I Thought I Was Getting a Dog. Turns Out, the Dog Got Me.

Three years ago, I signed up for something more binding than my HDB loan. Unlike the loan, nobody sat me down first to explain the terms and conditions. If they had, I might actually have read them — unlike literally every other legal document in my life.

I got a dog because, like most of us, I saw one lying happily in the shade of a void deck and thought: that looks like the retirement I want. Turns out he's the one who's retired. I'm the one doing overtime.

The time you didn't know you had

We live in a city that's turned time-saving into a competitive sport. We can queue nearly forty minutes for bubble tea and food, then complain the queue's too long. If there's a way to save three minutes anywhere, some auntie has already found it and started a Telegram channel about it.

Then I got a dog, who has never once cared that I have a 9am call.

He doesn't care the train broke down and I'm already late. He just wants me on the floor, throwing a slightly soggy tennis ball, on repeat, until my arm gives up before he does. And here's the annoying part — it's not really about the ball. That ball is basically the only thing he owns. He keeps bringing it back to me not because he wants to play fetch, but because he wants me to have it. Somewhere between throw twelve and throw thirty, you realise he's not asking for your time. He's giving you his.

The money you pretend you're saving

As Singaporeans, we "love" complaining things are atas and overpriced, yet still queue for the $10 chicken rice because "quality what." So naturally I told myself dog food couldn't be that bad — buy the big bulk bag, confirm can last 6 months. The bulk bag did last 6 months. By week five, though, the kibble had gone slightly soft, and my dog was giving me a look that said, unmistakably, uncle, you expect me to eat this ah?

Home-cooked is meant to be cheaper and healthier, except now you're googling "how much taurine does a dog need" at 11pm like it's a chemistry paper. Add vet visits, Grab rides to said vet (drivers love a dog in the back seat, free entertainment for them), the occasional medical bill, and the odd fantasy of strolling Tokyo with your well-dressed fur kid before you remember the word "quarantine" — and you've quietly acquired a second phone bill, except this one is three to four digits and barks.

The spontaneity you said you'd never give up

In an HDB flat, you're legally allowed one dog, and it needs to be an approved breed — unless it's a Singapore Special adopted under Project ADORE, basically the subsidised BTO of the dog world. So step one: recalibrate your dreams of owning a pack of five.

Step two: say goodbye to the 6:47pm "dinner jio?" text in the group chat helpfully named something like MAKAN KAKIS 🐷. I used to reply "can!" in four seconds flat. These days I first have to check: did I feed him, is someone home, will he stage a protest on the good cushion if I vanish for two hours. Historically, the answer to that last one has been yes. Same goes for staycations — nothing kills a spontaneous Sentosa weekend faster than needing to arrange "childcare" for a creature who can't check himself into a hotel.

The guilt nobody warns you about

Here's some dog math for you. Leave him alone for a standard 12-hour workday — hello, hustle culture — and using the old seven-dog-years ratio, that's 84 hours to him. Three and a half days. Imagine waiting three and a half days just to smell someone again.

So he waits. And when I finally get home, he loses his entire mind, spinning and throwing his whole body at my legs like I've returned from reservist, not from a Zoom call about Q3 numbers. I stand there in my work lanyard, hit with a very specific kind of guilt no MRT announcement has ever prepared me for.

Leave him alone too often and the neighbour starts leaving notes about "the barking," which, translated, means he was having a small breakdown from missing me and now it's practically a Town Council matter. And on the other end of it, when he's older, when getting up takes longer, when he stops finishing his bowl — the grief catches you off guard, because nobody warns you something this small can break your heart on a fully adult scale.

Your body (and your vacuum cleaner's will to live)

Nobody mentions that a senior dog can mean 3am IV fluids, or that puppies run on a schedule best described as every two hours, forever. High-energy dogs need real walks and real workouts, not the kind where you and the dog make eye contact at the ten-minute mark under our particular flavour of afternoon heat and silently agree — okay lah, enough.

Then there's what he brings home. Grass. Mud. A paw print dead centre on the sofa cushion you just wiped. My robot vacuum, previously a reliable and uncomplaining employee, now makes a small mechanical noise of despair every time it meets whatever's drying near the shoe rack.

So, was it worth it?

Here's what actually stayed with me, long after the sofa stains and the group chat that quietly stopped inviting me to supper.

We're a country that prides itself on optimising everything — the fastest route, the shortest queue, the best-value option. We've even found ways to make love efficient: the fifteen-minute weekend call to our parents, the calendar reminder for anniversaries, the guilt occasionally topped up with a nice dinner booking.

Then a dog comes along who doesn't want a more efficient version of you. He just wants you — unhurried, on the floor, holding a soggy ball he's decided you deserve for free.

And somehow that's the one bill we hesitate to pay.