Duke’s story
The brown dog featured in this commercial is Duke, owned by Richard Gardner and Chae Lian of theatre production company Gardner & Wife. Duke’s story is a heart-rending, yet ultimately uplifting one.
Five years ago, Richard was out walking near his house when he came upon a stray dog. It had an iron chain tightly wrapped around its neck, and the end of the chain had caught on a bush. The chain had cut into the dog’s neck so badly that it was infested with maggots. The dog was horribly starved and looked like it had been beaten. Clearly, it had escaped an abusive owner.
The dog was terrified of humans and would attempt to flee at anyone’s approach, causing the chain to cut even further into its neck. By offering food and water, Richard finally managed to release him from the chain. It promptly ran away, and it seemed likely that it would just find itself a quiet place to die.
Not long after, this dog appeared outside Richard’s gate — having somehow tracked down where Richard lives. It was still afraid of people, but with his neighbours’ help, Richard continued to feed it.
Slowly, the couple got close enough to apply antiseptic to the wounds on its neck, and it began to regain its health. It took to guarding Richard’s car.
Finally, Richard and Chae decided to adopt the dog, and named him Duke. The vet put him at around five years old. Richard took Duke to a dog training centre. It wasn’t easy training him, but he slowly learned. In fact, since 2005, Duke has been winning obedience trials at dog shows, and is currently the highest-ranked non-breed obedience champ — proving that you can actually teach an old dog new tricks.
And now, Duke is the star of this video commercial (view at
http://www.youtube.com/user/DukeTheStory) in support of SPCA Selangor.
The other dog in this ad is Winter, another adopted stray. It was Chae who found her in the middle of the road near their house, and took her in as well.
Duke and Winter now live together happily with Richard and Chae.
The commercial was produced by SPCA Selangor to build awareness of the need to spay and neuter pets.
Be part of the solution
Thousands of stray animals and unwanted litters face euthanasia or are suffering on the streets. Starting with two cats, you can end up with as many as 20,000 kittens and cats in a matter of seven years.
“Spaying or neutering is the most humane, effective, sustainable way to reduce the millions of unwanted companion animals, borne out of owners’ procrastination, negligence, ignorance and unwillingness to pay for the operation” says SPCA Selangor chairperson, Christine Chin.
SPCA Selangor has been on a gruelling journey towards achieving their Non-Kill Movement and Stray-Free Malaysia 2010 goals.
The Non-Kill Movement aims to reduce to zero the unwanted killing of healthy pets that do not have a home and the Stray-Free Malaysia drive is to educate pet owners to spay or neuter their pets to help control the number of strays.
In the advertisement, Duke is shown rushing to the store to buy a pack of condoms and then rushes back to his “girlfriend” Winter. The commercial was produced pro bono by the Grey Group KL advertising company.
Source: The Star
Richard and Duke
