His mother was a stray dog living in the shade of an abandoned house. One day she gave birth to four poppies. Boki and his sister E-e both have the same beautiful coat, both very cute. We took E-e home.

Two weeks later, I was wondering about the other poppies, so I went to see them. The other two were adopted, only Boki was still there. I called him over, to my surprise his hind legs were broken, he almost crowed over to me.

Only two weeks! What happened! I was very disturbed. I held him up to have a good look at him. He was very skinning, inside of his hind legs were wounds from being run-over by a car. Around his anus, dried feces hung dangling. I thought about fat little E-e at home, and the unfortunate Boki. It is the difference between Heaven and Hell.

I looked at Boki silently; he wiggled his tail as hard as he could, as if he knew me, looked at me with great expectations. Guilt flooded to my heart. If we have taken him home, he would not be like this. He looked like he won't survive much longer on the street, I didn't even know whether or not he could still be saved. But I took him home, at least he is not going to die on the street.

In the first few days, Boki was still very weak. But he always barked happily when we approached him. I can understand clearly and sorrowfully the message he was trying to convey. The happiness of being love and being away from harm.

Fortunately, Boki survived. It took him two months to recover from extreme malnutrition. But his hind leg's ligaments did not heal. Two months ago, an operation was done on his legs. He is much better now, able to chase cats, even though he runs funny.

If Boki knows that many people on this website are complementing on how handsome he looks, he would laugh in his sleep. I often wonder; if we have chosen Boki the first time, he would probably be a very handsome dog indeed. But fate played an unfortunate joke on him.

- translated by Daniel on 6/30/1999