the other planet. She likes that. Oh, very terrible. Just one dog-person – a lot of work already. I have seven now, before 10. But I never knew dog-people were like this. My dogs were easy. So, I thought all dogs were the same. I was trapped into thinking all dog-people were the same. They’re not the same. And these are wild, really wild dogs. Now I know, but it’s too late; I love them already. I can’t change.
I love all of them, even the bad ones that bite all my doors and all the rental apartment doors. When we return it, it’ll cost a lot of money, finger-wagging, and yelling. I let the Hong Kong disciples deal with it. They can speak Cantonese together. I was not there, so I didn’t have to listen to it. But, you see, they bite everything – the whole, big strong doors. You know Hong Kong, they’re very safety concerned. The doors are massive – big wood, teak or something. Even if we wanted to chop it, it’d take a long time. Their tender teeth chopped them all! Oh God, whole chunks from them all came down.
Before that, in Thailand, when I first adopted them, of course, I wanted to keep them all in the garage until the doctor came and checked if anyone was sick before bringing into the house. Also, the house was not mine. The house belonged to a very wealthy man, disciple. Of course, he didn’t mind – that’s what he said. But his house is on a golf course, you know? Many US dollars. Wait, that’s in Thailand. If it were in another country, it would be more expensive. And would he mind if my dog-people bit everything? The French door? The imported bed? The antique table? The golf club – special golf club? And the Thai carved bench? Would he mind? Ask yourself. Well, I knew; I didn’t say anything. I said, “Oh thank you for being generous.” But before I left, I fixed everything.
And I built him a big veranda outside – all glass – because originally, I wanted to stay there. I wanted my dog-people to see all the views. They were puppies; they had their own place, but I wanted them to see the view. And you know what? Before that, they were in the garage. Ah no, the storeroom – empty. And they bit the whole wall, four sides, everything that they could... The mother alone bit everything that she could jump to. It was about at least 1 meter high. All four corners became dust, really, all in small, small pieces. Inside, I think they did a thin cement or something. The outside, she could not bite, because they made it with very tough wood. But the inside, they covered with thin wood or thin cement and painted with thin cement and white. Everything came down; you could see all the bones of the structure, the wood studs inside. I don’t know how she’s still alive. And she was not even 1 year old at that time. She got pregnant early – poor life. But then, she bit all that because she wanted her kids to get out. The first quarantine, of course, they didn’t like it. That was one night only. OK. Fine. I had to call people in to fix all that.
And before I came, told them to fence the whole of his beautiful, open golf house garden. Golf people – they don’t fence in because it overlooks the golf course. The golf course and the house garden blend together with luxurious, hand-manicured grass and scissor-trimmed trees. And I came with one dog-person – OK, one big dog, OK. But now, 10 more dog-people. They were slowly taken away and died – two died, three were adopted, so I have six left. There were ten. Two died, three were adopted, and of course, I have five because the mother is the mother, not a puppy. Oh, she was a puppy too. And she demolished all that. I had to fix the whole storeroom. And, of course, the disciple goes, “Don’t worry, Master. It’s only a garage. Don’t worry, I’ll fix it.” I said, “I’ll fix it, because it’s my responsibility.” A very good gentleman, generous. The story has not ended.
Of course, he let me drive his car because I just came. I didn’t think I would stay long. Even if I stayed long, I just came. In a few weeks, I didn’t have enough time to buy a car or anything. So, he let me use his car. Alright. Then the golf cart, I also could drive, no problem. But when he came, he took it to drive. And some of the other disciples said, “Why? You should let Master drive. Why do you take it when you are there? Then how would She drive to go shopping?” I said, “Never mind, the shop is very close. I can walk.” It was not that close, but close enough, and I could walk. Maybe more than five minutes’ walk? Ten minutes’ walk? I didn’t go to big shops, just a local shop that sells to the golf people. I said, “I still have the big car. Don’t worry. Fine.”
For my dog-people, originally. They used it; how long, do you know? Two days, and I had to run – took all my dog-people with me. In Thailand, not easy to buy many things. Even to buy a cage for dog-people – difficult to buy. So, I had to use cartons for them and cover them with blankets, and cover in front – with just a little gap for them to go in and out, like a door, so it was warm for them. They were babies, and they were OK. Slowly, they ate them all. Every day, I had to go to the shop, begging for new cartons. They didn’t give me. They said, “Mostly we give it back to the shop, taking some money for it.” So, nobody had such cartons. They had small ones, like for Coca-Cola or something, but they didn’t have the big ones.
Even though my dog-people were small, they needed bigger ones for space. So very difficult. You know what I had to do? I had to scrape up all these small, small boxes of this size, come home, cut them open, and patch them together to make a big cage – one by one. I went begging all the shops around my area. And they felt sorry for me. I said, “Please, I’ll give you the money, not that I’m begging you. Please take the money; give me whatever boxes you have.” They took all the boxes from their garage, from their storeroom, even from the chicken-people that they had. I said, “Oh, no. If your chickens had it, I don’t want it.” I was worried about sickness or anything not clean. They took everything out. Then they took out some lunchbox stuff, small, so they said, “You could use it?” I said, “No, no, it’s too small. It would take me one thousand years just to patch them to make a big box.” But truly, it was very difficult for me, and without a car, it was more difficult. I haven’t come to that yet.
OK. And then, when I brought them inside the house, they began to eat the furniture. The mother first. Whenever she could stay in the house, she bit everything so that she could jump out. She could not bear the confinement because she was not used to it yet. And now she still loves to be outside, and we let them run whenever we can, like maybe two hours a day at least. Every time half an hour run or more, it depends on the weather. She runs until she comes begging to get in, then OK, I let her in. Others don’t want to stay out too long – come in quick, worrying Big Mama will run away. They’re more worried about me running away than they cannot run away or that their own mama will run away. Actually, she just adopted them. She has only three children, black ones. Look at the ears standing up, just like those that you saw in “Star Wars,” earlier days. The ears stand up and are big; all three of them look the same. One died already, and the other two are still very active and jump from any balcony – they just jump outside; no need to lock them in the balcony, useless.
I made fence and everything – useless. So, we had to make all these ugly green fences because that’s the only fence they cannot go over. But they dug underneath and still got out. So, these few days, we still put cement blocks along the edge of the fence. These Kaohsiung people, I feel so sorry. And even they don’t have enough manpower, so they have to engage those short-term Aulacese (Vietnamese). They were all working up a sweat, all for my dog-people. I didn’t ask, but they have to do it. So, all the (vegan) candy and cakes in my house keep running out because I feel sorry for them. I have to “bribe” them somehow. Whenever I see them, I say, “Thank you, thank you. Take some food.” They said, “No, no, we are very honored to work for You, Master.” I say, “Never mind, but thank you, thank you.” So, they keep supplying (vegan) cakes and candy, and they keep running out. So, if I don’t invite you, Westerners, to my house anymore for any private audience, you understand now why. I feel embarrassed to tell you, but I’m running out of courtesy (vegan) cakes and candies.
