2023 - the year I became a 'dog person'

As the year draws to a close, find myself reflecting on the relationships that have changed me in a significant way. One was my relationship with a dog.

- Chua Mui Hoong

I was at the massage therapist's, chatting casually the way women do when they are bonding over beauty rituals, when she asked: So, are you a cat or dog person? I paused. A year ago, I would have said more of a cat person.

I had grown up in Housing Board flats with no pets. The only animals around in my childhood were cats, at the hawker centre where my parents had a stall.

They would have kittens that meowed piteously and I learnt how to approach them gently so they would let me pat them.

Dogs were strangers in my life, wild strays that spread rabies with their bite, so I was told. I avoided them.

The first dog I patted was my friend's dog Muffin, a sweet natured, quiet shih tzu, who let unfamiliar people pat her. I used to visit often, and over time, learnt to pat and play with her.

She would paw at my legs and try to scramble up them and I learnt to wear jeans or long trousers, to avoid marks on the legs. When she died in 2021, at 1512 years, many who knew her mourned.

Then I moved to live in Australia with my partner, in a house with a dog and five chickens (and dozens of fish and thousands of plants).

When I first met her, Missy came up to me and wagged her tail. I now know this was unusual, because she tends to bark ferociously at unfamiliar humans.

Adopted from a shelter as a puppy, she is a blue heeler, an Australian cattle dog bred in the 19th century to help with ranch life and to herd cattle.

An energetic dog, she is sustained by robust home-cooked meals of sweet potato, rice and minced beef, with a fresh bone to gnaw at daily. She displayed the qualities of her breed - stoic, loyal and protective of family.

I built up a relationship with her gradually. I overcame my fear of fierce-looking dogs and started to give her treats by hand, learning to hold out my palm with fingers flat, to prevent her teeth from accidentally nipping them.