Snowy was one of those dogs who had an owner. His owner was so poor that he can only feed him what was left from his meals to which, more often, it is never enough to fill his stomach. He was so thin that my husband and I could see his bones. 

 

We first saw Snowy in 2013 when we were on our way to the mall to buy groceries. From the house, we would have to pass through the road where we saw him lying by the side of the road like a dead dog. My husband stopped and looked out the window to check if the dog was still alive. He looked like he was run over. He saw that the dog was breathing but was so thin and had a lot of wounds all over his body (probably from scratching) . My good husband Hansel, without saying a word, made a u-turn and went back home to get water and dog food. When we came back, we placed it in front of him. He stood up and ran towards a hole in a fence. That was when we figured out that was where he lives. So from then on, every night at 7 or 8PM, either my husband, my self, or our maid would go there and leave food for him to eat. We did this for almost 3 years. Whenever we go home to Cebu, we would leave dog food for him thru his owner. I pack them in a sealed plastic and label them (Monday, Tuesday....) one pack for each day we are gone until the day we're coming back.

 

Within those 3 years that my family was feeding Snowy, we learned that his name was Law-Ay. In Hiligaynon (Bacolod's dialect) it means UGLY. My husband did not like the sound of that name so we renamed him SNOWY. We had a feeling that if given a proper bath, he'd be as white as snow.

 

Why did we keep going thru the difficulty of feeding him for 3 years, driving (sometimes walking) from the house to where Snowy was staying and not adopt him right away? Well .... we were only renting an apartment at that time and we had 4 dogs. Another dog would have been an inconvenience on our part - getting kicked out of the apaprtment for having too many pets, and the trouble of having to introduce the new dog to our already established pack of dogs... those came into our minds.

 

Fast foward to 2016, we were blessed with a house of our own with a gate and fence, and enough space for a garden for our dogs to run around and play in. A couple of months after we moved in we learned that Snowy's poor owner was asked to leave by the owner of the land he was squatting in. This was the time we decided that it is the right time to go and adopt Snowy. All's well that ends well.

 

 

Contributed by Maris Tian 
(Snowy's furever mom)