Banished!

5. Animals

FIVE ~ Animals 1 Young Tao had several dogs during his time at Sanyu. The first was Patch. Patch's mother was Ui Suying's black and white dog. Young Tao had met the dog on their first day in Sanyu, when he fed her a bit of meat. So they were already acquainted when, the next spring, the bitch had a litter of puppies, and young Tao brought one home. Like his mother, Patch loved meat; unlike her, if he wanted some, he could get it. His mother had probably eaten only one bit of meat in her life, and that was the bit young Tao had given her. She had not had any since then, but her son could eat meat to his heart's content. When they moved into the new house and Patch did not want to come, young Tao tempted him over with a dish of stewed pork. Of course the Taos did not cook meat especially for Patch. He ate just the same as everyone else in the family. Since the Taos had a varied diet, so did Patch: every day he got plenty of good, fatty meat, and he acquired a taste for everything else they ate too. He got some of the chicken feed that Su Qun cooked up from husks and rice. And he ate poop and drank pee when he got the chance. After all, he was still a dog. When he was a puppy, he would squeeze in through the dog hole every morning, stick his head into the spittoon at the bottom of the bed, and lap up the contents. He frequently got beaten for this bad habit and gradually stopped when the family was around. But behind his masters' backs, who knew what he did? Patch regarded mice and small birds as tasty morsels and would often catch and eat them. Young Tao had also seen him eat grass 77 and even lumps of earth. With such a good appetite, Patch grew fast and was bigger than his mother, Ui Suying's bitch, in less than a year. In fact, he was the biggest and fattest dog in the whole of the Sanyu Number 1 Production Team. Outside the production team, the only dogs bigger than Patch were the militia commander's brown dog and the two at the Xiaodunkou shop. Everyone knew the commander's dog, especially since the business with young Li. The other two were communally owned and kept specially to guard the store; they were different because they were real mastiffs, and they got their own grain ration. Young Tao dreamed of the day when Patch would be a bit bigger and he could take him to meet them. It was Patch's thick and shiny coat, however, that really made him stand out. The black hair shone lustrous, like human hair, while from a distance the white was like silver. Underneath this shiny coat, his flesh rippled enticingly The villagers were consumed with envy at first when they saw the Taos feeding meat to their dog. Then they relaxed. They actually hoped that the Taos would fatten him up even more, into delicious dog meat. Patch was converting the Taos' meals into food that they could eat. They had already found out that the Taos did not eat dog meat, especially not Patch's meat (they quite understood this). But dogs were there to be eaten. If he were not, it would be a waste of a nice, fat dog. The villagers speculated that Patch's pelt would make a lovely warm mat, big enough for a whole bed. You wouldn't need a brazier in midwinter if you had one of those. Turned into a fur-lined jacket, he would be so hot that you would get prickly heat, and as fur-lined trousers, he would be a sure cure for rheumatic joints. You could also sell his dick and his balls to the commune for thirty cents. It was a pity they were sold per piece. Priced by weight, they would have made a lot more money These comments sometimes reached the Taos' ears. The family became extra vigilant when they heard all this. Tao forbade them to feed Patch meat, but even without meat, there was still a lot of fat in their food, and it was clear Patch was not going to lose weight in a hurry Luckily he was a dog who was keen to get on in...