In July 2021, the image of a starving, miserable puppy that an acquaintance had recently rescued from the streets of Hangzhou came across my WeChat Moments (kind of like one’s Instagram or Facebook feed here in China). Something about his face grabbed my heart, but I was in no position to adopt a dog emotionally, financially or physically! I was working part-time as the cliched university EFL teacher, and the nice free apartment provided by the school did not allow dogs. I was also on the precipice of a huge personal shift and lacked the time, will or desire to care for another living being–even one whose face reached out and touched something deep inside me.
You must understand: I am not a “dog person.” My family were not “dog people,” even though we had dogs. While my parents occasionally loosened their “children are to be seen and not heard” attitude towards their kids, and my creative endeavors were frequently encouraged, pets were supposed to relax, not bark, and never, ever interfere with our lives. I did, however, form a close relationship with our third dog, Fudgie, a white Maltese my mother let me name. Fudgie became the main character in my first “book,” a lengthy short story that erupted into more than a dozen pages on our early-’90s DOS computers in my second-grade classroom. Since the original assignment had been to write two pages, my darling second-grade teacher,Mrs. Jusick–the first woman who told me that I could be a writer–allowed me to read the first half of my behemoth tale of my own dog as an explorer on another planet in the class rocking chair before she gently encouraged me to allow another student to take a turn.
She was one of the many heroes who encouraged me to take the very steps I am today to put my writing out into the world–and it all started with that first fluffy white dog.
As for Felix, I continued to keep tabs on him from Fuyang, near Hangzhou, and was glad to see him grow fatter and happier as the months passed. I moved in to an apartment off campus and a relationship ended as online therapy began. By the late fall, I had a handle on the kind of life I wanted to live, and the reality of my profound love for slow travel and its implications for my life had fully dawned. Surprisingly, as it did, so did another conviction: I wanted a dog to bring along the way.
I am an active, impulsive person. While that has never led to any problems with the law, it has led to a myriad of personal problems and challenges that could have been assuaged by more careful living, or occasionally, by just staying home! As an introvert, I have also realized that I love working from home more than almost anything else in the world–strangely, even as much as I love travel, which seems like a completely different thing, but such is life. I knew that after a year or two, a pet would rarely be left alone all day, as my dogs had been in the past when I was teaching full-time.
I knew I wanted to travel and work remotely, but I also knew that I wanted a small companion to go with me. I am allergic to cats and averse to the idea of spending a great deal of time and attention on a being that has no interest in cuddling. I also knew that having a Maltese dog like my childhood bestie, Fudgie, would make traveling with a pet more easy in my newly-designed slow travel lifestyle the would feature working from home.
I spent a couple of months researching Maltese breeders, but a) they were expensive, b) I couldn’t totally trust that they treated the animals well, and c) I was haunted by the face of the rescued dog who remained sponsored by my acquaintance, but still lacked a home.
I knew I wanted to leave China in a year or two, but first desired to live again in Beijing, and got a job that started in February. I decided to move before the 2022 Winter Olympics arrived and bought a ticket for January 12, 2022. The last week of December, I finally caved in to my curiosity and contacted the saint of a woman who had been handling the mystery dog’s bills for a whopping six months.
Yes, the dog was still available, and now, this wonderful person was returning home, and thus would be leaving China. Did I want to meet him?
Yes, I decided, scarcely believing I was saying so. Yes, yes, I did.
I took a Didi (China’s Uber) to the middle of nowhere north of Hangzhou, and the harried owner of a low-cost rescue/boarding operation let out the dog to see me. To my horror, his coat was severely overgrown, and I was worried that it would be inextricably matted and even have some of the serious issues I had seen online. He, of course, was wholly unbothered, and I followed the humongous fur coat around for about 20 minutes; he was not interested in me in the least, but also wasn’t hostile. It didn’t matter; something in me just knew.
I left a half hour later, and right before I did, he finally warmed up to me. I asked to have him groomed and for another checkup, at which point it became clear that he was okay, and his former skin infection was still gone. I then paid someone to drive him the 11 hours from Hangzhou to Beijing; I had to take a train to avoid my health code turning red if COVID popped up in a town I might traverse on the road. If that had happened, I might have been kept out of Beijing for weeks or even months.
He made it safely, although in a comical way I’ll share later, and has profoundly improved my life. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the person who buys customized clothes for her pet or coddles him–it’s not really in me–but I do adore him deeply, and I know that he has brought joy and companionship in a way few human companions have done. He seems almost perfectly suited for me; he loves to cuddle; he is active in intense bursts, and then lazy; and he is exceedingly patient with my odd schedule and occasionally intense emotions. The dog, like the woman who first rescued him from the streets, is a saint, albeit one who is occasionally naughty.
As I was preparing to start this site, I struggled for months with the desire to create a YouTube channel. I wanted to show people what life here is like, but without being in front of the camera, and without invading others’ privacy. As I was watching Felix excitedly take in his surroundings on a walk one day, I realized, this is it. This was how I could share my home with the world without sharing my face–and since Felix, like me, is fascinated by his surroundings to an abnormal extent, I knew he’d be the perfect guide, first in China, and starting in Summer 2023, to the rest of the world on our travels!
I don’t claim to be the best dog mom or the most equipped pet caretaker, but I do my best, and I look forward to sharing this precious puppy with the world. Come adventure with us! At least, when we’re not sleeping ;-).
