By Jay Scott Kanes

WITH renewed urgency, Trish assailed the door. She wanted it open. Flailing at the wooden barrier failed to budge it, so she tried to gnaw at the steel handle. Rats! No progress.

“Hey, stop that.” The startling words came from the staircase behind her.

Whirling toward Jerry, her boss 24/7, Trish whimpered apologetically.

“Relax, dog,” Jerry told his pet. “I’ll take you outside. Give me a moment to pull on my sandals.”

Excited, Trish pranced across the room, her tail thumping a TV stand, table legs and bookshelves. Her claws clacked on the floor tiles.

With his footwear in place, Jerry reached for the leash from its wall-peg by the exit. Trish stood at attention as he latched the leash to her collar.

The disparate pair stepped outside into morning activities along the pathways of Yung Shue Wan, a village on Lamma Island in Hong Kong.

A stubby gweilo (westerner), Jerry wore typical Lamma attire, a T-shirt and knee-length shorts. Unruly black hair gave him a mad-scientist aura, partly contradicted by his beer belly and ruby nose. To finance life’s necessities -- beer, rent and dog food – he taught English at a tutorial centre in Kowloon.

Lanky with brown fur and a dark snout, Trish stood thigh-high beside her human. Tugging at the leash, she forged ahead, motivated by her priority – to urinate beside a rubbish bin. With that done, she led the way onto a busier route rich in village sights and sounds.

Three children little taller than Trish peered through a window at Emily’s Ice-Cream Parlor, a taste-treat emporium due to open any minute. A shirtless gent toted a slab of cheese, half-concealed in his chest hair, from the Lamma Gourmet store. Next door, diners dug into bacon and beans at the Banyan Bay Café.

A red cat lurked on a wall outside Diesel’s Bar. A giant dog toted his own leash, one end on his collar, the other clenched between massive teeth, past Express Engineering.

Trish licked her lips at the sight of a food-stall vendor chowing down on fish balls. Jerry wondered where best to buy freshly brewed coffee.

Together, they sidestepped a stern matron thrusting a bulky umbrella at the beaming sun, presumably to ward off skin cancer. Nearby a merchant sorted unsold fish into tidy piles on Styrofoam boxes.

A grocer adjusted vegetable stands to keep his produce above the range of passing mutts likely to lift their legs at handy targets. At the New Holday Mood Restaurant, the smiling proprietor stopped calling out to prospective customers and waved at Jerry.

Trish leaped sideways, nearly tripping her master, to avoid an elderly woman pushing raw chicken on a large trolley.

Thud! Thump! Yelp! Unusual noises reached Jerry’s ears.

Trish flinched.

Near the Village Bakery, a brute of a man, one tattooed arm swinging, red hair waving, jewellery in his nose, bashed a rolled-up newspaper against a white dog’s snout.

“Don’t do that again,” the assailant yelled. “No more.” Thud! Whomp! He inflicted more punishment for a mysterious canine infraction.

Yowling, the dog tried to retreat, but the news mangler gripped her collar. Whap! A final blow landed between the dog’s eyes.

Leaving behind the unsavory sight, Jerry resumed mulling an infusion of caffeine. Trish interrupted his thoughts with rapid tongue strokes, licking his hand, the one holding her leash.

Jerry halted, looking down. Trish stopped, peering up. The man and dog understood each other.

"You’re welcome, Trish,” Jerry murmured. He kneeled and caressed a special spot behind his pet’s ears.

The dog sat. Her tail rapped the walkway.

“You’re right too. I’d never beat you like that.”

This time Trish licked Jerry’s face.

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