“I thought maybe I’d left it in the oven,” the 43-year-old lawyer recalled. “Nothing there. Checked the fridge – also nothing. For a second, I questioned my own memory!”
Then he looked down. There she was – the brown, four-legged culprit sitting very still, eyes wide, tail twitching, the picture of guilt and satisfaction all at once.
“The whole sandwich was vacuumed up in about ten seconds!” Choo said, laughing. It wasn’t her first heist, and certainly not her last. But it didn’t matter.
Peanut, together with Choo and his fiancée Jamie Wong’s first dog Blanc, brings so much joy to the couple, these naughty moments almost always end up in laughter.
Peanut entered their lives by accident. Wong, also a lawyer, was scrolling through social media when she stopped on a rescuer’s post. A small puppy stared back from the screen, fragile and sickly, her body thin and her eyes clouded.
“Lung infection, brain damage, osteoarthritis, breathing issues… everything you can imagine. I just knew no one would want to foster her,” Wong, 41, mentioned.
She reached out to the rescuer, asking about Peanut’s condition, and soon, agreed to foster Peanut for a month.
When the rescuer arrived with the puppy, Wong opened the door and froze.
“She could barely walk,” she remembered. “She was so thin, just skin over bones. I looked at her and I just teared up. But I told myself – we’ll care for her, give her food, vitamins, love… and see what happens.”
Choo and Wong threw themselves into caring for the fragile little dog – weekly chiropractic sessions, physiotherapy, vaccinations, medical check-ups.
“We had all these appointments booked,” Wong said. “Then we realised all of them were already paid for! Apparently Peanut had supporters out there.”
As a result, Peanut grew healthier by the day and also became a voracious eater. “She will rush and eat as fast as possible,” said Choo, who feeds Peanut and Blanc home-cooked meals.
“When she was a stray, that was her way of surviving. So we just let her be. We can’t change her. We’d just give her as much love as possible,” added Choo.
That’s also possibly how Peanut got very sick. Peanut had once lived behind a restaurant where kind workers fed stray dogs – until the rebellious pup escaped, following two older strays into the streets.
“She picked up all sorts of dirt and poison from drains,” said Wong.
Thankfully, with Choo and Wong’s dedication, Peanut got stronger and stronger every week. A few months later, she was huge, healthy, independent – and so happy.
“She’s very playful now! She does her zoomies almost every night! At the same time, she’s quite territorial. She’s taken all of Blanc’s toys and will not share it with anyone except to play,” said Wong. “And that’s how she greets us in the morning. She will bring her favourite toy over to us to play.”
And as if to say thank you, Peanut guards their home with her steely gaze. “If squirrels or cats sneak in, she chases them off. Never harms them – just keeps the peace,” said Wong.
Ultimately, it is Peanut’s zeal for life that Choo and Wong cherish most.
“She reminds us to stop complaining and just live our lives,” Wong reflected. “We always say, not enough time for movies, not enough time to exercise. But Peanut – she just wanted a second chance at life.”
This article was written by Dinesh Kumar Maganathan @ FMT Lifestyle.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR PET: FMT Lifestyle readers are invited to send in pictures (landscape format) and a short video (if any) of their furry, scaly or feathered friends to [email protected]. Don’t forget to include details like your pet’s name, age, breed and a short story about them.