Primary-school teacher Phil Stride, from Hong Kong’s Lamma Island, easily pinpoints one of the most important lessons he ever learned, and it seldom appears in textbooks.

Three decades ago while growing up in Bristol, England, Phil realized that if he cared and showed compassion for animals, then dogs, cats and perhaps other pets would respond multiple-fold, giving him enormous joys and deep satisfactions that many people miss.

Intent on sharing this message with modern youngsters, Phil recruited co-author Jackie Leung and cartoonist Peter John Bolt to create a bilingual book, The Crazy Adventures of Patch and Sam (English and Chinese, 2007, Sustainable Solutions, Hong Kong, 60 pages), which entertains while teaching about animal-welfare issues.

“Unfortunately, I witnessed many examples of animal cruelty and neglect going back to my early childhood,” Phil said. “My decision to spend a lot of time, effort and money to help on behalf of animals came from what I saw.

“We wrote the book for the Animals Asia Foundation (AAF). It’s designed for students to increase their knowledge of responsible pet ownership,” said Phil, who also likes to promote waste-recycling at urban housing estates. In 1999, he published GASP, A Guide to a Greener, Cleaner Hong Kong, a book about environmental issues.

“In Hong Kong, many parents can’t teach their children how to treat animals properly because they never learned themselves,” Phil said. “The school curriculum has nothing about animal welfare either.

“So children lack empathy. If they want puppies, they usually get them. Six months later, the puppies are big and get discarded. That’s why 20,000 dogs a year are destroyed in Hong Kong. Too many people regard pets as products, like toys, things without feelings or pain. The result is a lot of suffering.

“When I see my neighbors keep a golden retreiver in a cage that I wouldn’t put a budgie in, my heart sinks,” Phil said. “Once I did some one-on-one teaching at an apartment where a husky lived. If the dog was lucky, the people took him outside once a day. When he peed on the carpet, they beat him with a stick.”

In the AAF’s Professor Paws programme, dog-owners take their pets to visit primary schools to show the merits of companion animals and to promote compassion for living creatures. Many of the students then greet or touch canines for the first time.

“Education works best if it’s fun,” Phil said. Therefore, The Crazy Adventures of Patch and Sam is an activity book with sections devoted to questions and a card game. The tear-out cards carry messages, like: “A nice bone will clean your dog’s teeth,” and “Walking a dog keeps us fit and healthy.”

The book’s theme also emerges from cartoons and a story that begins with three puppies jammed inside a suitcase and tossed into a clump of trees. That’s much like how Phil’s own five-year-old dogs, the real Patch and Sam, started their lives.

A former artist and businessman, Phil, age 38, arrived in Hong Kong 14 years ago. He conducted financial-industry training courses, started an environmental company and then became a schoolteacher.

After helping to establish Lamma Animal Protection (LAP), a charity that seeks homes for needy dogs and cats, Phil provided a foster home to “many cats”. In 2001, he sheltered Dot, Not and Pause, three kittens rescued from a rubbish bin. When adopted by another Lamma author, Jay Scott Kanes, that trio inspired a pro-animal novel, Dog-Gone Cat Case.

“The joys of sharing your life and home with a pet or two, even three, can be nearly limitless,” said Kanes, who grew up in Canada and learned a childhood lesson there similar to Phil’s in England.

When Phil adopted his dogs, he named one Sam after the luggage brand Samsonite to reflect how they emerged from a suitcase when found by LAP’s founder Sheila McClelland. “The poor things were a mess, just scrawny scraps of love,” said Sheila. “Now they’re wonderful dogs.”

Phil’s book will provide the content for a future Website: www.crazyadventures.com.hk, geared toward teachers and students. Then what he learned back in Bristol can continue to circle the globe.


Closing Note: The Crazy Adventures of Patch and Sam made a favorable impression at the Animals Asia Foundation, so the AAF has hired Phil to spearhead its educational programmes. He starts the new job soon.

ARCHIVES

Patch, Phil and Sam pose for a family photo.





When rescued, puppy Patch looks frightful.
(Lamma Animal Protection photo)


Young Sam needs cleaning and healthy meals too.
(Lamma Animal Protection photo)


Sam and Patch, the Crazy Adventures
heroes, soon begin to prosper.
(Lamma Animal Protection photo)


Now five years old, Patch proves photogenic.


Sam has a case to dislike luggage.


This way, buddy: Patch and Sam lead Phil on a walk.