October has become a busy month for pets, what with the World Animal Day activities and Halloween. This is especially true for pet parents like us. The calendar is filled with pet parades, pet blessings, concerts for animal welfare, pet fair, pet expo, dog runs, and pet trick or treating. You name it.
For the past two years, the pet event business has really boomed -- just right after we closed MyPetChannel. How ironic, right? But I've learned well enough that it was part of God's beautiful plan. If it weren't for that little company of mine shutting down then my husband and I would not have heeded God's call to move to Davao.
Albert Einstein
One of the things that we miss about Manila though are the plethora of PAWS events that Gringa and Rajah could join. Of course, I'm particularly biased. I have been a PAWS volunteer for a long time, and it was my passion for pet welfare that inspired me to start an advocacy through MyPetChannel.
The major event that we covered in 2009 was the World Animal Day. Check out that webisode below.
I really hope that Davao City will soon become more conscious about animal welfare. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of work to be done here.
Just recently I had a discussion with a colleague of mine in the faculty room about animal rights. She said something like, "Animal rights. Hindi ba pwede human rights muna?"
While she said was true, I also quoted what Mahatma Gandhi said: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”.
To which she retorted, "Naisip ba nya yun nung nandun siya sa kulungan. Mas mabuti pa pala yung hayop sa kanya."
To which I refuted, "Oh but remember, it wasn't the animals who put him in jail..."
We almost had two chocolate labradors! Can you imagine that? At the height of the Ondoy aftermath in September 2009, a veterinary colleague of Joseph called us up to ask if we were willing to adopt two choco lab puppies who got misplaced during the typhoon. The owner was offering the dogs up for adoption because their home was devasted by Ondoy.
At that time, we were renting out our 1-bedroom condo unit in Mandaluyong, and were living in a much bigger loft type apartment in Cubao. Unfortunately, it was still too small for TWO LABRADOR RETRIEVERS! So we had to refuse the offer eventhough my nephew and I were looking forward to taking care of the puppies.
God indeed had another puppy in mind for us.
We found Gringa in Bohol several months later when we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary with Joseph's parents in Tagbilaran. We had just concluded TailrunnersMetro Dog Run2010 at that time. It was the most grueling event that my husband and I have organized together under our small web-based company MyPetChannel. It was a successful dog run, being the "first of its kind" back then. 300 dogs and 500 humans were registered that day. It was the longest day of my life! I literally had no sleep for 48 hours. It was fun. But it was also stressful.
So as a treat, and as a break from all the doggie business, Joseph and I retreated to his parents' house in Bohol -- which ironically houses about a dozen pooches! I already mentioned in an earlier post that my mother-in-law was virtually a cat lady who has dogs instead.
Alin.. alin... alin ang naiba!
There was a pack in the house, and among the new set of litter, there was one brown furball that just grabbed my heart!
My mom-in-law called her Cinder because she was the only brown puppy among the white ones, making her look "madungis" but the moment I saw her -- I saw my old dog's face. And just right then and there I uttered "Oh my little Gringa!"
Gringo was my childhood dog who died in 1994 right before I left for college. And this Gringa looked exactly like him. Parang lukso ng dugo, kumbaga!
Gringa with her foster dad
What even made her adorable was her quirky personality. When we met her, she wasn't even playing with the other puppies. Her best friend was this old male tabby cat that has been in the Palarca household for as long Joseph can remember. In fact, Gringa spent more time with this other specie more than she ever did with her mother. Hmm... doesn't that sound familiar? (I guess she really was meant for me, LOL!)
At that time, the idea of having a dog was more farfetched than it ever did before because we just moved back into our smaller Mandaluyong condominium unit. This was right after Kean, my nephew, joined his mother in the US.
You're probably made of stone if your heart doesn't melt to those adorable puppy dog eyes :-)
But before Joseph could give me the cons of adopting a puppy at a time when our married life is hitting a few bumps here and there, Gringa had us at "woof"!
Hi there! We're Jill and Joseph Palarca. We got married last April 19, 2008. It was a simple but beautiful garden wedding in Quezon City. Something that I have always dreamed of ever since I saw the film "Chances Are" starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Mary Stuart Masterson. And the movie's theme song "After All" fit our love story to a tee so we decided to use it as my bridal march tune.
My husband is a licensed veterinarian while I am a Comm Arts and Literature teacher in a university here in Davao City. I used to have a successful career in Media and Advertising but more on that on my future posts. How did we get from QC to DC? Again, that's another post reserved for the coming days. :-)
For now, let me just give you all a little background on how we became pet parents or paw-rents, if you may.
Having children didn't really occur to us right away because when we got married we were actually standing in as foster parents to my nephew who was only about 5 years old at that time. He was already under my care since he was 3, and Joseph, who was still my fiance back then already held the reins with me.
With Kean, our nephew, back in 2006
So we sort of had an instant family when we got married. And it was all good. My husband though he is a veterinarian and a big dog lover wasn't around pets as much as he would have wanted that time because he was still working in sales. He was a Sales Supervisor for a company that sold diagnostic test kits for animal clinics. A private practice was far from his mind during that time.
In the absence of a "pet" we came up with a pet project instead. Since I was already a volunteer for PAWS (Philippine Animal Welfare Society) and I was into video production, advertising, and marketing, we thought of the idea of putting up an online TVzine about the pet lifestyle in the Philippines. So in September 2009, we gave birth to MyPetChannel.tv.
We produced a lot of webisodes and events under that fledgling company. My husband and I started to work from home to run it. Unfortunately, the idea of a TVzine was kind of novel in 2009 and so we had a bit of difficulty selling the platform to advertisers. So despite being prolific, the company/website had to fold in 2010.
That was a painful year for us because not only did our "pet project" die, we also had to say goodbye to our "eldest son" -- my nephew -- who finally got his immigrant visa to join his mother (my sister) in New York City.
Gringa at 2 months old
With both our careers at a standpoint, our hearts hurting, and our marriage hitting some really big bumps on the road, only one thing made us smile -- our new puppy!
Gringa Girl was indeed a blessing in our married life. She's our first FurKid and she has changed our lives since then. This blog was finally created so that we can tell you our story starting from the day we became Pet Paw-rents!
So in the next posts, journey with us back in time as we do some flashbacks from 2010 until we reach present time. This blog will also be my husband's pet care domain. So aside from following our adventures you will also learn a lot of animal health tips from Doc Joseph himself. Hope you're excited because we are!
