We live in a flat

Donna by janicia.blogspot.com

June has been an interesting month. Just as I thought I had caught up with things in May, June was just one hectic mess all over again. Largely due to changes in how I was blogging and also in my real life, I have to say.

The result is, after four consistent months of blogging 5 days a week, I have decided change the schedule to 4 days a week. If you have been following this blog closely, you would have realised that the posts are getting more informative and more thoroughly researched than ever before. This means more hours spent per post. This cannot be sustainable on a 5 days posting schedule. No way. :P

But you know what, I like that I am creating value with some of these posts. Things I didn’t know about general anaesthesia in pet surgery, I only found out when I put in the time to do the research. And I’m glad that people who are like me, who care deeply about the well-being of their pets, appreciated the post.

So thank you very much for taking the time to visit and read, and I hope the blog doesn’t disappoint you.

I welcome any feedback and comments either below the post or via email at weliveinaflat@gmail.com :)

Now let’s take a look at what you liked in June.

Here’s a rundown of the top 10 posts in June that got the most views from you:

1. Twelve Nights – Adopt, Don’t Abandon – Singapore
2. Dental Scaling under General Anaesthesia! Oh no!  – Pet Diary
3. 9 Quirky Dogs Catching Things – Pet Photography
4. A Fun Photoshoot for Donna – Pet Diary
5. 10 Creative Doggy #Interactivegrams – Pet Photography
6. Does your dog leave human things alone? – Pet diary
7. This Goldie Mans a Restaurant in Ximending – Dogspotting travel series
8. Roundup of top posts in May – Blogging
9. These dogs own the street in Pingxi – Dogspotting travel series
10. This cat has OCD – Pet Diary

This is a blog about our adopted mongrel dog after all, so I can’t tell you how glad I am that interest in a documentary about dogs in a shelter – Twelve Nights – exceeds that of other posts in June.

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#1 post in June: Twelve nights – Adopt, Don’t Abandon

One of the reasons I started the blog in the first place was to document how well or badly Donna is adapting to life in a flat. There is Project Adore of course, a program that helps flat owners adopt mongrel dogs like Donna in Singapore. But you hardly hear about the program or of any of those dogs adopted. Sometimes we still meet people in the lift who are surprised to hear that you can now get approval from HDB to adopt a mongrel.

So if it helps to drive any potential HDB adopters to adoptadog.sg or any of the Project Adore shelters at all. Then good.

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Pet photography posts also did well

I’m also glad that the new series started in June is doing well in the Top 10. In particular, 9 Quirky Dogs Catching Things got quite a bit of shares over Facebook, which is awesome because that means all the great photos of different breeds of dogs by different Instagram photographers were being shared to a greater audience beyond Instagram! A number of shelter and adopted dogs were featured as well, showing that shelter dogs can make great pets too. And if it helps the one shelter dog featured in the post get adopted, how cool will that be?

Here’s the rundown of the series started in June:

Themes in Pet Photography (Weekly)

• 10 creative doggy #interactivegrams
• 7 ways to take a landscape photo with dog
• 9 quirky dogs catching things

Dogspotting in Taiwan (Weekly)

• This Goldie mans a restaurant in Ximending, Taipei
• This dog patrols Yeliou Geo-Park
• These dogs own the streets at Pingxi
• Documentary about Taiwan stray dogs: Twelve nights – in a high-kill shelter
• This dog models at Shilin Night Market
• This dog in Jiufen is the King of Purses
• This dog rides a scooter in Ximending

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Posts about the dog

Our shenanigans will continue to feature on the blog. The 1 day 1 world project ensures that Donna gets regular weekly air time as well. Because, well I like to look back at the times we had and Mr P gets to know what happens those times he wasn’t with us because he was travelling overseas for work or otherwise. And hopefully, you enjoy them too :P

1 day 1 World (Weekly)

• Donna at 12:00pm – Rain
• Donna at 01:00pm – Lounging
• Donna at 02:00pm – Nail cutting and chicken
• Human at 03:00pm – This dog patrols Yeliou Geo-Park
• Human at 04:00pm – Macarons for human, what about dog?
• Donna at 05:00pm – Donna visits My Waterway @ Ponggol
• Donna at 06:00pm – This cat has got OCD!
• Donna at 07:00pm – Donna on the rock
• Donna at 08:00pm – Moody dog
• Donna at 09:00pm – Dog lobbies for better food
• Donna at 10:00pm – Late night life of Dead rat and Street Cats
• Donna at 11:00pm – Late night life of Pet dog and Street Cats
• Donna at 12:00am – Sleepy dog
• Donna at 01:00am – Sleepy dog

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Pet-friendly establishments

Once a month, we review a local Pet Cafe. It’s not because we’re paid to do so, but it ensures despite our busy schedule, we still take Donna out to new places. :P You can see the list of Cafes and link to read the reviews from our Pet Cafes in Singapore page.

And because, we do do some online shopping, I’ve refreshed my list of online shops based in Singapore. I’ve ranked them by Alexa ranking simply because it was the easiest way for me to make any sense out of them. I was also interested to find out which of these start ups are registered business and which are just businesses on the web which may not be regulated by any authority. I think it’s important for us as consumers to be aware of these details when making a decision whether to buy from a particular store or not. You can see the list of ranked stores on the Singapore Pet Online Store Ranking page. If you run an online shop listed and would like the business registration information updated, please do contact me as well.

July plans

So that was all that was going on in June. July is going to be exciting because weliveinaflat is hatching a photo challenge sort of of activity with somewhitecookie and mangothesheltie on Instagram.

So stay tuned, especially if you are a local #dogsofinstagram in Singapore – watch out for it!

It’s been a while since the last Marvellous Monday posts. But Following Roy and Shefali have given me a push to do so :P

Thank you for the Shine On Award, dear friend. Sometimes, an award like this comes at the right time and is very encouraging. So I thank you for your kindness. :)

The rules in order to Shine On, lol, are as follows:

1. Visit and thank the blogger who nominated you. Done
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2. Acknowledge that blogger on your blog, and link back. Done
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3. Share seven random things about yourself Donna :P
   1. Donna is Inspector Grass because that’s her favourite thing to do.
   2. That said, she’d sooner hop in the car pronto, than sniff in the grass.   
   3. Donna playbowed a cat before, and got slapped by a cat before, on two separate occasions.
   4. At least, Donna gets along particularly well with puppies/young dogs of bigger breeds.
   5. Many have remarked on her agility and speed when playing with young dogs, but they never saw her grandmother speed when not in the dog run.
   6. Donna regularly picks out the blueberries in her food and spits them on the floor. Tsk, tsk.
   7. Donna went for dental scaling on Wednesday under general anaesthesia. Tell you more about it on wednesdayLifestyle
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4. Nominate up to 15 bloggers for the Shine On Award, provide a link to their blogs in your post, and notify them on their blogs. So, not in any order…
   1. Following Roy – has been pretty light-hearted and fun lately. Go wine and dine with Roy in the land down under. And remember to pet him, because he barks at those who don’t.
   2. Marking our territory – just got busier with ridgeback #2. Eko and new puppy Penny can never fail to be entertaining. I love their videos!
   3. RachelMankowitz – writes beautiful prose about her two dogs strangely named after insects – Cricket and Butterfly.
   4. 1stworlddog – has started a campaign to invade his humans’ bed. Go root for him or for the other side. :P
   5. My GBGV Life – Emma is a complicated sophisticated dog breed with a complicated name – Grand Basset Griffon Vendeén. Apparently she’s French, dines like one (so yummy) and she does nosework!
   6. Oh Melvin (and yo Jake) – the ups and downs of life with 9-years-old Melvin who is allergic to earth and 6-years-old Jake, with googly eyes, backlegs that don’t work so well but doesn’t prevent him from smelling Melvin’s butt. It’s a lot of work with special needs dogs, so I can’t help but admire Tracey very much.
   7. Backalleysoapbox – Two modelesque Newfoundlands from Canada. Seriously, they model very well for the photos, haha! ;)
   8. vanillapup – a Westie from Singapore who’s learning more about food and how to live a good life despite allergies
   9. samforestloolim – Amercian-born Chinese dog Sam Forest and senior dog Pecan Woods. They’re so cute.
   10. 2browndawgs – Actually, three Chesapeake Bay Retrievers that tell you all about their life as hunting dogs – running, swimming, training and competitions. I particularly love their health screening series.
   11. kylascott – is a senior Scottish terrier curmudgeon. She gives dogs all over the world online lessons on begging… sometimes… I find it rather fun to speak with her on the comments. Haha!
   12. No dog about it – there’s always nice pictures, funny videos to see or something interesting to read about dogs here. ;)
   13. kuujinbo – when I get too tired to read, I just scroll through these beautiful pictures of Hanzo the Shiba Inu.
   14. Do you believe in dog? – Ran by two canine scientists, this is one blog dog lovers should keep track of!
   15. Boogie’s blog – I see Lily Chin’s work very often, but did you know Lily Chin has a dog blog? She does not update as often, but her topics are interesting and relevant to reactive dogs. Thank you to my positive dog training blog for the link!

So, congratulations!

Please do not feel obliged to respond or pass on the award if you do not want to.
This is done in the spirit of fun and sharing your great blogs only.
If you are new to user-generated blog awards, you can read my short write up about them here.

I’ve shared many interesting/fun/friendly blogs previously, so I try to rotate. Some of these you may already know of, but out of 15, there’s surely some new ones you can check out! ;)

The space between pet dog and stray cat. Sepia tinted.

The month of May came and went. I was away for a week and finally felt I have caught up with things. And then I realised the recap for last month is late. :P

So anyway, a total of 23 posts were published in May.

Here’s a rundown of the top 10 posts in May that got the most views from you:

1. Nail Cutting and Chicken – Pet diary
2. Adoptable dogs in Singapore Ikea store – Singapore
3. Cafe for dogs: III Cafe, Singapore – Singapore
4. Top 10 Online Pet Shops in Singapore – Singapore
5. Pose, Stay, Say cheese – Pet diary
6. Donna finds shelter from Thunder Phobia – Pet diary
7. Dogs on Things in Pet Photography – Pet Photography
8. Snappy H’appy Photo Challenge Week 12 – Mix It Up – Pet Photography
9. Ian Dunbar – Dog-friendly training – Pet diary
10. Where goes tuesdayChallenge? – Pet Photography

Topics pertaining to Singapore do particularly well.

General topics to do with Donna and dogs show more variable views probably because it depends on how interesting the particular topics are to you the reader. In fact, Donna at 1:00pm got the most comments and was the second most liked post by WordPress users, but isn’t even in the top 10 list.

Photography topics may look less popular compared to the others, but longer term, people with specialised interests do find their way to these pages. So in all, I think there is still a good mix here.

As Snappy H’appy wrapped up, I also started to serialise more. I don’t think it was particularly planned, sometimes I just got an idea in my head and I just plunge into it.

Here are the series that started in May and are on-going:

Cafe reviews (Monthly)

• Cafe for dogs: III Cafe, Singapore 
  

Shopping (Monthly)

• Top 10 Online Pet Shops in Singapore

1 day 1 World (Weekly)

• Donna at 12:00pm – Rain
• Donna at 1:00pm – Lounging > Most comments; 2nd most liked
• Donna at 2:00pm – Nail cutting and chicken > most viewed; most liked
• Human at 3:00pm – This dog patrols Yeliou Geo-Park
• Human at 4:00pm – Macarons for human, what about dog?
• Donna at 5:00pm – Donna visits My Waterway @ Ponggol
• Donna at 6:00pm – This cat has got OCD!
• Donna at 7:00m – Donna on the rock

Considering the Singapore-specific articles are getting more views, this is definitely something I will continue.

The 1 day 1 world series also made me capture candid moments that I probably would have missed, if I wasn’t doing this project started by NWFrameofMind. And it ended up quite popular in terms of views and interaction with you.

So if you are considering a photo project like this, I’ll say “Go for it!” ;)

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Here are the series that started in June and are on-going:

Dogspotting in Taiwan (Weekly)

• This Goldie mans a restaurant in Ximending, Taipei
• This dog patrols Yeliou Geo-Park
• These dogs own the streets at Pingxi
• Documentary about Taiwan stray dogs: Twelve nights – in a high-kill shelter
• This dog models at Shilin Night Market

Themes in Pet Photography (Weekly)

• 10 creative doggy #interactivegrams
• 7 ways to take a landscape photo with dog
• 9 quirky dogs catching things

All these series will go on for some weeks yet.

I hope you enjoy them or find them fun, interesting or helpful in some way. Thanks! :)

Most liked dog photo on our Instagram account in the month of May, 2014.

I am away for a week and will back next week with my long grandmother stories :P
I hope you have a great week!

Our blog turns One tomorrow. So I thought it’s appropriate to take a look back at some of the posts I wrote across the last 12 months. If you are not familiar to this blog, the posts also give you a sense of what is available here. ; )

First reader comment

What a fun looking little girl! She isn’t a ‘mongrel’ by the way, she’s a Perfection Hound – a little bit of the best of a lot of things :) – runamuckranch

Mar 2013 | Likes (16) We spent too much time waiting for the future – photo post
Apr 2013 | Likes (1) Nothing in life is free – I thought this was rather funny though. :P 
May 2013 | Likes (31) In which the dog amuses herself – I thought this was funny too :P 
Jun 2013 | Comments (32) Share the lift with my dog please? – apartment living 
Jul 2013 | Comments (54) Will you play with me – video
Aug 2013 | Comments (32) Think she’s being good? – behaviour
Sep 2013 | Comments (35) Introducing the Thundershirt or any shirt to our dog – behaviour
Oct 2013 | Comments (42) Donna is off the best friend list, said Hippo – photo
Nov 2013 | Comments (30) Donna takes her own sweet time – video
Dec 2013 | Comments(14) Christmas week, a year ago and today – fiction
Jan 2014 | Comments (13) Apartment Dog Killer Danger – Dog Hanged by Lift – safety
Feb 2014 | Comments (48) Talk to the paw, human! – photo

Thank you for looking, all the likes and comments! :)

Check out the other pet photos in the following hops!