Loves to tug…
… violently.
Loves to fetch…
… but doesn’t always bring it back.
Loves a tummy rub…
… she loves you back.
Category: Dog Care Page 17 of 20
Much as we love our dog… she can sometimes have her four feet planted too firmly on the ground. Particularly when she smells tuna in the kitchen. But my dear, I can be stubborn too. The tuna went into the fridge to be dished out the next day instead.
Dogs in the city need to be adaptable and independent, especially if they are re-homed with families with working adults. We’re slowly working with Donna to get used to be alone in preparation for the day I find a job. Our dog survived 8 hours alone at home yesterday. That is the longest yet, with no accidents! We’re so proud of her.
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.
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
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?
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.
"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.
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.
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.
