Never Grow Up by Jackie Chan

Author:Jackie Chan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

chapter nineteen

WILD THINGS

Some fans might remember that, when I walked the red carpet at the 2016 Academy Awards, I carried two stuffed pandas with me. They were custom-made and I call them both Lazy. I take them around the world to be photographed with celebrities and landmarks to raise awareness for endangered Chinese pandas on behalf of UNICEF.

I’ve always been an animal person and have had many pets in my life. Some ordinary, like cats and dogs, and some exotic pets, too. I once bought a lion cub from a friend for $10,000. I thought it was adorable and unusual, and happily brought it to the office. I fed it milk and took care of it. One day, I was cradling it and playfully pinching its cheeks, and it batted me with its little paw, probably just to say, “Stop fooling around.” Its claws just grazed my face, but one whole side of my jaw was suddenly covered in blood.

Just a tiny thing, no bigger than a small dog, could do major damage. When it was fully grown at three years old, would it kill me? I phoned the guy who’d sold me the cub and said, “Take it back. I’m scared.” So he came over and collected the lion, but I never got my $10,000 back.

Another friend gave me a hawk that I let fly around the studio. It would land on my shoulder and perch until I shook it off. I kept a sloth for a while. It had enormous, adorable eyes. Jaycee loved it!

We had two huge Saint Bernards. I’d get up early in the morning and make them six eggs, mixed with a large carton of milk. They’d wait patiently for their breakfast, and when I put the food down, it would disappear in a single gulp. Those dogs cost me $3,000 a month on food. They weighed three hundred pounds combined. I was quite skinny when I had them and I couldn’t walk them alone. I needed my assistant to help. If I was holding both leashes when one of them stopped to pee, I handed the other leash to the assistant and he slipped it around his wrist. Then I heard someone screaming. It was him, clinging to a telephone pole as the dog strained to run. He couldn’t pull the dog back, and he didn’t dare to let go of the pole or he’d get dragged along the ground. I almost died laughing.

These days, I have three dogs and two cats at home, and another five cats at the office.

The two dogs are golden retrievers. They’re brothers, JJ and Jones. Once, JJ ran away when someone left the gate open. We searched high and low for two weeks, but there was no sign of him. My friend suggested we check Hong Kong’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, an organization that cares for stray and abandoned animals, puts them up for adoption, and, if no home can be found, humanely destroys them.

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