Shadow was found

Shadow at 3 months, with second foster.

Shadow, rescued from chains, on the way
to find boarding during Chinese New Year 06.

Shadow at ALL. Ahh...the silent joy of freedom.

as a litter of 6 girls in a drain. After bring fostered by 2 families, she was eventually adopted by a family whom we thought she would be happy with. It was a huge bungalow with sprawling gardens where she could run and romp about.

In the beginning, things were fine. The boys played with her. The maid apparently walked her. Life seemed fine. However, as weeks became months and Shadow grow big, I learnt from the maid that the boys no longer play with her. They found her too strong.

Soon after, Shadow became relegated to nothing more than a guard dog. Most of the day, she will be chained up. To an old oven in the front porch. Apparently, as the maid said, she was allowed off leash to run in the garden in the mornings when the family was out, which was later discovered to be untrue. She was never let off to run, nor walked.

To many people out there, chaining a dog up for most of the day doesn't equate to abuse, not even neglect. The conditions that conclude that are: food, water, shelter. So long as these 3 items are available, a dog can be chained up for 24 hours a day on a short leash or caged up for life, and there is no legal means of a charge of animal neglect or abuse. This is as it is in our country.

Which makes rehoming tricky. A dog can be lawfully removed from a home if there is evidence of abuse - extreme malnutrition, unnecessary beatings, ill treatment. But how do you qualify a case of neglect? Where a living being is deprived of all social contact and interaction with his own kind. Where the body is surviving solely cos of food and water. Where it looked from beyond the gates that basic needs are provided - food, water, shelter. There was no legal grounds to remove Shadow from the house and the owner still wanted her, for whatever reasons we couldn't fathom, except as a barking alarm at strangers.

Is that all to life? Food, water, shelter?

What is a life like being chain up to a short leash every single minute of your life for the rest of your 15 years? What is life like seeing lush green pastures before your eyes, smelling fresh dew each morning, hearing your fellow pals barking and playing across the street, but for you, every single minute of your life is in chains. Am I still alive?

You couldn’t invent a worse punishment for a dog than keeping him permanently chained. Dogs are social beings who thrive on interaction with human beings and other animals. Hour by hour. Day by day. Month by month. All she can do is pace back and forth over her small patch of ground. She became ‘part of the scenery’, ignored by her owner.

If you walk up to her at the end of her chains, her eyes, at first dark and lifeless, will gradually light up with that last spark of hope she still carries within her – for a gentle word, a friendly pat, a big warm hug. Despite all the loneliness and neglect she has endured, her body wags with joy at a kindly human figure.

For those who say animals have no feelings, they clearly have not heard Shadow’s cries whenever we leave her after visits. The deep, soulful howls of a sentient being crying to be saved. The cries of a soul dying. Cuts to the core of our hearts. The sadness of that all is indescribable.

Life is never just about food, water, shelter. Those are like the petrol that gets your car running, put there so that the car can fulfil its full potential. To be what it was made to be. So never do we live on bread alone. The immensity of our potential is waiting to be unleashed if only we know how great we are. The LIFE within us can receive wondrous things, some beyond our wildest imagination.

LIFE is meant to be lived to the full. LIFE is meant to be joyful! LIFE is meant to be FREE. Not merely to cast of one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Shadow was never born to live in chains. How cruel to bind up a life so vibrant and young. How sad to reduce a world of adventure to a tiny square patch of concrete. She was killed the minute the chains came out.

How many more lifes out there are now in chains? I dread to know. But I know I will find out if I must. One at a time.

Restore to the living LIFE as it is meant to be.

After being rescued from her former adopter this Jan, Shadow has been boarding at petshops and then at Animal Lovers League. As of 17 June, she is officially adopted by a wonderful family with a golden retriever and another local breed.