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Nat Geo Free Pet Shop

On May 6, 2013

Oct 6, 2014

NGC Free Pet Shop

We went to the 2014 National Geographic (Natgeo) Free Pet Shop at the Playground at the Big Splash, East Coast Parkway on Sunday.

Address: 902 East Coast Parkway, Singapore 449874 [map]
Time: 12:00p.m. – 06:00p.m.
The National Geographic Channel’s Free Pet Shop is Singapore’s largest dog adoption drive. The event will present a total of 80 adoptable dogs each day from various shelters, so it’s a good time to check it out if you are looking to adopt a Singapore special.

We went the previous year where the event was held over a grassy area. Saturday was rainy and thunderous, so we decided to to go on Sunday thinking that it may be less muddy. Our worry was needless, since we discovered upon arrival that the event was held over a paved area this time around.

Meeting old friends

This is about the one and only occasion Donna ever gets to see the humans that used to care for her at Gentle Paws. So of course, she was totally out of control jumping around and knocking them down in her excitement to lick the familiar faces to her.

Honestly, I think my dog has more friends than I have. Haha!

It was always awkward for me though. I mean, these people are there to talk to potential adopters to rehome their dogs. So it always felt out of place for Donna to be sitting there waiting for her friends to pay her some attention and refusing to come away so we’ll stop obstructing the traffic.

But I guess, they will forgive her exuberance and excitement to see them again.

The Booths

Eventually we got away from the row of shelter rehoming booths to visit the other commercial stalls. If I remember correctly they were in this sequence

Starhub Happy Tails Lawn (got a scarf),
APAWZ (we already got a trainer, sorry),
The Barkery (not into carbs),
Therapy Dogs Singapore (already joined),
Solid Gold (Donna doesn’t eat this),
Furry Photos ($400 photo session) and
Subaru (FREE Prinstagram!)

Since the human is an Instagram fan, she went to the Subaru booth to ask more about what the Prinstagram was about.

Besides free printing of your photos hash-tagged #subarumoments, there was also an artist who would draw a caricature of you and your dog for free! The waiting time was 30min because there was a queue but the human decided Donna should get her first caricature, yay! :D So we added ourselves to the waitlist.

The Lost Paws Booth was adjacent to Subaru

They asked if we wanted to take a photo with Donna. Ask and you shall receive, so we did.

Enjoying the seabreeze outside

Because the paved area got pretty hot in the afternoon heat despite the tents, we spent much of the time outside on the grass waiting to be notified for our turn at the caricature booth.

That’s where Donna met Dywane, also from Gentle Paws.

Donna wanted to play immediately, the silly girl.

Here’s a picture of her with another Gentle Paws dog. ~~They have a few in this colour, so I’m not sure if it’s Dywane or not.~~ I was told he is Mario. It’s just a funny photo because his paw is touching her nose, due to the camera angle. I hadn’t realised it until a Gentle Paws volunteer commented on Facebook! :O

Meeting insta-friends

Mango the Sheltie and we were making our rounds around the fair separately, so I wasn’t able to take a photo of him when I had my camera out. Besides him, we also met a few of our insta friends like samforest and pecanwoods loolim, skippy and jestasheltiex. Yes, I never took photos of all of them. Boo!

But here’s Cobie with a #dogsquish face. :P

Lemme out of this bag!

I took this just as Cobie and Mango were leaving.

Then we walked over to 7-11 to get our brainfreezed and finally, we got summoned for the caricature.

Our caricature!

Tada!! Donna says I shouldn’t have photobombed her.

Last thoughts

We went last year, and I was a little overwhelmed by the crowd and shyer about looking at the stalls, which meant I was mostly standing about the sidelines and feeling quite bored. Haha.

But this time round was really good because I was just more confident about handling Donna in a crowd. We also got to talk to one or two of the shelter volunteers who have kindly commented on our Facebook and sad, to say, I know them by their Facebook handles only. So it was definitely good to put a face to the Facebook name!

Also fun to see some of the insta-folks, even if it was more hi and bye because of the crowd and the traffic.

And last but not least, we appreciate the little mementos we get to bring home from the event both years we went – the caricature, the prinstagrams and a freebie collapsible waterdish from Subaru. Donna also got a toy Subaru toy car last year that she really liked.

Prinstagrams – one for Mr P and one for the human, perfect!

See more Singapore dog-friendly events.

May 6, 2013

Event advertising image via ngc singapore

There was an adopt a free pet event this weekend and Donna’s shelter was one of those shelters taking part in the event. The nature of an animal shelter is an interesting one, in that they exist because there are many unwanted animals. A shelter will probably never be half-full or half-empty because the demand for space exceeds the supply. If a shelter were ever half empty, it would actually be a good sign of dogs being rehomed and less dogs on the street to take in. But I suppose shelters will be heartened if they are only half-full since than they have the capacity of taking in more homeless dogs. I don’t think any shelter will ever think that they are half-empty, only that they are half-full and running out of space pretty soon.

Is the glass half-full or half-empty you ask? Doesn’t it really depend on the contents of the glass and how much you desire whatever is in it?

The crowd of people and dogs at the National Geographic Free Pet Shop event had Donna all excited. We tried to get her to sit for one minute on the Subaru challenge mat but she was too distracted to last that long :/ She jumped all over the shelter humans that she knew but hadn’t seen for quite awhile. Until they had to “dismiss” us so that they can get on with their business of finding good homes for the other dogs. But that’s ok since Donna was happy to return to her main preoccupation of inspecting the grass very insistently. Yes, not the other dogs, not the other people but the grass. The only dog she paid attention to was a brown dog Dada, whom the shelter people called her boyfriend. So it was good she found someone to play with for a while.

We were told that Donna was one of the dogs on the event advertising banner. Can you spot her?

So yah, we happily clambered onto the empty stage to take a picture to keep for posterity :P

More about the local shelters and the mongrels that they try to rescue and rehome in the brochure below. Click to see the bigger image.

Facts You Never Know brochure via huneyzworld.

We’re not really good with crowds, and since the event was at East Coast Park, we took the opportunity to check out the beach with her. She went into the water readily enough but then found it uninteresting and turned back. She seemed to prefer digging at the sand. The day’s activity knocked her out and she ignored us in favour of her bed by 7.30pm tonight.

The cup of green tea on my desk has cooled as I sit here typing out this post. I’ll say it’s half-empty, since I do not plan to drink the rest of the tea that has gone cold.

My crazy dog likes to eat grass

By weliveinaflat

On May 5, 2013

In Behaviour

So she developed a split second interest in mynahs today. For a while she was heading towards them, then she got distracted by the grass. So what’s new.

*Phone rings.*

Mr P: I’m coming back now, where are you?

*Dog starts to pluck nonchalantly at the grass.*

me: I’m walking the dog… She’s eating grass.

Mr P: Quick stop her!

me: *looks at my one hand holding the leash and the other hand holding the phone* I can’t. We’re surrounded by grass.

Mr P: *Sigh* That’s why you should stick to the path. Pull the leash.

me: But I don’t want to hurt her neck… I’m sticking my thumb in her mouth… She’s going to chew it off any minute now.

Hare-brained. I know.

So anyway why does Donna eat grass? I stumbled on this video which tries to explain why dogs eat grass.

So I guess, Donna is either bored or she just enjoys eating grass on occasion. I’m not sure if the grass in the park is safe, so I’d rather she goes home and eat carrots or something.

Well-trained vs Well-behaved

By weliveinaflat

On May 4, 2013

In Training

"Hey Donna..."
"Yah?"
"You know you're supposed to be depressed?"
"Really?"
"Yah, really."
"Oh"
"So you can't look like this anymore."

"I can't?"
"No, you can't. Sorry."
"So.... can I  look like this?"

"No, that's the you sniffing at something look."
"Er, or maybe I should look like this?"

"That's not depressed. That's you waiting for something to happen."
"How about this?"

"That's you feeling sleepy and too lazy to do anything... "
"This is too hard."

"Hey, that's kind of close to looking depressed I guess."

So I saw this discussion thread on a forum the other day and my simple mind went, well isn’t it a matter of the dog either being intrinsically well-behaved because of its individual personality or a dog being well-behaved because it was well trained to be well-behaved? Regardless of which, the end result is the same — a well behaved dog.

Of course, a dog could be a part-time well-behaved dog. Donna for instance is wonderful when we are at home, but when we are not, there the dog goes on the forbidden sofa, there goes the household plastic goods, there goes the lemongrass teabags hung to keep lizards away, there goes whatever looks like a toy to her. Thank goodness that does not happen too often and through time, we learnt what we need to keep out of reach.

Some dogs behave well at home but get so distracted they behave as they will outside, regardless of their owner’s wishes. Some dogs behave themselves outside but their owners will tell you what holy terrors they become at home. Some dogs probably are well-behaved, except that their owners and the dogs don’t see eye to eye on what being well-behaved really means. Some owners don’t even need their dogs to be well-behaved. These dogs could do no wrong then right?

That one little thing about Donna is, she is generally well-behaved once she knows the rules and expectations. Disaster almost always only happen when routines get broken such as when we fall sick and don’t take her for longer walks or as regular walks/loo breaks. But sometimes people don’t really see that good behaviour. Somehow, people think that it is normal for dogs to be noisy, to bark, to pull on the leash, to do all sorts of doggy things. And when they visit and see Donna sitting and staying on her bed quietly, they ask what is wrong with the dog? Is the dog depressed? Why is she so quiet? And when they pull too hard on the leash and Donna obediently stops and sit, they ask why is the dog so lazy and keep sitting down?

Even when Mr P explains that Donna’s behaviour is a result of training and not because she is depressed, some people still find it hard to reconcile that there is nothing wrong with the dog. We spent a lot of time bonding and working with the dog, gaining its trust and from there helping it learn to be a well-behaved dog that will not frighten friends and strangers who are scared of dogs. Unfortunately this effort and Donna’s good behaviour sometimes are overlooked because people already have preconceptions of how a dog should behave and being well-behaved is just not a part of it.

Marugoto Shokudou’s resident cat

By weliveinaflat

On May 3, 2013

In Explore

There are few pet-friendly establishments around. We’re not sure about this one but Marugoto Shokudou is the rare restaurant in the neighbourhood with a resident cat.

That said, we never did see it inside the restaurant. We only see it loitering around the entrance most times we were there.

Still, it’s a rare cat that bows at you at the entrance.

Donna’s tips for rainy days

By weliveinaflat

On May 2, 2013

In Behaviour

The sky is falling!

Tip 1/ Take cover.

Tip 2/ Take cover under the human i.e. find a human shield!

Tip 3/ Go to higher ground.

Tip 4/ Go to your safe place.

You have been warned. Good luck!

These set of photos is from earlier. There are some days she does better, some days she does worse.

Tamchiak, kiasu and kaypo is our dog

By weliveinaflat

On May 1, 2013

In Behaviour

kid at the vet: is she a doberman?
me: no, she’s just a mongrel

Maybe, I’m habitually self-effacing and sometimes I discount my dog too much… I was thinking I need to remove “just” from my answer. Anyway, the last time I introduced my dog as a rescued dog, my friend thought the dog goes around rescuing things haha~ so I’ll just stick to “she’s a mongrel.”

But I love the idea of describing the dog’s personality. Morgan from Temporary Home, Permanent Love‘s new post on rescued mutts tries to introduce particular dogs not by breed but by their personality and character traits. And since Donna is a mongrel, I thought I’ll writing about Donna in her format.

Donna: 50% exuberant, 50% tamchiakgui, 30% kiasu, 30% kaypoh, 20% potential disaster, 20% suspicious, 10% loving and 100% patient buddy for dog idiots.

*tamchiakgui = greedy ghost, used to describe someone with a love of food
* kiasu = afraid to lose out
* kaypoh = busybody, tries be in the know or have a paw in everything

Donna struck us as quintessentially Singaporean in her kiasu and kaypoh ways.

How kiasu is Donna?
She likes to get a head start when we play fetch. She won’t sit and wait for you to throw the toy. No, she must already run for the toy when you haven’t even thrown it. If she were in a race, she’ll be the athlete that gets disqualified for false starts.

And when it comes to being kaypoh, Donna is quite the busybody. She is “big brother”. She must needs keep an eye on everything. Mr P in the room and me in the living room? No problem she will be right smack at a point where she can see me and the bedroom door for when he comes out. Donna supervises me doing chores. She tries to inspect our food. And now and then, she’ll try to suss out unsuspecting strangers too, some not too happy about her sniffing them :/

I had briefly thought about teaching her “don’t kaypoh” every time she make to sniff some stranger but I haven’t really done it. So yes, she is essentially still a monolingual dog.

Napping and surveillance. Not mutually exclusive.

And food, what dog doesn’t love food? Stalk the kitchen? Yes. Sport the saddest soulful eyes for as long as it takes? Yes. Yes. Yes. I always thought saliva dripping out of the mouths of cartoon characters and visibly plopping on the floor was nothing more than overly-dramatic caricature. Doesn’t happen in real life. My dog showed me how wrong I was. :P

I’m not too sure how tamchiakgui came into popular use. Perhaps our ancestors think all ghosts are greedy, hence all the food offerings on top of the paper burning during Chingming. Now that I think about it, people do append the word gui (ghost) to the back of the adjective so kaypohgui works as well. Maybe our ancestors just had a fixation with ghosts in general, haha~

Anyway just so you know, 50% exuberant, 50% tamchiakgui, 30% kiasu, 30% kaypoh, 20% potential disaster, 20% suspicious, 10% loving and 100% patient buddy for dog idiots, may not all sound like all awesomely amazing traits but to us they can be pretty adorable at times and if that’s who our dog is, that’s who our dog is.

But that makes the introduction kind of wordy because a dog is not just a dog is she? So I’ll keep to “She is a local mongrel” for now.

Tamchiakgui, kiasu and kaypoh are words in the Teochew and Hokkien dialects. Use them with English with a sprinkle of Malay here and a smatter of Chinese there in Singapore and it becomes Singlish. Short, clipped sentences will do. We prefer efficiency in our language unless we’re writing it.

Doggy over-exuberance is adorable, yes?

By weliveinaflat

On April 30, 2013

In Behaviour

Donna loves walks.

Most days, she is able to sit calmly so we can put the leash on her.

Some days, she is fidgety and can barely contain herself.

And then there are some other days when she is so happy, its almost as if she will explode with joy. She zooms here and there. She stops to wrestle with her toy. Then she zooms back and loops around you before she sits. She sits for a bit but when her collar comes close to her head, she shifts forward in her eagerness until the collar is at the back of her head rather than around her neck. And then she is off on her feet looping around again.

You give up and walk away since there is no putting the collar on her in that state. Then she suddenly discovers newly grown ears to hear with and goes to her bed as you tell her to.

See me! See me all nice and calm now.

We are not fooled Donna, not when your little flicking tip of the tail is giving you away!

But yes, let’s go! You see the ex-rug flying from under her feet as she bursts off like a runner doing the 100m dash at the gunshot. My, my…

Yup, we spent the first couple of months trying to instill some level of discipline and calmness in the dog. Starting from the basic sitting still so that the collar and leash goes on to not rushing out the door when the door swings open. But she’s not a robot so there are days she does these random spurts of high-energy doggy antics which can be amusing in small doses.

You know how we use keywords when it comes to dog training. “Let’s go” is one of them I repeat frequently with Donna. So frequently that I start to use it even when I don’t mean her, for example when Mr P and I are going out together without the dog. Now we have to resort to speaking in Chinese when we don’t mean to include her. Hmmmm…..

Donna has standards when it comes to picking up sticks

By weliveinaflat

On April 29, 2013

In Dog & You

I remember there was a blog post I commented on some time back. Writer was writing about dogs that like to pick up sticks on walks. I replied that Donna doesn’t seem to have the propensity to do that, at the same time I was thinking that was just as well since there is always the potential of not so cute injuries resulting with dogs playing with sticks. Here’s another post at Team Unruly on Sticks – Not fun anymore.

Days later, I learnt that Donna did not have a disdain for sticks. It was just that her highness was more selective about the sticks she deigned to pick up. We were running down the stairs as her leash suddenly jerked taut. I turned my head back to find my dog with a stick of half-eaten satay in her mouth. @_@

In case you are not familiar with satay, it’s basically a yummy dish comprising of meat barbecued on stick/bamboo skewer and eaten with a spicy peanut dip.

Our dog doesn’t realise it, but she just gave a different spin on satay as a street food. But no, you are to leave it, Donna.

Leave it.

Here she is with a safer, soft toy in her mouth.

Who says there is calm before the storm, who?

By weliveinaflat

On April 27, 2013

In Behaviour

The problem with living on a high floor with an unobstructed view is that it can get really windy sometimes. And today the wind was huffing and puffing and blowing things down.

Donna doesn’t like the howling wind, so when it gets windy before a storm, I start to close all the balcony doors, the door to the yard, the windows, etc, as many openings as we can so that the howling is minimised.

But today the wind was so fantastically strong and buffeting against the pane that we had to go on the balcony to see it for ourselves, besides pulling the pots inside where they are less exposed to the strong wind. We could see blinds hurling around violently, other people righting their potted plants and plastic bags adrift in the middle of the sky. And then when we turned back we see this nervous grinning mug.