weliveinaflat - 24/31 - We live in a flat

Author: weliveinaflat Page 24 of 31

Instead I was pottering in my kitchen snapping macro-views of things with, I would like to say childlike wonder, except that from what I read that phrase is usually used to describe other people and never yourself. But I did get rather excited and shuffled around looking for more things in the kitchen to take macro pictures of.

But let’s start from the beginning shall we?

So I just started to pick up iPhoneography skills. This week’s topic was “macro”, a format that I was not familiar with. I failed in my first attempt. My dog ate my homework subject. Right. Some things are better done indoors, and with more research.

I knew macro pictures had to be taken with macro lenses so I was uncertain how I was to do that with a camera phone. Is there any specific macro photo app that I should download? Research ensued in which I was educated by a bunch of harebrained people to shoot through a magnifying glass, a water droplet (at the detriment of the phone!), etc, etc. Of course there are macro lens for iPhones on the market if you are so inclined. I’m not.

So anyway, let’s give those harebrained suggestions a shot. Why not, I’m as harebrained as the rest of them anyway. It seemed more prudent to place the drop of water on the lens at the front of the phone rather than the lens on the back of the phone. The front is all plastic covering over the lens, so I thought there would be less worry about the water seeping in there. So what conspired was, the phone was resting stably on a box in front of the window (so there is some indirect light), and the tiny toothpick drop of water sitting on the plastic covering the lens. The rest was just a matter of holding the object to be photographed over the drop of water and positioning it to get as sharp an image on the screen as possible before tapping the phone.

Note: Please understand that Apple does not provide warranty for water damage and iPhones are definitely not waterproof.

And since I was at the same time having an interesting time looking at Meg Greene’s multiple exposures, I thought to try that out. Searched and downloaded the first app Google threw up at me.

I narrowed down my selection to a set of four objects, each with one close-up and one macro snap of it. For each double exposure, I layered a close-up view of an object with the macro shot of another object. Made it into a four-tile collage and this is what I ended up with.

Can you match each close-up to its corresponding macro image?

Here are the answers:

Dust, scratches, detail and fibre. I was quite amazed by the degree of detail in the macro captures.

Then the light grew bad, so I stopped.

Hello sleepy.

iPhoneography Challenge: Macro
Apps used: Camera+, Instablend, Moldive

By the way, this is the exact size of an image saved from Instablend, so tiny!

I couldn’t find the settings to increase the resolution. The advertising was also very obtrusive and irritating. So I won’t really recommend it. Let me know if you have an awesome double or multiple exposure app to share, k?

By the way, you guys should check out echo/sight if you are interested in double exposures. Their work is amazing.
– http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1068932801/new-york-london
– http://instagram.com/echosight

References
– http://osxdaily.com/2012/10/07/tips-better-iphone-macro-photos/
– http://osxdaily.com/2012/07/07/take-an-iphone-photo-remotely-using-the-earbuds/

This dog wants a kitten

By weliveinaflat

On May 15, 2013

In Dog & You

Quite sometime back, I saw this documentary on TV – I love you, mummy. It basically documents an American family’s adoption of a child from China.

Now this was not a puppy or a shelter dog but an 8-year-old human child. Although she was abandoned as a baby, she had grown to view the Chinese foster family she lived with as her own. The foster mother was her mother and not the new adopted American mother. The foster siblings her real siblings and not her new siblings from her adopted family. Was it hard for the Chinese foster family to give up the child? I do not know the machinery of China’s fostering programs. But the Chinese foster family was on board for a reason I find hard to argue with. They explained that the international adoption was her best chance in life. She was born with clubfoot and dropped wrists and they feared she would have a hard time as an adult if she had stayed in China.

The documentary was emotionally hard to watch.

Puppies adopted and then returned to the shelter again when they are in their “terrible twos” may cry, may retreat into a corner as they struggle with their new circumstances. The child may be adopted by new parents but at the same time, wouldn’t she feel a conflicting sense of abandonment? What complex emotions does an 8-year-old child feel?

She struggled and she cried. She was the alien in a new country living among people who look not at all like her and who don’t speak her language. She can keep crying about how terrible she feels but no one can comfort her back in the language she understands.

It must have been difficult for the adoptive parents as well, taking a strange child (no matter how much they wanted her) who did not want them, who wanted to go home and who can’t communicate to them when she is hurting physically.

But as it is with life, people adjust when they are forced to it, no matter how difficult the circumstances. They make do. They adapt. And so the adopted child learnt to get along with the other children in the family and also a different set of expectations from her new parents. She learnt English. She gradually forgot her mother tongue.

The manifestations of love by man is manifold. Giving up a child with the hope that the child may have a chance at a better life even knowing that it would be very difficult for the child. Taking in a reluctant child that protests against being taken in and refuses to acknowledge you as family. Learning to be comfortable with and care for a strange new family that you have been forced into and had to depend on in order to survive.

The responsibility one takes on and the endurance and commitment the family, including the child, needed to put in to making the adoption work is perhaps hard to conceive unless one finds oneself in their shoes. Love alone is not enough. Now somebody tell this irrepressible dog please! :P

See also, 10 Cats of Instagram adopted as Kittens!

Julius and Walter @juliusandwalter were kittens found cowering in the drain without momma.

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If I don’t focus on the walk, the dog won’t too

By weliveinaflat

On May 14, 2013

In Dog & You

The pictures are real, taken in our flat or on a recent walk.
The words are fairy-tale.

Now, where shall we begin? Oh yes…

Three people walk into a bar that we went past during our walk today. Three men in striped shirts. We saw them in the doorway, against the patterned mirrors, stamping their feet as they made their way in.

One of them, nearly tripping over the curled corner of the oriental patterned rug, bumped into the umbrellas by the doorway and sent them scattering.

The clatter got the attention of the people in the bar, who turned to look at the man at the entrance. He smiled apologetically, embarrassed at the unexpected attention. He noted the ladies who seemed to have some unspoken colour code in their dress.

They soon returned to their conversation.

The three men seated themselves at a table by the window. They placed their orders. He turned to look out the window. The scene outside was overcast and dull.

Suddenly, the man who never paid attention to bright colours missed the cheer of his former girlfriend in frills and floral prints.

But all he saw out the window was a nondescript woman walking an equally ordinary-looking mongrel. And both were looking distracted.

He sighed. No use thinking about the ex.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

She was contemplating patterns. And light and shadow. Probably an influence by Lens and Pens by Sally. And so she snapped some equally nondescript images of the path she and the dog were on. Patterns that perhaps got repeated in other cities in other countries. The pattern of foliage silhouettes on concrete, the repeated twists of the fence, the weave of leaves in and out of it.

The pattern of the tiled path, its brick borders and the drain covers that make up the very fabric of this corner of existence.

And the columns of the sheltered walkway, as they lined themselves until the end of the path. A regular pattern of columns that unfortunately gave dogs plenty of opportunities to discover and enjoy, and cats to hide behind as they continued their way down the path.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The woman stopped and fiddled with her phone for a while. The dog sat as she squatted unglamourously by the side of the path, pointing her phone at something. But then the dog nosed into her viewfinder perhaps. She looked surprised and stunned. It took a few seconds before she suddenly made for the dog’s muzzle, prised it opened and looked into its maw. The man has never seen that happen with anyone before but it was obvious that it was not the first time she did that.

“What are you looking at?”

The man turned back to his two friends.

“Nothing,” he said, “Ah, the drinks are here.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

She was contemplating macro, until the dog ate the subject.

Oh well, the shots aren’t really macro-macro anyway. And the experiment ended rather unfortunately for the Cupid’s Shaving Brush. She thought she would try again some time later in the week. Guess cupid will have to shave another day.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“*Ahem*, is this seat taken?”

The three man looked up to see a young man, unshaven, blinking down at them.

“Do you mind if we share a table? Every other table is full.”

“Sure,” his friend replied, although he sounded a bit unsure.

The man could have sworn that he saw the slight flicker of luminescent wings as the young man sat down among them.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Outside, the wind grew strong as it danced roughly around the trees and the bushes along the empty path. But nobody noticed.

Note: The first and last image are photos taken of the prints in the flat. Copyright of the actual design and prints belong to Samantha Hahn and Wun Ying.
Note2: I was thinking of a movie title as I wrote this.

This dog doesn’t want to be kissed!

By weliveinaflat

On May 12, 2013

In Dog & You

When we were still thinking about getting a dog, my aunt who has three dogs in her house put one in my arms just to see how I would like getting licked by a dog. Dogs do that, she pointed out, can you handle it?

Some people love kisses from dogs. Some think it’s gross when you think about where the dog has been nosing around on walks, and of course some people have dogs that eat poop. (Apparently that’s one of my aunt’s dogs – -!!) And if you kept up with all sorts of doggy news, perhaps you have already read or heard about the Japanese researchers who braved the jaws of 66 dogs and 81 humans to collect dental plaque for study under the microscope in 2011 and published March 2012.

The results? Both dogs and humans carry bacteria in their mouths that can transfer to each other through kissing/licking.

What are some of these bacteria we are talking about?

“Typically puppy kisses are fine, but if your pooch is a scavenger, then a canine lick on the lips could jeopardize your health,” Dr. Oz tells PEOPLEPets.com. “The half-eaten hot dog your dog found on the street – or the feces he was nibbling on – could be loaded with germs and bacteria such as toxocara, salmonella, giardia, hookworm, tapeworm and many others, putting your family’s health at risk.” – peoplepets.com

The risk? Gum disease leading to possible infection and decay of the gums, jaw bone and loss of teeth in severe instances if left untreated. – dailymail

Now, time for the truth.

I don’t like dog slobber on my face but my dog likes it.

Today’s daily prompt wants to know what love is. Not being a romcom screenwriter, I didn’t think I can even start to define love :P but like any true daily prompter (haha~), even as I say this my fingers ran away tapping…

Love can be sublime.
Love can be passionate.
Love can be quiet.
Love can be loud.
Love can confuse.
Love can liberate.

Love can make someone accepting.
Love can make someone selfish.
Love can make someone die.
Love can make someone live.

Love can be all sorts of things.
Yet love is only one word – 爱.

But I do believe that if you care for something.
Love can bring you joy.
Love can make you tentative.
Love can make you cry.

Caring for something can manifest itself in lots of ways. A dog displays its love instinctively, jumping up on people and slobbering them in drool is an exuberant way of showing love. A human, a female human in this case, displays its care in a more complex manner. I don’t like it but I accept that you like it. So given your feedback, this logical female human being has gone to the great oracle that is Google looking for reasonable justification why either my dog or I should get her or my way when we are at odds with one another.

Yes, I’m sorry but that’s basically what all that drivel above is about. : P

But seriously, of the many manifestations of love, the ones I feel I need to treasure the most – Empathy, Acceptance and Magnanimity. Big words. A challenge, yes, to fulfill. But today I’m in the mood to ask myself, wouldn’t that be a good way to live?

It is easy to care and make allowances for a cute pet. It is perhaps less so with human beings, isn’t it? The expectations we have of people around us and the expectations we have on our animals, on other people’s animals exist on different levels. A lot of times, we only see the actions, we don’t see the cause. We don’t see why they do it, and we don’t see why they don’t do it. We are not enabled to empathise because we only saw a part of the whole picture that make up someone’s life. We don’t understand and in fact, we are not expected to be understanding. We are merely strangers, passerbys, acquaintances. And yet, we are sometimes keen to judge. We are. I am.

Empathy, Acceptance and Magnanimity.
To do that perhaps one needs to have an active interest in things,
to seek to understand why things are the way they are,
to allow for opposing views even when one feels defensive,
to agree to disagree.

Tough things when one is governed by strong emotions for causes one is passionate about.

But yes, this blog revolves around a dog that can’t care less really. One more leaf we can take out of the dog’s book about not taking life too seriously. And so I would like to end not on a moody note.

And so in this battle of dog vs human, to kiss or not to kiss, I proclaim the human wins. : ) The current tally is 1:1. Equilibrium is restored.

We rarely present our faces close enough for Donna to lick us there. Over time, she has started to give us gentle kisses on our hands, arms, knees, calves and sometimes even the soles of our feet. (This dog is persistently loving.) Though, she still tries to launch a sneak attack, jumping to give a quick lick on our faces that end up bumping our teeth, our noses instead. -____- Sometimes I wonder about all the potentially cancer-causing stuff I slather on my face everyday that she could possibly ingest. :P

We give lots of hugs and petting to our dog but no, no kisses on the face for us and for this smart Shiba Inu as well ;)

“chu” is “kiss” in Japanese!

References:
– abstract of the study
– http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/kissing-dogs-lead-gum-disease-study-article-1.1189444
– http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2216061/Kissing-dog-cause-gum-disease-pet-owners-warned.html
– http://www.wholelifepetsblog.com/2012/10/18/dog-kisses-spread-bacteria/

I am a dog nail clipping person! Rawrrr!

By weliveinaflat

On May 11, 2013

In Dog & You

Note: If you don’t want to read my long-winded drivel on nail clipping, I do still urge you to scroll right down and check out the reference links on dog nail clippers, how to use them, how to get a dog to relax during nail clipping and more about the dog’s paws in general. You can ignore this if you don’t have a dog or if you are NOT a dog idiot. ;)

Today is turning out to be a pawsome day! Donna-nonna’s got her nails trimmed!

Just a little bit… … maybe about 1 to 2 millimeters a nail… … and I might have missed out some nails. But I hasten to assure you that it was a big deal…. (ok, it’s a big deal just for us :P) Because… well, we are dog idiots right?

We took Donna to be groomed once and another time just for nail cutting, at two different shops. Her reaction the minute we stepped into both shops were the same — abject tail-tucked-between-legs-trembling-I-am-such-a-poor-thing-please-save-me fear. :(

The first shop, let’s just say I got the impression that the lady was a little fierce for my liking. If the dog is already scared, being fierce will just make it more scared right? But to be fair, she was scolding another dog that was being groomed and not Donna. But still, that just made me uncomfortable.

The second shop was better because the guy behind the counter was involved with dog rescue activities, so he spent time talking to me and making me feel more confident that they know mongrels. Of course I could see what the two ladies were doing to the nervously grinning, lip-licking dog behind the glass and at no point was she actually hurt by the nail cutting. We all can’t help it that she was just a dog that is naturally nervous about anything out of the normal! I understand. The only problem was Donna went home and her toenails were still clicking on the floor. Did she just get a nail cut that cost around $14? Because they look the same!

So anyway, toenails grow. So Mr P came home one day with a nail guillotine and between the two of us, we tried to cut Donna’s nails. I had read that we should cut at a 45-deg angle so as not to touch the dog’s quick. So one of us held the worried dog and fed it treats while the other tried to cut the nail. Unfortunately, we did cut into the quick for one of the nails. Donna gave a someone’s-murdering-me yelp and struggled like a thousand demon dogs. Of course she refused any more treats. And that was that. Our part-time domestic help who was home with us that day kindly advised the devious duo who were murdering the dog to take it back to a grooming shop instead. They have professional equipment that will hold the dog in place for the groomer to do his job. Ok.

So toenails grew again and very soon Donna’s clicking became more pronounced than ever. I was due to take her to grooming today but on the spur of the moment I decided to try cutting her nails, on my own. Oh yes, if at first you don’t succeed try, try again. And yes, I understand a dog is not a plastic toy. They feel fear and pain.

But you see, I have been trying to counter-condition Donna to view the nail guillotine in a positive light in the last few weeks. Every time I feed her a treat, the nail guillotine is in front of her, right beside her. Sometimes I get her to put her paw on the nail guillotine for a treat. Sometimes, I hold her paw and tap the nail guillotine on it. Sometimes she was worried but amenable. Sometimes, she grew suspicious and pulled her paw away.

At this point, I don’t want to take her to some grooming shop where there is a potential of her getting scared again and undoing my efforts in the last few weeks. I can’t be certain the groomer will be the kind that will make the “Good girl!”, “Good job!” big fuss that will bolster the scared dog’s confidence when she gets a nail cut. Maybe I am just getting ahead of myself to think I can do this. Hmmm…. please feel free to take me down a peg or two.

Anyway, today as usual, she was just sitting there and looking away. So I took her paw and held the nail guillotine real close. She gave a token, minimal resistance but continued sitting. I compressed the handles of the nail guillotine against the edge of her nail pretending to cut but not actually cutting. Perhaps she flinched a little but I ignored that and made a fuss and fed her lots of tiny little treats. As long as she is still taking the treats, she is ok. We know for our dog, she is quick to refuse treats when at the vet and the groomer. In this case, she was being brave. More treats! Then I held her paw firmly and cut a little sliver of her nail and made a fuss over her again. We took it slow. She could pull her paw away when she was uncomfortable. We can wait awhile. No treats while waiting. We try again. Little shavings of nail at a time. A couple of treats every time we clip or pretend clip a nail. See, there’s no pain, is there? After a while, she was able to stand having her paw in my hand a longer time. More treats.

I don’t know how to judge where the quick of her nail is. But at this point, all I wanted was to relieve the impact of the long nails clicking on the floor on her joints. So I thought I’d just lift a paw and let her put it back down to test. As long as the nails are not hitting the floor when she puts her paw down, that’s enough for me. I did try to make her go to her bed and trot back to me. At a faster speed, there is still some clicking. By then she lost patience and had her fill of treats already so she stayed on her bed the second time I sent her there to test her nails out.

That’s fine. That’s enough for today. : ) I am feeling supremely bubbly.

My dog, not so much.

Not when she is told to “leave it” with the small jar of treats beside her. We demolished it from more than half-full to one-third full for the nail-cutting. Oh yes, she gets more of it after the photo. :P

Oh yes, one more good thing. I discovered the Snapseed app today via Heidi from Savvydesign <–click to see her beautiful set of running horse pictures. Donna on the left, is what would have come out of my usual slapdash Photoshop skills and Donna on the right is from Snapseed. OK fine, I still cheated and adjusted the levels in Photoshop again after that, simply because its kind of hard to judge the amount of brightness on my handphone vs on my laptop monitor. I felt the compulsive need to equalise for my laptop monitor. I didn’t like Instagram after Facebook bought it. So awesome to find a replacement. Yes, minutiae, minutiae.

Looking for a new photo app? Get the Snapseed app. The degree of control in it is way more than whatever barely-used photo apps I have in my phone. I recommend. (Not that I’m the authority, I’m not. :P ~)

References
– Learn more about canine feet http://www.canismajor.com/dog/feet.html
– This video helped inform my approach to Donna – How to train your dog to relax for nail clipping
– This page talks about the different nail trimmers, how to position them when clipping nails and how to judge when you are near the quick.
– This page talks about the process including the filing and what to do if you did cut too deep and the dog starts to bleed.

What the flowers saw

By weliveinaflat

On May 10, 2013

In Photography

Look.

Out the window.
A canopy of trees.

Look out the window.
An encroaching urban jungle.

Soon to engulf,
Our mish-mash foliage —
Raintrees, Angsana trees.
They tangle together.

No more.

Not here.

These trees that stand in plain sight today.
Beneath layers of foliage, lichens, parasitic ferns,
before you see the tree they cover,
the craggy bark these plants cling onto.

But in the distance,
Look.

In the heart of the urban jungle,
Conservatories, man have built.

Gardens by the Bay.
Trees from far off lands stand there.
Proud individuals in their cooled air domes.

There,
the flowers be.
Studied closely, bloom by bloom
they hang. There.

And this is what the flowers saw.

Apologies for the bit of bad pseudo-poetry.

We took my mom to see the tulip display at the Gardens by the Bay for Mother’s Day. Although my mother loves her container garden, she perhaps found it hard to appreciate flowers and plants from other continents that she is not familiar with. She was happiest when she could identify plants similar to those that she is used to. And she had greater interest in the fruit bushes found at the sidelines than the tulips and other strange flowering shrubs that would not survive our climate outside of the conservatory. But I think she had a good time.

I discovered the iPhoneography challenge sponsored by gracienobiya, Lens and Pens by Sally and watchingthephotoreels the other day via completelydisappear. All the photos on this blog are taken with my iPhone. The photos above using the iPhone camera app and the Gorillacam app. I’m not used to editing much on my iPhone though, so that would be something interesting to start exploring in future posts.

When you are planning for a country, you can’t afford to see the individual tree. I sometimes wonder what sort of forest do our country leaders envision in their heads. Just a curious interest.

Themes: Nature, From above
iPhoneography Challenge: Nature

The first trick I successfully taught Donna was by a fluke

By weliveinaflat

On May 9, 2013

In Training

Well technically I didn’t set out to teach Donna the high-five. It was when we just brought her home and I knew nuts about dog training. We were in the park downstairs. Donna was sitting on one of the steps in the fitness corner.

We were practising “shake a paw”. And on the spur of the moment, I took her paw and placed it up against my palm and said “high-five”.

She looked at me, her head slanted at an angle the way dogs do when they are puzzled. Then I held up my palm and said “High-five!” The world shushed as everything paused. Time literally stopped as wheels turned in the dog’s head. Then it happened. Her paw tapped lightly against my palm. The world started to turn again.

That was the one and only time she learnt something in less than 3 minutes (estimated).

I wish it happens more often :P

Donna – will high-five for food.

The daily prompt is celebrating successes today.

Doggy parkour – Urban agility challenge for dogs

By weliveinaflat

On May 8, 2013

In Training

Furkids living in urban cities do not have the luxury of their own backyard to romp around in. Nope, they have to fit themselves into the tinier by the day public housing flats or condominium apartments that their friendbeasts bring them home to. We are kind of lucky to have gotten a flat in a development that comes with a small fairly enclosed rooftop garden above the multi-storey carpark. This is where we train our sit and stay and put to use the public installations into an urban obstacle course for Donna.

We never take our hands off Donna’s leash anywhere else but here. This is an area that is fairly secluded, almost zero traffic so we can be sure that nothing happens to spook our dog and lead to a flight and lost dog incident. Donna would not have been able to get any good at sit and stay outside of home if we didn’t have this convenient place downstairs to train between 1 to 2 sessions a day. But if anyone were to ask me, I would say never ever take your hand of the dog’s leash. A risk is still a risk no matter how small but I digress.

So anyway, coming away from the digression of what a bad friendbeast I am, Donna really hasn’t caught on to the concept of sit and stay on urban obstacles yet. What she does downstairs is really just motion that she goes through everyday that she has internalised very well. Take her out of that setting and you’ll find the human on the obstacle, not the dog! :P

Still we try now and then when the mood strikes. Sometimes it makes for a good photograph, like the day the dog put her little paws politely on the root of a big tree.

For a lark, we tried a little doggy parkour on some huge landscape rocks in the park, nothing as incredible as TreT wahahaha!

When you have one hand on the leash and in the other hand your camera phone, the only orientation that you can ever easily take is from above down. Luckily for me the “exertion” of clambering up some fake landscape rocks was too much for Donna, especially since we have already been out for an hour already. She had to lie down and rest. “Stay” is pretty handy with a tired dog. Ho ho ho~

What we see from above, is different from what she sees from below.

Say hello to Donna and her photoshop clone Donna-02. Ho ho ho~

Urban Agility is a method of exercising your dog using public structural components and park furniture. Training with your dog to sit, trot along or jump over obstacles found in the urban environment helps with improving the dog’s agility and providing positive mental stimulation for the dog. When trained positively, the dog should gain greater confidence with navigating these obstacles. Conversely, a bad experience such as suffering a fall can possibly take away a dog’s confidence and engender fear.

We typically do simple trotting along low wide walls or sit and stays, things that are safe to do with a dog on a leash. I’m not sure if the mental stimulation does tire out our dog but I did read that some people use this as a method to tire out their dogs more, especially when they are time-strapped and unable to take their dogs for longer walks. I like that it helps kill the boredom of just walking along sometimes.

When having fun with dog on an urban walk, it’s also good to remember:
– Urban dog etiquette
– Only attempt what is safe for your dog’s health, size, fitness and confidence level
– Always pay close attention to what your dog is telling you, some dogs may not be comfortable with certain platforms that they perceive as unstable.
– Reward your dog and make it fun.

Sources:
– seizetheleash.com
– how to turn a dog walk into a dog challenge via life in the dog lane
– how to fully exercise your dog with shorter walks

So our dog growled a little…

By weliveinaflat

On May 7, 2013

In Behaviour

Donna and Doudou met for the first time last week before the National Geographic Free Pet Shop event. We wanted to make sure they are comfortable with each other before we attempt to drive both dogs to East Coast Park.

picture taken by our cousin’s boyfriend

It never really registered in our minds how small a mongrel Donna is until we saw her beside Doudou, who is still a puppy! Donna is already 4 years old. Donna appears stockier in the chest, while Doudou appears more streamlined. She is a pretty dog.

The meeting went well. The two dogs sniffed but did not take to each other like a house on fire. They were happy doing their own things but we walked together with no trouble. So we thought driving together should be fine. In fact, given that they were neutral and not overly interested in each other, we thought that the drive should be relatively peaceful.

But on the day itself, Donna growled a little at Doudou when they got on the back seat next to her. I reactively grabbed her so that she doesn’t do anything physically threatening to the other dog and she dropped the growling pretty fast although our cousin said she growled a second time. The rest of the trip went pretty smooth. The two dogs didn’t interact as Doudou had her head on our cousin’s lap the whole way. Donna sniffed Doudou a few times but that was it. Donna was restive but that is normal for her on a drive even without a second dog. I petted Donna a lot more than usual in the car since I wasn’t sure what prompted her to growl in the first place.

Once off the car, both dogs did get opportunities to mix in the same space but there was no further growling and interaction between the two dogs was minimal even when they were in the same space.

Two things straight off my mind,

if we were to drive another dog the next time, I would put the two humans in the back seat in between the dogs so that they are not sitting side by side.
it bugged me that our normally quiet if at times fearful dog continues to be labelled as the dog that does not get along well with other female dogs (it’s a preconception people involved in the shelter have during her shelter days). Would it not have been the way we went about getting both dogs in the car that triggered the incident rather than blame it on the dog? Given that’s the case, what would have been the best way to have managed that introduction? Perhaps we should have alighted the car with Donna first. Perhaps we should have walked the two dogs before getting them on the car. Would that have helped?