(Written by Zhaoxian, a teenager in Beijing)

          My mother and I went to my aunt's home last weekend.  She's my mother's older sister and there are three other members in her family: my uncle, my cousin, and their dog named Dick.  He's a lovely spaniel with a shining coat of yellow fur.  A small dog, he has a pair of beautiful eyes - black and very shiny.

          He uses his eyes to get what he wants.  When I'm eating, he's always hungry, too, so he pleads with me lovingly through those eyes.  If he finds that I'm not paying attention to him, he'll try to engage me with a yip, and if I turn my head toward him, he'll come toward me happily.

          After smelling my shoes and trying to lick my feet, he'll put his front paws in my lap and sway his tail enthusiastically.  He looks at me with his mouth open and his red tongue hanging out.  Somehow he knows that I won't be able to refuse his request if he stares right in my eyes without blinking, and he always wins.  "Here you are, puppy", I say softly, having no choice.

          Dick is a wonderful dog, but his memory isn't very good.  He often makes the same mistakes no matter how often we try to teach him.  "Don't bark at night", we say, "You shouldn't urinate on the floor", and "You should be quiet when we're eating."  Those are some of the rules.  We've been teaching him for months, and the only one he's learned is the one about urinating.

          While we were talking in the living room during the visit, Dick wandered into the bedroom and came out with a CD in his mouth.  My mom saw him and shouted that he was eating a CD, and my uncle and cousin ran to get it from him.  Dick saw them coming and quickly hid himself in his favorite hiding place under the bed.

          When my uncle stooped to get him, he went out the other side, but my cousin was there and grabbed his hind legs.  He continued to hold the CD firmly in his mouth until my uncle wrestled it away from him saying, "I've told you many, many times:  you're not to eat a CD!"

          Dick stared at us blankly - as if nothing had happened - and then shook his body to rearrange his fur.

          With the excitement over, we all came out of the bedroom and my uncle cleaned the CD and put it on a bureau so that it would be out of reach. 

          That evening during dinner we all heard Dick yelping in the bedroom and everything stopped as we looked in that direction.  A few seconds later, Dick emerged slowly.  He was holding the CD in his mouth excitedly, his tail wagging frenziedly while he swung his small rump happily.

          What could we do, but remove it once again.  No one thought of punishing him as he was so happy.

          Maybe he's the smart one in the family.

          He's certainly a wonderful dog.