Dog -friendly places in Singapore

Category: Explore Page 10 of 11

We were scheduled to meet with some small dogs for the first time.

And because we had a not so successful introduction to another dog before, and knowing that Donna can sometimes be overly friendly and want to approach some dogs we walk pass on our walks. And also that she has, admittedly, a past history of antagonistic relationships with other female dogs – namely her mother, siblings, a former cell-mate called Grace – I thought it prudent to take the dog for a long walk in the morning… 2 hours. :P *pats self on the back*

Aside: Doggerel recently published a post on that gives the key points how to introduce unfamiliar dogs, if you are interested.

We went to the pretty Bishan Park. (I have more pictures and a related news article on my previous post on this link to dog urban agility at Bishan park, if you are interested.)

One of the lovely features in the park is the man-made stream that runs through the length of it. At various points of the stream, there are stone steps that one can traverse across to get to the other side for the fun of it. We’ve never tried going across them before, but there’s always a first for anything isn’t it?

So I thought hey, Donna can parkour across the stream by hopping across the stone steps!

But first, the coast has got to be clear, so we waited for this man to come across. I thought to take a picture of Donna before she starts her journey across the stream, but she didn’t want to stay. She wanted to forge ahead.

Let’s take a drive to III Cafe & get our dog to behave calmly outside

By weliveinaflat

On August 7, 2013

In Explore

The last Sunday, Mr P was meeting some friends in the east so we hitched a ride to III Cafe. Perhaps due to the fall in the car she had the day before, it was much easier to get Donna to lie down for a longer time on the back. Remember friends, car safety first! (and yes, we are looking for a pet seatbelt.)

driving to III cafe

This was our first visit to III Cafe. It’s on the second floor of a row of shophouses and this is what it looks like.

donna dog at III cafe

We were there around lunchtime I think. Only one table had dogs and they were very friendly, which made me feel more comfortable to let Donna go leashless. Even though the puppy dogs were smaller than Donna, the corgi was the more playful one and they were able to run around and play for a bit. While the puppies’ humans were more relaxed, I was more uptight and watchful since I didn’t want Donna to accidentally hurt the puppies because she was bigger… I was perhaps too uptight. :P

A black mongrel, Happy, that was bigger than Donna came in later. You could tell he was a little nervous. Since Donna did play in a pretty balanced manner with the small dogs, we introduced Donna to Happy. I was surprised to find out that not only was the other dog younger than Donna, but he was also from the same shelter as Donna. Small world!

For a while, there were more than five dogs running around and I wasn’t sure when it started but I realised that Happy was trying to avoid Donna who playfully followed after him, so I stopped her while he retreated to under his humans’ table.

I subsequently read this post Puppy School of Hard Knocks by Nancy Tanner (if you have a puppy, this is good reading material ;) ) and I was glad that I stopped her when I noticed her getting more rambunctious. The puppies were reined in too as their humans wanted them to tone down a little and suddenly, Donna had no friends to play with.

donna dog at III cafe

At that point, it seemed like it was better for her to return to our table and practice staying.

We have had relatively little chance to practice staying when there are other dogs around. As a result, Donna is pretty good at staying in regular environments where the only distraction is vehicular/human traffic or cats. But Donna is very bad at staying when we meet other dogs. That is, unless she is on a leash. Hah!

donna dog at III cafe

To be fair, after I made sure that she was staying, I took off the leash and she did still stay. I continued with treating her for every few seconds or minutes that she stayed and was calm. But I’m afraid the treat wasn’t as exciting as the other dogs that were playing at the centre of the cafe. So it wasn’t for very long before she got up and tried to make for the other dogs playing in there. Still she was very good at staying even for a while, but even when on the leash, you can tell from the picture above, her attention to the other dogs and her interest in them. :P

If it was 6-7 months ago, I would never have the confidence to venture to a pet cafe with Donna. Right at the start of her homestays before we adopted, we realised that she is a very excitable dog. Even when playing simple games of fetch she could become so excited that she would start bounding all over the place and up and down the sofa uncontrollably. The effervescent self-entertainment would continue and no amount of “stop” or “no” would work and if you reached for her, she would think you are playing with her and get even more excited doing the doggy bounce of joy. So all we could do was to walk outside of the room to the balcony and wait for her to eventually calm down on her own.

I have inserted a Suzanne Clothier video – “Thresholds, Thresholds, and Doing Nothing” – here. Basically she talks about staying calm, not engaging with the dog that is over-excited, and just do nothing until the dog calms down.

If you are unable to view this video, please click on this link to view on Youtube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLriCeTYxLM

We were sure we didn’t want a high-energy dog that we couldn’t manage but at the same time, we weren’t sure if we wanted to explore adopting a different dog instead when she seemed to fit into our size and age requirements so well. Plus, she was also a very smart dog.

One of the materials that helped me a lot at that time was this video: Capturing calmness – How to train calmness in dogs.

I have inserted a kikopup video here. Basically she talks about how to continue to build calmness in your dog after you have waited him out and he has calmed down and is lying about minding his own business.

If you are unable to view this video, please click on this link to view on Youtube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wesm2OpE_2c

While this treating-the-dog-when-he-is-lying-calmly-doing-nothing business was new to me at that time, I was more than eager to just try anything that might work with Donna. She loved running in and out of the study to get our attention, so we treated whenever she was in the mood to tolerate lying by the door and mind her own business. We treated her when she decided she could lay on her strange, new bed to rest. We treated her when she rested outside of the kitchen rather than coming in and getting underfoot (we didn’t have a child gate then). We made sure we had treat jars in the kitchen and in the study so that we treat her very often for staying calm.

And after a while, it seemed she figured out the patterns. Perhaps too well, because she is so very calm nowadays we seldom see Donna playing with her toys or chewing on her many bones on her own much nowadays unless we missed a walk that day. In fact, except for one or two toys that were shredded in the early months, all her toys are intact now, with the occasional aid of a sewing needle.

It could be that once a dog leaves the shelter and gets regular exercise, he works off those excess energy and will in general become a calmer dog. The shelter has seen dogs like this. Logically speaking, the treating of the dog while she is staying calm does not negate but probably helps to enhance the effect (although it may be at the expense of weight management :P)

Mostly after her morning walk nowadays she likes to just lie prone on the floor or curled up like a donut on her bed and sleep the whole day away if we are busy, until after 5pm when she revives and wants to be entertained. Don’t get me wrong, she does still wake up infrequently and come to check on us. But she is generally happy to go back to sleep after a pet or two. Not that we are complaining, since that will fit as nicely into the schedule of working adults as we can hope for. :P

But yes, that is only half the story. Put a dog in front of Donna outside and she would rather meet them than stay. If she were playing, she would come if you call her, only to bound away again as if she has done her duty by coming to you. :P

I did like III cafe. It was very clean, the staff and the patrons cleaned up after their dogs promptly. The staff is also very friendly, even though I only ordered a hot chocolate and stayed for a pretty long time :P (I had intended to have lunch there but ended up supervising my dog as she played. – – Haha! So yes, no food and no pictures while they were playing.)

Overall play experience for the dog depended on the mix of dogs that were visiting though. And given the space, it probably would be too crowded if most patrons came with big dogs. But when I was there, there was only one dog that was bigger than Donna.

But mostly I like that this is a pretty good place with some distraction to practice staying calmly by my feet with Donna. Not a bad place to go to, except for the distance and the shortage of parking space. And of course, the need to pack really high value treats to compete with all the exciting dogs running around!

Smokin’ Parkour

By weliveinaflat

On June 23, 2013

In Explore

We did crawl a little bit under a metal rung that was on our way to pee break outside in the haze. :P

We are having a break from the haze today with PSI under 100, i.e. moderate air quality. But it’s not difficult to empathise with our neighbours in Malaysia, who earlier declared a state of emergency in the Muar and Ledang districts where PSI breached 750.

Run. Wildly. Crazily.

By weliveinaflat

On June 14, 2013

In Explore

Donna? She is hiding somewhere. Can you spot her? Somewhere in the grass.

Right there. No, nevermind the topless man. Look further in front. Do you see a little bit of ear and forehead poking through the green blades, two beady eyes no doubt looking this way. We visited this park again where there is a tiny dog run.

There was already a Schnauzer there and boy did he over-react. Barking and jumping and all excited. The Indian man the dog belonged to invited us into the dog run but I had my misgivings. Donna may be bigger than the Schnauzer but she has not had much success at one of the more popular dog parks particularly with the excited dogs that rush at her and I didn’t want her to start developing a fear of entering this tinier, less popular dog run too!

Lucky for us the Indian man was gracious and vacated the dog run for us. So Donna had the time of her life galloping around off-leash like a crazy horse. Meet Donna and her photoshop clone Donna-02 again! They fly like the wind.

People do yoga in the park, sometimes they sit and reflect or relax. I have not thought much about my faith, religion or spirituality. My identity card says I think everything is free but My P thinks I lean towards atheism. When I was younger, I had faith that I can do anything, now that I am older, I harbour more doubts and disbelief.

Spirituality is a concept as alien to me as it is to Donna probably. I suppose you can say neither the dog nor I are very reflective. Perhaps we live too much in the moment?

All I know is I am most carefree when we are out and about, the sun is not too bright and hot, there is a cool breeze and there is lots of time to spare with nothing harrying on my mind. You feel like you are at one with the surroundings and there is nothing that can bring you down.

See her fly.

She had a great time, until this text message beeped in my phone at 11:15am: “Hi today got lesson 11am!” from my driving instructor.

Oh crap.

Let’s go for a drive to Cafe Melba

By weliveinaflat

On May 26, 2013

In Explore

I was down with influenza with mild fever over the weekend. Doctor ordered bed rest and prescription drugs that knocked me out for more than a day. Mr P was mostly out of the house as his cousin was getting married that day.

As you can imagine, the dog spent a couple of boring days waiting by the door for me to rise up from the dead.

Yup, a very bored dog.

I felt better today so we went to a pet-friendly cafe for brunch.

She had a bowl of water, snatched bits of scrambled egg that I accidentally dropped on the floor and got petted a lot by three little girls. They had a great time shaking her paw and giving her treats. That got her quite happy… the treats, not the paw shaking with little girls. Haha~ She kept looking at me with shining eyes, so I gave the little girls quite a bit of treats to give her.

She hates the iPhone flashlight. Took me a while to figure out to turn it off for the app I was using.

Masked canine stalks local park

By weliveinaflat

On May 23, 2013

In Explore

Dogear6 wrote a post on Escaping in the City where she shared some amazing topiaries she found at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I enjoyed that, so I thought I share some pictures of Donna in one of Singapore’s biggest parks.

We visit it pretty often since we live around 1/2 hrs walk from it. The 62 hectare Bishan Park has been renovated last year and fairly suits the “escaping in the city” theme with its “naturalised” landscaping. Don’t tell the other dogs but this park now sports some pretty awesome landscape rocks, cross river stone paths, low walls and other relief that makes doggy parkour a pretty fun game to explore here.

Donna has started to respond to “up-up” and to climb up on rocks, park stools and public structures about 50-80% of the time. And you know what? Doggy parkour is a great skill for your dog if you love to take doggy pictures. Haha!

Masked canine contemplates swooping down Recycle Hill. These ragged rock steps that we stand on were made from the remains of an old canal which was removed to make way for a “naturalised” river, which basically means man-made. :P And we are enjoying the new river plains landscaping because now we can see some bird like herons and other water birds visiting, they who used to look down their long beaks at the old canal! :P

But really, the masked canine much prefers chilling out on her rock in the cool shade over here in the secluded water lily ponds.

And after all that jumping and running, there are sun deck loungers along the footpaths that one can lounge on and rest, if only the weather wasn’t so glaringly hot!

But if it’s so fun here? Where are the other dogs? Well, back in the fenced dog run of the park where we left them!

The last time we arranged to meet up with Dou Dou and her humans before we attempt to drive to the Nat Geo Free Pet Shop event together was a Saturday. We agreed to meet at the dog run but Donna was reluctant to approach once we were near to the vicinity of the dog run, having spied a large golden retriever. Perhaps it triggered memories of her bad experiences in the dog park. So instead, we met Doudou a distance away from the dog run.

I was keen to see if Donna has become fearful of the dog run in general, so after that day we continued to visit the park. The pleasure of consistently training Donna to walk beside me manifested itself then. We were finally able to walk the half hour to the park without having to stop more than a couple of times. When she was less good at walking by my side, we never did make it to the park much since time usually ran out and we had to turn back to go home.

On the few occasions we were there, Donna was able to walk back and forth in front of the dog run without the original resistance that she had displayed. She did not try to avoid the dog run like the last time. When led to the perimeter fence of the dog run, she sniffed intently despite the big dogs in the fenced enclosure. It is interesting how specific a dog’s reaction can be. Donna has encountered bigger dogs at other places without apprehension. It seems like only when the dog run and its vicinity is visited by big dogs that she displays the fear that had her tail tucked tightly between her legs. She has showed improvement. Her tail positions vary from half-mast to down but not curled tightly in between her legs. I did not observe any yawning or lip licking so if there was any fear, perhaps it was mild.

But really, once we left to explore the rest of the park and were some distance away from the dog run, her tail sprang to life!

So yes, this park is great for doggy parkour.

Source: wildsingapore

As for the dog run, I would be cautious. If we were to go in there again, I would make sure we move to a far corner to avoid dogs that charge in at the entrance. Otherwise, we’ve met some friendly people there and we didn’t have much trouble with the dogs yet, once they finished charging in of course. :P

If you are interested, Dr Sophia Yin has a great poster on Dog Park Etiquette that can be downloaded for free as well as tips how to train a dog to prevent him from being part of any unhappy situation that may escalate in a dog park in the dog park. Southslope.org has a nice Dog Park Etiquette Poster with lots of useful tips for adults and for parents with children on how we can help make the dog park an enjoyable place for all humans and dogs and also what to do, if a fight breaks out.

Rustic Colbar is Dog Friendly

By weliveinaflat

On May 19, 2013

In Explore

Colbar

Anyway, some years back, the three of us decided to escape to this “jungle hideout” for a long lunch because the bosses were not in office. Hah!

Colbar dog friendly

Colbar is a random kopitiam-esque eatery that serves the following menu:

Colbar Menu – courtesy of Cavin Teo

We ate simple fare that was more expensive than average. We talked about politics and race. We lapsed into companionable silence and generally hung out. That was 2010. We have walked different paths since then.

What the Colbar lacks in food and service it more than makes up for in ambiance though. Sitting amid the lush foliage with cicadas chirping in the background, Colbar is a wonderful rustic escape and a great stopover if you are in the Alexandra Road area.

Read untourtistsingapore’s longer review here.

Location:
9A Whitchurch Road
Wessex Estate
Open: Tues to Sun, 11am – 10pm (closed on Mondays)

Parking:
There is free parking along the road and in the Wessex Estate parking lot.

Click for more dog-friendly cafe and shops in Singapore!

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Nat Geo Free Pet Shop

By weliveinaflat

On May 6, 2013

In Explore

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.

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.