Mr. and Mrs. Singh are second generation Canadians and co-own a prosperous farming business with their extended family. As their business is family run, all of the adolescents are expected to help on weekends and holidays, but recently the Singh’s youngest son has been refusing to work.
They are very embarrassed by his behaviour and angry that he is being so difficult. Mr. and Mrs. Singh think they have given their son the easiest job, which is to feed and care for the work dogs, a job with reasonable hours and fair pay. But when they push their son to help, he screams and hits at them, often running away for hours at a time. They have never seen such behaviour before, and when they ask R.J. why he acts this way he just shrugs and mumbles. Mrs. Singh’s sister-in-law thinks he may be afraid of dogs since she observed R.J. avoiding dogs at a family party a few weeks ago, and reminds her that R.J’s grandmother is also afraid of dogs.