Ding-Dong! Trick or Treat!

Trick
So this is the human’s minimal effort at dressing up Donna for Halloween. I’ve been walking her with that silly bow on her head for the whole week and she’s quite used to it now ;) Of course, the first day was really fun for the human who kept laughing at how silly Donna looks with a bow on her head while sniffing, peeing and pooping. But Donna got used to it after a while and so did the human. So it stopped being so funny. Haha.

Weather

This month, Singapore experienced several “Sumatra” squalls in the predawn hours. Several episodes of heavy thundery showers coupled with flash flooding also took place during the month. – See more at: http://app2.nea.gov.sg/weather-climate/forecasts/fortnightly-outlook#sthash.nP4ewRMW.dpuf

Donna started wearing her new DAP (dog appeasing pheromone) collar slightly more than a week ago.

Unlike the ThunderShirt, I have not observed a clear, tangible effect from the DAP collar on her when it rains. To be fair, we did experience daily episodes of thunder, some were really loud cracks that probably would have negated the effect of the ThunderShirt or any other tactics that we have tried anyway.

22 hours ago – Huge thunderstorm today while the humans were out. Donna went crazy and toppled the shoe rack and all the shoes on it, swept the other stuff off the shoe bench and left poop right at the front door which smeared across the floor when the human had to open the door D: Donna will be a better dog next time and use the new pee tray for poop, or so the human hope/pray. – on Instagram

Looking forward to continued stormy weather in the next fortnight (November 1-15),

• thundery showers are expected on 7 to 8 days mainly in the afternoon. In addition, widespread showers with occasional gusty winds are likely in the predawn hours and morning on 1 to 2 days.
• Rainfall for the first fortnight of November 2013 is likely to be above average.

– See more at: http://app2.nea.gov.sg/weather-climate/forecasts/fortnightly-outlook#sthash.nP4ewRMW.dpuf

Treat

I typically use kibble to reward simple actions, and boiled minced chicken meatballs that I break into bits to train recall.

For thunder phobia, I have been using tuna but Donna typically stops taking that after a while when she goes over threshold.

In the last few weeks, the consecutive days of loud crackling thunder seem to have made her increasingly edgy. Today, I got out a big can of wet food and gave her a small bowl each time she settled down, rather than pace around agitatedly, regardless of whether it thundered or no. I had to pile an amount in the bowl that is significant enough for her to take notice of. Too little, and she prioritises the rain and thunder instead – – It worked, and she started settling and waiting for food rather than panting and waiting for the next bout of thunder. One of the reasons why I have not done this before is, her weight is just gonna balloon if I am to do this every time it rains = = But at least we have got her to an ideal weight now that I can even contemplate this, versus previously when she was overweight.

So I’ll probably continue with the wet food treating for a while and see how that works out. I have spent a lot of time on this simply because not only is the weather driving out dog nuts, it is driving me insane too every time Donna acts up. :(

Random picture of both humans keeping the thunder-phobic dog company, sitting out the storm.

Conclusion
Oct 31 – Donna wore her bow out for loo break in the morning. It started to rain after lunch with extremely mild thunder. Donna really needed to go potty and tried sneaking to the toilet many times. Unfortunately, the human kept popping up and solicitously encouraging Donna to use the new, blue pee tray.

Donna prefers to stick to the old one she is used to, the one where she can have the satisfaction of digging in her nails and sending the newspaper, pee pad and pee sprinkling all over the toilet floor. It’s either that or Donna just needed her privacy to do it. So mission aborted many times as Donna made up her mind that she will successfully sneak into the toilet to mind her own business privately eventually.

Somehow, Donna observed that every time she got tired of standing still and panicking panting and lay down instead, the human will go “good girl” and bring a bowl of food to the crate. After 4-5 times of this interesting phenomenon happening, Donna decided to permanently abort her toilet mission and just lie outside the kitchen staring holes into the human.

That’s a lot more treats/food she got for a single day for her efforts!

Happy Halloween ^ ^