weliveinaflat - 31/31 - We live in a flat

Author: weliveinaflat

So many dog breeds, so many sad stories

On March 14, 2013

When we were contemplating dog ownership, I did some research on the Internet and learnt new terms such as “puppy mill”, “backyard breeders”, “animal rescue” etc, which eventually set us on the route of dog adoption, rather than buying a puppy of a known breed from a pet shop.

One of the dogs on the Internet which made a lasting impression on me was Rosie. When I showed Mr P Rosie’s picture, he wasn’t sure what it was I was showing him.

Rosie is a poor little chihuahua born from a backyard breeder with severe congenital deformities of the face, jaw, spine and legs. Despite her deformities, she managed to survive by crawling across urine soaked floors of the backyard breeder’s home through years of feces to eat what bits of food the other dogs being hoarded left behind. More about Rosie’s story here.

Rosie’s story is a very visual reminder why not to buy from any ol’ breeder but to ask questions, do our research and make sure we do buy a dog from a reputable breeder.

But reputable is not enough.

Originally broadcasted in 2008, the video below – Pedigree Dogs Exposed – dug into how breeding practices of some reputable breeders in the UK is destroying pedigree dog breeds through inbreeding and of dogs not scanned for pre-existing conditions. The investigative documentary focused particularly on winning showdogs, their health and their detrimental impact on the breed’s health when used as studs to breed puppies close to the breed standard in form. You may not want to watch this, if you cannot stomach images of dogs in pain or discomfort.

Pedigree Dogs Exposed – Three Years On
– Part 1, Part 2a, Part 2b, unable to locate part3 but you can read the summary of the remaining content on wikipedia

So yes, reputable is not enough. If we were seeking a pure bred dog, we should love your future pet and protect its health right now by making the effort to identify a socially responsible breeder that makes good health and diversity a criteria in his operations.

In the end, we decided that rather than buy, we should adopt. We know our limitations and were not looking to be all good Samaritan and adopt the first troubled shelter pup with all sorts of health conditions. But one more shelter dog adopted I guess would open up one more space for another rescue in the shelter, as long as there was an adoptable dog that fitted our criteria, there’s no reason to buy one. I’d rather save up that money to spend on better food and other stuff like heartworm preventatives and medical care for my adopted dog, especially if we had ended up adopting a breed that can be expected to have congenital conditions as it age.

Other references
– Are we breeding our dogs to extinction
– It’s not all lost with bad breeding

Uncle Gardener

By weliveinaflat

On March 13, 2013

In Dog & You

At some point in my short dog-walking life I have learn that some dogs pay no heed when Donna and I walked pass them. But sometimes, the dog reacts quite vocally. We had something like a German Shepard bark at us before. We met two small chihuahuas, one was curious but the other one in the owner’s arm started to cry like we are murdering it. It’s not about the size of the dog, not really. The biggest dog we ever walked past on the same park path looked more interested than aggressive, and Donna was certainly even more interested as well the way she was staring and tugging.

But nowadays more often than not, we just continue walking past the other dogs, whether they yelp at us or no. One reason being Donna’s mild kennel cough symptoms, which we wouldn’t want to expose other dogs to. The other being, I would prefer Donna to stay focused on the walk rather than get accustomed to stopping to check out every friendly or fierce dog on the way. It had never occurred to me to do it but when I read on this blog (which I have taken to stalking, omg~) that if there was already a dog on the sidewalk, they would cross the road to other side, I thought that’s probably a good thing to follow when necessary. (They are prolific posters so I can’t find the exact blog post :P).

We live in a flat situated in one of four apartment blocks that are connected on the second floor by a common carpark rooftop garden. Donna and I have been taking our short 10min walks here. We don’t see other dogs every time we are here, but when we do, it was always a toy or a small dog because these are HDB-approved. This morning there was a small brown dog with his owner. We saw them across the children’s playground in the middle of the garden so we stopped to see which side they would take. They went left, so we went right and arc-ed around the playground in the middle. The nice man gave us a smile and neither of us made to interact more than that or for our dogs to meet.

The garden is a pleasant place, especially when it is not dirtied by random late night parties where people leave trash all over and if you choose to ignore the small yellow puddles of dog pee on the wall, by the drains, by the corners of the stone seats. I really hate that so I always make Donna pee on the grass only. Although sometimes Donna will get overwhelmed by the other dogs’ scent and pee on the pavement quickly before I can stop her. And when I do catch her, she is already in mid-pee and I’ll overreact and immediately pull her towards the grass. So yes, it would look like a mad woman hauling a dog with pee drops flying in an arc as they flee towards the grass! I am so sorry fellow residents for the pee spray :( I always feel sorry afterwards for Donna’s poor neck too. Nowadays, once she starts to fixate on sniffing the concrete, I just make her sit. Though Mr P prefers to be mobile so he would shift her collar up her neck and shorten the leash so that Donna had no choice but to walk with her head up in the air rather than with her nose vacuuming the ground. So with time and between us, maybe we will slowly have a dog that as a way of life pee and poop only on the grass and can sit for a time with patience regardless of the distractions all around.

We had just walked past the playground when Donna’s nose started hoovering the pavement again, so I made her sit. I looked up to find an old gardener further up the path looking at us.

“That’s a mongrel,” he remarked. Yes, I agreed.

“She is local? A Singapore dog?”

“Yes” Online, people have called dogs like Donna the Singapore Special.

In the world of casual acquaintanceship, you can always strike up a conversation with some random stranger without ever knowing their names. You may even know their dogs’ names, but the humans, they rarely offer theirs and I never think to ask or identify myself.

That was how it was with this man, whom we shall henceforth call Uncle Gardener. It is common to see Indian workers clearing weeds, trash and basically doing all those cleaning and maintenance duties that our town councils have employed them for. Uncle Gardener is a true blue Singaporean, who tells me how he used to have a dog like Donna with sibuk or four eyes (if you count the distinctive tan spots above her eyes as eyes!). But his was a local short legged dog and smaller than Donna. They used to have so many dogs in the kampong (traditional village), called Johnny, Bobby, etc.

“Wait a minute, why do these dogs have English names?” I asked, “Didn’t they have names like Ah-Fu (Good Fortune) or Ah-Wang (Prosperity).”

Oh yes, he replied, Ah Fu, Ah Wang, Ah Or (Black), Or-Or (Black-Black).

I kept making Donna sit every time she stands up.

“What is her name?”

“Donna”

“Oh, Donna,” he proceeds to call her, “Donna, Donna, Johnny, Donny, Ah Or…”

Donna looks everywhere, distracted.

Uncle Gardener starts to tell me about the community cats that go to him to be fed in the morning. He thought they must have been abandoned, they were all neutered. He fed him with kibble, $8 a bag. No fish, he says, it’s too dirty if they leave the fish half eaten. They finish up all the dry kibble when they are hungry.

I remarked that Donna is a picky eater and wouldn’t eat kibble by itself.

In those days in the kampong, we don’t feed them in the morning or afternoon, Uncle Gardener said. We only feed them at night. They are hungry by then, they eat anything. All the day’s leftover food is slopped into a pail and all the dogs and cats go at it.

“What? Wouldn’t the dogs and cats fight if they have to all eat from the same pail?” I asked.

No, the dogs give way to the cats, said Uncle Gardener. At night the cats crawl into the dogs and snuggle against them to go to sleep. The dogs give way, raise their legs, adjust their bodies and sometimes they end up rolled over by the cat!

I was tickled and wondered how Donna would react if we got a cat.

“I used to have a dog just like her,” Uncle Gardener repeated, “but then the government relocated us to live in the flat. And I was told that it is illegal to take my dog with me. I had to leave it in the kampong and they rounded all the dogs up and took them away. I never saw it again.”

I felt bad for Uncle Gardener and didn’t know what to say.

She is a good dog, he said. These mongrels learn very fast and they are very obedient. Can you shake hand?

I walked Donna over and got her to offer him her paw to shake.

“She don’t know ‘shake hand’? ‘Paw’, what language is that?” he asked.

I explained that Donna was taught at the shelter to respond to ‘paw’. It means her foot.

“Oh, paw, paw…”

After sitting for so long Donna was restive so we said goodbye.

“She is a good dog, not like our neighbour’s dogs, always fighting and noisy.”

And so we part ways, but maybe we will meet again downstairs at the garden. Or maybe, we will make other casual acquaintances with their own story to tell.

I wish I am the expert on my dog’s health

By weliveinaflat

On March 12, 2013

In Dog & You

Donna has only come to us for about two month, but has been to the vet far too many times, for kennel cough, for ear infection and for allergic reaction to some insect bite. The vet was also of the opinion that while her weight is fine, she should not put on more, and that was when Donna was 15kg. At that time, she had first landed in the household and was extremely picky about her food. She would NOT eat kibble and would pick out every piece of kibble from the kibble and can food mix loaded in her bowl. A month later, she was 16kg having decided that she was amenable to moistened kibble with canned food after all since we did not give her any better. It was take it or leave it, until you are hungry enough missy. Vet had the same advice, this weight is ok but she should not put on more weight.

Lean dogs live longer, healthier lives than those who are overweight. A 14-year study showed that dogs fed 25 percent fewer calories than their free-fed littermates lived nearly two years longer, showed fewer visible signs of aging, and needed treatment for arthritis a full three years later.

At the same time, our cousin was looking to change her mongrel’s kibble diet because as she puts it, Doudou sheds hair like snow.

I previously thought Donna’s diet of half of the can food and half of the kibble recommended for her weight on the packages, as advised by the vet should give her the protein, fat and other vitamins and minerals she needed. But Donna did itch terribly, and she was always licking, scratching and nibbling her ears, her sides, her legs. The vet had advised that once her ear infection cleared, the itching should stop. But that did not seem to be happening. So perhaps a change to better kibble will be good for Donna too.

I did some research and decided there was no reason to change the 50% canned food and 50% kibble she was having. Kibble is the more processed food of the two, so the inclusion of canned food will ensure that she gets a greater amount of protein and better nutrients than if she were on kibble alone. My next step was to upgrade her kibble to a better quality grain free brand, with the main meat ingredient differing from the kibble she was having previously. This was not only because enjoying a variety of different foods make mealtime interesting, it was also because I read that dogs that have been fed consistently on just one food have greater potential of developing allergies to the food.

I made a shortlist of different better quality grain free brands of kibble with different main meat ingredients that I can still afford, i.e. not the super premium type that can be significantly more expensive per kg or per pound. But today, I found that most of these brands belong to Diamond Pet Foods, which had their food recalled in the last year. So I just have to keep a watchful eye out.

I am not a nutritionist so I wouldn’t even dream of homemade diets for her. I don’t even cook for myself much. I am aware that in trying to manage her weight gain, it cannot be just a matter of cutting back on the recommended kibble or can food amounts, as I would not know if this will cause her to get less of other essential nutrients outside of protein and fats.

So what I can do really is to try different commercial dog foods and watch her reaction to them. And more and more, I am considering to be not so myopic in what sort of food Donna has access to. That is, supplementing her diet with fresh food to ensure that she does get the quality protein from fresh meat, and nutrients from fresh vegetables and fruits – carrots, berries – and other healthy foods like plain yoghurt, honey and salmon oil.

Just today, Donna’s dinner comprised her regular canned food and kibble mix, a boiled egg and a frozen cube of natural yoghurt with minced strawberries and a blueberry. She went for the familiar commercial food first, licked the egg yolk, finished the commercial food, then scarfed down the egg and finally decided that yes, unlike breakfast, she would like dessert after all!

As she is under the weather, she has mostly been lethargic and sleepy the whole day, so I hope the fresh and wholesome food will do her good.

References
– Adding fresh food to commercial dog food
– Weight loss diets for dogs
– Pet food selection
– Canned or dry dog food – Which is the better choice?
– Diet rotation for dogs

Urgh kennel cough

By weliveinaflat

On March 11, 2013

In Health

Yesterday on our regular morning walk, Donna took every opportunity to nibble on the grass rather than do her business. I did my best to stop her, and added carrot to her breakfast when we got home. Because honestly Donna, I’d rather you nibble on human-grade carrot than nibble on grass outside.

By mid-day, it was obvious that Donna was coughing, and the awful choking, I’ve-got-something-in-my-throat-that-I’m-trying-to-vomit-out sound sounded suspiciously similar to the sounds she made when she had kennel cough about more than a month ago. So I kept her quiet, and pampered her with little teaspoons of honey, hoping to sooth her throat. Honey is supposed to have anti-bacteria and anti-viral properties, so it is a natural remedy for kennel cough. And one can administer 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of the stuff 3 to 4 times a day. We wanted to monitor her a bit and see if the cough persists before sending her to see the vet. Ok, I was hoping that it was not kennel cough after all.

The next day, Donna was at times lethargic, and other times more rambunctious than usual. I attributed it to her being under the weather. The honey seemed to help quieten the cough, although the effect did not last long and by late afternoon, she was back to her coughs again. She was also scratching her eyes, nose and the side of her face a lot but her face looked fine.

We fed her new better quality kibble (just delivered the night before yesterday), took her down for her pee break then left her at home while we grab some dinner outside with our cousin and her boyfriend who were visiting.

When we returned, we found Donna in a state of high arousal. There was saliva on the shoe bench and her paw prints on the coffee table, and it was obvious that she had been on the sofa, something that she only does when she goes into over-excited mode and forgets all the rules and limitations we have set for her; or when she thinks we had turned in for the night and will not shoo her off it. There were globs of saliva and phlegm on the floor. And in her excitement, she had also ran to pee on the peepad set out for her, and poop on the common corridor, rather than on the newspapers where she should.

We ignored her and went about cleaning up. When she calmed down, I tried to feed her another teaspoon of honey, which she normally licks clean. This time, she refused it. It was when I looked closer at her than I noticed that her muzzle looked swollen and that there were three bumps on her nose, sort of like mosquito bite bumps. The next time I looked the bumps seemed to have merged into one big bump.

It was late at night, I was tired and worried. I was not sure if this was something that I should be concerned about. Can we wait to bring her in to her regular vet tomorrow or do we need to see any vet right away? I rang the emergency number for my regular vet and was told to bring Donna into their recommended 24hr vet now.

Donna’s temperature was regular and the swelling seemed to have gone down a little. The vet thinks the allergic reaction is probably due to insect bites and not to the new food we have started on. If the allergy was food related, she said, the whole dog will swell and not just the muzzle area. The vet gave her two jabs and then Donna was sent on the way home with antibiotics and cough suppressant in case her cough worsens. Dogs can recover from kennel cough from their own especially if it is a mild case like what Donna is having. The vet advised that she should have minimal exercise, 10 minutes walk rather than an hour walk. And since kennel cough is contagious, she should not interact with dogs for two weeks as the dog is infectious when it is still coughing.

Donna appeared her usual self this morning, although she was still lethargic and did not even pee during the short 10 minute walk downstairs. As she hasn’t cough yet, I’m withholding her medication for now, but I did add a small frozen cube of greek yoghurt with minced strawberries and a blueberry drizzled with one teaspoon honey to her mixed kibble and can food breakfast.

This is the before and after.

Looks like this little girl still has a long way to go to appreciate fresh berries.

References
– Natural remedies for kennel cough
– How to help your dog lick kennel cough

My dog is scary… sometimes…

By weliveinaflat

On March 10, 2013

In Dog & You

Most Singaporeans that I know growing up have no dogs. (Disclaimer: I actually don’t know that many people being somewhat of an introvert. Haha. ) But friends I know generally don’t mind approaching a stray cat and giving it a pet or two. One just encounters more stray cats in the neighbourhood everyday and well, in my case, zero stray dogs! The only pet dog that I remember from when I was young until now was this pet dog that always bark loudly from behind the door when we needed to cross by his flat to get to where my father’s mother was staying. And yes, that wasn’t very pleasant.

Growing up in a culture where a lot of parents won’t tolerate the mess made by an animal bigger than a fish, terrapin or hamster, it is understandable that there will be people who have no experience with dogs and are cautious or downright fearful when confronted with one. Just today, Donna and I were waiting for the lift to go home after our morning walk. The lift came up from the basement and there was already a young lady inside. As usual, I asked the person who was already in the lift, “Do you mind the dog?” Sometimes the lady inside with or without a baby did mind and so Donna and I will just wait for the next lift to come along. We were lucky this morning, the young lady went, “No, as long as he doesn’t bite me.” (See the cautiousness? But it is prudent to always be cautious with a strange dog.) We always make Donna sit so that she doesn’t approach the other people in the lift, but she does like to stare at them with her mouth hanging opened and then you will see Donna’s neck stretching out, nose in the air, sniffing, sniffing =.= Oh yes, she knows she has to sit, but the game rules didn’t say anything about pointing your nose as close to the stranger as possible while sitting, did it?

An aunt remarked before, if I didn’t know her, she can look quite scary. One can’t blame her when you compare Donna to this:

Warning image source

Not as big, fierce or scary, but tell that to the random passenger in the lift who takes one look at Donna and screams with a start, “No, I’m scared of dogs!”

And of course, people did and do use these dogs as guard dogs. On watsapp, a friend who saw her picture went, “hey, she looks just like our gaurd dog!” and promptly sent us a picture of her german shepard-mix rescue that her parents adopted.

So what do you do if you would like to have guests in your house and they are afraid of dogs?

Well, the Dog Whisperer refrain “No touch, no talk, no eye contact” works for me. Only I localise it to, “Aiyah just pretend she is a ghost and you can’t see her.”

To date, of all the house visitors I have, no one has done “no touch, no talk, no eye contact” as well as my mom. When she first heard I got a dog, she went, “I’m not going to visit you anymore. I’m scared of dogs. I don’t want her to lick me. ” Yes, her fear is kind of strange when you compare to the lady in the lift’s fear of being bitten.

And of course, my mom says one thing, but she really couldn’t resist coming. And when I said, “Aiyah just pretend she is a ghost and you can’t see her.” She went, “Cheh, you think I want to look at her?” And she didn’t, throughout the visit, Donna laid quietly in our proximity, mostly dozing off. And unlike to our other visitors, not once did Donna jump on my mom, or poke her nose into her personal space. And by the end of the visit, my mom happily went “bye, bye” to the dog.

Not a few days passed before my mom bought chicken claws purportedly for the soup, but I don’t think it was her usual practice to buy any part of chicken for lotus root soup actually. “Give the extra claws to her,” she went airily. And before long, both my mother and mother-in-law were dispensing dog advice as if they have lived with a dog all their lives.

Unfortunately for Donna, she never got those claws since our vet advised us not to give bones smaller than her head to her. She would recommend bigger bones like the knuckle but she did also tell us that bones can cause constipation. So, no bones, especially not cooked bones that can splinter and potentially puncture her internally.

So yes, once people spend some time, even that few minutes in the lift, they start to see that there’s nothing to fear with our not so little dog. A mother with a child even exclaimed, “wow, she is so well-trained” in the lift.

But you know what, sometimes my dog does scare me a little. But that happens at night when she gets fixated on some point behind my head like there is something there that I can’t see. :P

Donna nibbles and grooms her soft toys

By weliveinaflat

On March 9, 2013

In Behaviour

Donna is naturally curious and gets easily bored when there’s no one in the house.

Especially in the evenings, that’s when we may expect to come home from dinner to some form of destruction. She has murdered a beanie panda (travel souvenir) before, swallowed the beanie pallets and pooped beanie pallets for days. She has chewed into pieces the mini plastic sweeper and dustpan. She has chewed aluminium foil that we keep on the sofa to keep her off it. And she has eaten ginger and lemon grass teabags that are our lizard repellent All very dangerous things for her actually if you think of the splinters and possible choking risks.

We were told that toys are important to keep the dog from mischief when we had a house visit from Florence and her team.

Donna with the white bear and toy taxi from Florence.

Florence gifted us two soft toys before, one which she ripped after trying to play tug with it. We thought we would solve the problem by buying her a more durable stuffed toy that she would have difficulty ripping.

Enter the Chomper duck.

Oh sure, she played with it for a while, but with significantly less enthusiasm or interest compared to her more wimpy soft toys. = = I guess dogs just have this need to destroy?

That’s when we started asking friends for their old stuffed toys that they are looking to dispose. My friend Dot generously lugged all the unwanted toys from her office spring cleaning to our house for Donna.

The soft toys found favour with Donna, the rubber squeaky toys not so much. Donna wasn’t really interested in them but got so excited when we make them squeak that she started barking at home and we had to hastily keep it away. Maybe when we want to teach her to “speak” we’ll take them out again.

picture: Toys from Dot.
picture: Donna decided her bear needed grooming on its nose.

Meanwhile, we had stopped playing tug with Donna but we still didn’t have enough toys to ration and rotate and keep our dog from getting bored with her toys!

So for a while I was in the market for second-hand soft toys going for cheap in the online classifieds. We didn’t mind paying for quality toys for the dog but not for soft toys that we know would eventually be ripped apart. I did struck gold when there was an ad selling $1 soft toys. Turns out, the nice old lady was selling her collection of toys she had amassed for the SPCA jumble sale, which was cancelled. So lucky Donna added two new puppies, a bear and a rabbit in her collection waiting for her to hug, cuddle, nibble and eventually disfigure and dismember to her heart’s content.

The toys are big and good value for $1 :P but maybe a little too heavy for her to carry comfortably in her mouth :/

So yes, if you have soft toys to throw away, remember there is a not so little dog called Donna you can donate to.

This is thickskin and cheapskate signing off~

So what if the dog is microchipped?

By weliveinaflat

On March 8, 2013

In Health

Originally published: Mar 9, 2013
Updated: Aug 6, 2013 (to include modifications to further clarify the paragraphs applicable only for Singapore audience)

Donna came already microchipped when we adopted her. If she ever gets lost and a good samaritan found her, the good samaritan could do one of the following:
-Inform the AVA (Agri-food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore) or SPCA
-Bring Donna to the vet to scan for microchip

This is the point where it starts to get iffy for me. Since the dog is microchipped, it must be registered to some database, but which? The AVA? According to this news article, there are at least four existing microchip registries in Singapore owned by AVA, SPCA, ASD and Pet-Call. At the point of adoption, we had not registered our new dog ownership with AVA. Donna was from a shelter that was not the SPCA or the ASD. And I just did a search on the Pet-Call database and Donna’s microchip number yielded no results, indicating that she was not registered with them.

So if Donna, choy-choy, were to get lost, will she ever be returned even if she was microchipped?

So if you have a dog, doesn’t matter where in the world you are, whether you bought the dog somewhere or adopted it from wherever, do your dog and yourself a favour, make sure of the following:

make sure the dog is microchipped [weggieboy has kindly given some reasons why]
you know your dog’s microchip number
when scanned, the microchip returns the number accurately
the ownership details when retrieved using the microchip number is accurately reflecting your contact details (NOT the previous owner)
these details are registered in a registry that is most accessible by most vets and animal welfare associations in your country

Since we are in Singapore, my preferred choice would be to register for an AVA license and be included in the AVA database, with updated details of the new dog ownership. Under the legislation, we are supposed to do so anyway. An AVA license will also give you more options when you need to board your dog when you are going out of the country.

But if for some reasons you are unable to do so, Pet-Call will probably be the next best alternative. This means that if anyone were to bring in your lost dog to any agency listed on their list of agents (which includes SPCA and AVA), they would be able to scan and retrieve the dog owner’s details from Sapa Industries, which owns the Pet-Call database.

Now that I have ensured that Donna’s microchip number is updated with our new ownership details with at least one of the databases, all I have to do is to ask the vet to help scan Donna’s microchip to make sure it is still working fine, the next time we go for her annual checkup. It probably will be a good time to ask the vet more about the database they have access to. I’m particularly interested to know if there is a network database that all the vets tap into or is this something that is still work in progress like the national microchip database that the news article was talking about.

Note: I am a new dog owner and not an expert on the subject. The above is what I gathered from my research. I will gladly like to hear and correct if there are any errors in the above. Thanks!

References:
-http://www.spca.org.sg/services_lost_found_pets.asp
-http://www.spca.org.sg/pressrelease/PRreport2009.pdf

To tug or not to tug

By weliveinaflat

On March 7, 2013

In Training

Sunset, Warorot Market, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Before we went on a short trip out of the country recently, I wrote a 5-page Donna manual that I emailed to the dog-sitter. It was not so much I had time on my hands (which I had), but more because I didn’t understand how the dog sitter can take on our dog with minimal communication before hand. I mean life would be so much easier if our dog came to our house with a manual, but she didn’t and we sort of figure out things along the way. And from there, we established rules and limitations that will help us live in peace in the house as well as coexist harmoniously with our neighbours and the community in general.

By the time, we arrived at the dog sitter, I started to think that maybe the manual was pointless because Donna had started to react in the same way as she had experienced in the past — excitement and jumping up at the dog sitter whom she already knew from her days in the shelter. (I do discourage jumping with Donna because I do want to have kids. Donna does have a great patience for children but it will not do to have her jumping on babies or toddlers even if she meant no harm and only meant to express her joy at seeing them.) At least we knew she would be in good hands, and she was jubilant, so good for her.

Anyway, back to the 5-page manual which included what Donna was not supposed to do, like get up on the furniture. The other item was that the dog sitter was not to play tug with her. At that point in time I had not made up my mind about tug. The shelter did advise that if we were to play, we should win all the time otherwise some dogs may become aggressive. A lady in the dog park with a beagle told me that she used to win at tug all the time until the beagle quit playing tug altogether. A webpage advised that we should quit playing tug when the dog starts to growl. Another webpage said that it is normal for dogs to growl while playing tug and that a tug growl is different from an aggressive growl. With so many pieces of advice floating around, of course I was all confused. I eventually decided, let’s just not play tug all together, particularly since Donna has this awful habit of snapping at her toy, which had once ended up with a cut and blood on Mr P’s hand.

I first learnt about positive reinforcement when I stumbled on Kikopup’s dog training videos on Youtube. But I had not seen this one teaching you how to get the dog to play tug safely until this week via Ahimsa Dog Training’s Rules for Playing Tug with your Dog. I really like how she explains you can play tug not only safely for yourself but also safely so that you don’t hurt your dog’s neck.

See video

I thought that this is something we can work on with Donna because a game of tug is probably her favourite thing in the world after walks and food perhaps. And why deprive her her fun if we can make the play work for both dog and human.

Once we started trying out Kikopup’s method, Donna became too interested in food and decided she didn’t want to play tug anymore. Game stops. Treat stops. Human went back to study.

After two attempts, Donna clued in that if she took it and played tug and then drop it, she gets a treat yippee! So she went at it with 100% participation points, i.e. she jumped and tugged the rope even when the rope was not presented to her. This only meant that the snapping problem was not resolved and has resurfaced again, so we have to make sure she doesn’t get the rope since that means she gets rewarded with playing tug for the snapping behaviour.

The good thing is, she dropped the rope the minute the treat was presented, so we just have to go through enough iterations and hopefully she will be able to drop it on command, vs escalating arousal during the tug game and playing roughly. But first, I think I’m gonna need a long toy like in the video so that my fingers are safe!

How Donna came to us

By weliveinaflat

On March 6, 2013

In Training

When Donna came home with us, we pretty much had access to what was most accessible in the mass media – Cesar Milan and his Dog Whisperer series. You’re either a fan or a hater, or you couldn’t care less. Me? I thought the Dog Whisperer wasn’t a bad thing. It gave us newbies a clue as to what can get really bad with a dog and sort of prepared us for our first foray into dog shelter wonderland. I mean, come on, I never had close contact with dogs in my entire life, of course I’d be scared of walking into a shelter full of happy go lucky, barky dogs running around. So yes, I followed “No touch, no talk, no eye contact” that very first time we went to the shelter. Made a beeline for the bench right at the back of the big yard the ten or more dogs were in and plonked my butt on the bench and just sat there, soaked up the atmosphere. Had a big dog Mario plonk his head on my lap, as casually as the old school cat that used to climb into my cross-legged lap and nap there after I fed her (that was always the highlight of my day back in my teenage school life and yes, I was more a cat person than dog haha). Mr P’s cousin identified the dogs by name to us.

An hour or two later, we went out of the fenced yard with no dog in mind. To my untrained eyes, they look all the same! The only dog I can identify with 100% success rate was Mario, because he was the only white dog there. But he was too big for our apartment and we were looking for a younger adult dog who can spend many years with us. We were close to just leaving the shelter when Florence stopped to speak with us and suggested Donna, who was sharing a small yard closest to the exit, with the old male dog Buddy and a washing machine.

The introduction, now that one comes to think of it, is comical. Come in, this is Buddy, he is human aggressive. Just don’t go too near to him (maybe I just have a warped sense of humour). Donna was lying around sleepy after her meal, but she responded to treats, sat and pawed for us. Florence did some selling and we thought Donna was a possibility.

We subsequently had two trial homestays with Donna.

The first one freaked me out when she got so excited she pranced up and down the sofa and basically tuned me out. I tried to get her down the sofa, but her mouth was snapping at my hand. I went out to the balcony to regain my calm, by the time I returned, she calmed down too. Florence laughed and told me Donna never bit anyone before when I told her about the incident. On hindsight, we realised that she was having fun playing and never really intended to bite, but to someone like me with no real understanding of dogs, it can be unnerving with an out of control, excited dog.

By the second homestay, we had more confidence in ourselves after having visited Donna for many weekends walking her. We knew that Donna at the shelter is a different dog from Donna at home. Donna at the shelter was fixated on the main door, doesn’t finish her food, likes to steal morsels of food from Buddy, is challenging to leash when she squirms around in excitement and can rival an Olympic gymnast twirling a ribbon as she spins endlessly in circles, saliva trailing after her. Donna at home still turns her nose up on food, but is calmer and doesn’t spin frantically in circles. We may not entirely be assertive, but we are pretty calm and we have learnt after the first homestay to prevent her excitement from building up by stopping play and ignoring her until she calms down again.

Donna came home permanently with us at the beginning of this year. Florence warned us that all the bad habits will come out when she adjusts to her new home.

I did think of it as bad habits, but as I did more research on Donna’s behaviour, I started to think of it as the dog adjusting to a new abode and trying to make the best of living with two new humans. Donna was previously house-trained, so it was not difficult to get her back to using the newspaper. But if the newspaper was removed, or if the kitchen rug was in closer proximity, the kitchen rug became the next preferred place for her business. This to me was not ideal since it prevented me from getting my meals and her meals. Clean up became the top priority when she did it on the kitchen rug and clean up was a pain and I did lose my patience. I ended up throwing the rugs, and replacing them with new ones. Things went back on track for a while until I slipped a tray under the newspapers. It made sense to us as the tray can collect any seepage and we can push the tray under the sink so that the common toilet can still be used by house guests without the yucky feeling of dog pee on the toilet floor. Unfortunately, Donna decided she had a fear of the tray and went back to the next most sensible spot (to a dog) — the kitchen rug. By then, I was convinced that no matter how well trained, there is always the potential for mishap, so Donna was barred from the kitchen. We installed a child gate. And since I enjoyed our walks and hated cleaning up her pee and poop at home, I stopped lazing in bed and took her out for walks on time in the morning (delays could mean she would go at home) and also later in the evening and at night before her bedtime. My ultimate dream is for her to finally learn to poop on demand!

Fast forward to today, which is about two months since Donna has come to live permanently with us, I am starting to think that living with a dog will always be as much as an on-going process of adjustment as living with another human being. The difference is that there is so much more that one needs to actively learn in order to manage the dog since it cannot speak with us, give us verbal and easy to understand feedback like a human can. The Dog Whisperer continues to be a fun sort of entertainment where you can see all sorts of dogs that you may not see on the streets in Singapore, but we’ve also learnt that there is more than just one methodology when training your dog. Do we really need to be all dominant and always eat before we feed our dog, which pardon me, sounds a little wacky :P So more and more, I veered towards trying different things from bodily blocking her and stopping her from entering the study (which is out of bounds to her) to positive reinforcement of actions that I like from her. If I see her sitting calmly by herself outside the study while I work, rather than clattering in and demanding attention, I surprise her with a treat. After a while, she learnt to relax and chill out, catch a nap by the door.

I’ve also tried negative punishment – if she starts tugging, we walk in the other direction from where she wants to go, and when she stops tugging, she gets to continue the walk and that worked really well so that we can at least enjoy our walk together without inconveniencing the people around us particularly on narrow sidewalks.

But yes, two months is a short time and we are still very much a work in progress, trying to figure out how we fit and gel together from food to play to engaging and bonding with our new dog.

Note: This post is written March 06, 2013. It’s now 21 Oct, 2013. I’ve become better at reading dog body language and no longer watch Cesar Milan for entertainment. I have started finding it exceedingly uncomfortable to see the fearful dogs being dominated by a “trainer” who doesn’t understand the behaviours they are showing… too painful to watch. I will not recommend it as entertainment.