My Pet Story: Fishes are my pandemic distraction

The ‘giant’ Cory fishes (bottom of the tank) and the tiny blue-eyed Gertrudes (on the far right) in happy coexistence. They are very tiny and look like ikan bilis. — Lilian Lim

Your Pet Story

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My earliest recollection of a dog in my childhood years was when I was perhaps eight years old – this dog which we called Huat (Hokkien for prosperity). He was a nondescript, fairly large dog with light yellow fur.

My father had a small bakery, and naming this dog Huat showed his hope that the family dog would bring him prosperity in his business.

In my father’s days, a dog’s life was a far cry from what it is today. Nowadays, I am especially tickled to see a dog dressed in his Sunday best and sitting pretty in a doggy pram!

Huat would eat leftovers from our dinners, mixed with rice – and he would be none the worse for it. To my consternation, he choked a couple of times on chicken bones, and I felt a sense of panic. But fortunately he always managed to clear the obstruction.

I remember that he would sit close to me at the dining table at times and put his chin on my lap, waiting for some morsels of food. It made my thigh feel ticklish but I didn’t mind it at all. He had a way of pulling at my heartstrings to awaken in my young mind a sense of generosity and compassion.

My father’s business did thrive in those days. But the same could not be said of our beloved family dog. Huat contracted a grievous skin disease. Though I remember my mum had some home remedy for him, he didn’t get any better.

He suffered very much and appeared to be beyond treatment. He would have been mercifully put down today.

As his condition worsened, he was not allowed to hang around my father’s shop and he obediently complied. Finally, one day, some men came to my father’s shop and led him away. I remember crying over him. That was the last time I saw our beloved family dog.

Why is the memory of Huat still in my mind to this day, decades later? Well, he was an obedient, lovable and intelligent fellow – that was how he endeared himself to me.

My mum decided that our family would never again keep another dog after the deep sadness of losing Huat. Truth be told, our family was also too busy to look after one. And that was it.

It would be three decades later that I would have another dog, actually two dogs, in my life. That, however, is a story for another day.

Fast-forward to the year 2020. A global pandemic struck that changed our way of life. Now, as senior citizens, my husband and I have more time on our hands than we would wish for. You could say we needed a distraction before boredom from being confined indoors kicked in. My daughter and son-in-law started a hobby called aquascaping – styling an aquarium or underwater gardening. I was immediately fascinated.

It is totally unlike the first aquarium I had years ago. Looking back, it was minimalist, to say the least. It was really a very basic aquarium with the filter and pump to maintain the water quality and cleanliness of the tank. The only sort of comfort for the fishes, if you can call it that, was the beautiful picture of the undersea world of colourful corals at the back wall of the aquarium. To improve the aesthetic of the aquarium, there was a miniature pagoda and a porcelain green turtle, and some seashells and rocks that I had picked up from Port Dickson beach.

Long story short, we now have three bronze corydoras and five longfin blue-eyed Gertrudes happily co-existing in our “new-age” fish tank which my daughter and son-in-law helped set up. The bottom is overlaid with sand.

A beautiful treated “tree bough” takes center stage, with pretty aquatic plants which we personally glued on to create a miniature underwater natural habitat. Yes, it is an old hobby that was revived during the pandemic, a much-needed distraction for us to focus on God’s creations, for the fishes swim happily without a care in the world, pandemic or no pandemic.