So the human has never considered hosting a Christmas Party before, so we probably never will if it wasn’t for Life with Lycan Lexie who proposed the idea. So together with Life with Lycan Lexie, Mango the Sheltie and Some White Cookie, the Christmas Party came to life in early December.
Tag: dogs of instagram singapore
Last Saturday evening, some members of the Dogs of Instagram SG facebook group had an Insta-meet Helloween event at Marina Barrage.
This is the first event for us where:
1) The dogs are encouraged to come in costume
2) We implemented the Ribbon System
Socialisation is an on-going process for every dog. Some of us may be hesitant about bringing our dog because your dog may not be so friendly to other dogs.
Sometimes, it’s just that the dog is shy and needs more space from other dogs. If we always keep our dogs at home, they have less chance to socialise well.
Therefore we are implementing the ribbon system.
– YELLOW – my dog is shy, please approach my dog slowly(ALL dogs will start with default yellow because no dog likes to have strange dogs or humans rush to pet them or interact with them without respecting their space. So please always ask the human before approaching the dog.)
– GREEN – my dog has no incident with other dogs in the last three events
– BLUE – my dog is training in progress, please Do Not Disturb.
(All humans please supervise your dogs when off-leash and on-leash and make sure your dogs DO NOT approach the BLUE dogs at all.)
Blue is not meant to denote aggression. It is what it is a dog that is training in progress. In Donna’s case, she wore the blue ribbon because I was going around handing out ribbons and may not have the time to supervise her.
Because the ribbon system is new to all of us, we probably still need time to develop the habit of checking for the ribbon as our dog ran around. Of course, nobody is perfect so there are times when dog runs around without close supervision.
There were also a couple of incidents of dogs growling and one incident where a scuffle left a dog with a bleeding eyelid. That tells me that we had better prepare to come with a first aid kit for future events.
The Foobler
During the picnic, Debrah from Nekojam.com took the time to show those who were interested the Foobler.
That’s actually a very cool treat dispensing ball that Donna has since been playing with. I really like the timer function which controls the dispensing of the kibble within the ball, that really helps prolong the game time for this toy.
Donna, Mango, Cookie, Cotton and Jacko are 5 of 10 #FooblerAllStars chosen to test out this product that is created from a Kickstarter project.
The Foobler is currently available at SGD$59.90 for pre-order. This discounted price is only valid until the end of the month. Last two days! Usual price SGD$70. More about the Foobler on nekojam.com
The walk
The plan was to take a walk along the Gardens of the Bay East after the picnic.
Most dogs made it across the bridge from the Marina Barrage here, where we took the photo. I think I count 23 dogs in the photo below. Hahaha.
That end of the bridge was the brightest spot possible for pictures in the night. The route gets fairly dark after that, with street lamps interspersed at regular intervals.
All the better to enjoy the night view…
But what I was surprised to find was… ONE firefly glimmering among the grass. I heard there used to be fireflies in Singapore, but with the built up of urban areas, they disappeared. So I must have been exceedingly lucky to see ONE of these tinkling fairylights :D
Only a handful of dogs made it to the end of the route we were taking. Nice work everyone! Much regrets on the way back the same route since we were dead tired by then. Hahahahaha!
It was still a fruitful outing for Donna who got lots of packets of treats from the kind humans who came with their dogs. Of course, the human confiscated all of them since Donna wasn’t allowed to eat them all in one sitting. Boo!
Note: As of 2015, Somewhitecookie and Weliveinaflat are no longer admins of the Dogs of Instagram Singapore facebook group. :P
I am admin of the Dogs of Instagram Facebook group and the @dogsofinstasg account with the following blogs/IGers – mangothesheltie and somewhitecookie.
When Mango’s human first created our Dogs of Instagram Facebook group. Her idea was that this was a common space for the Singapore Dog Instagram community to have a communal chat group. Conversations were happening all over the place on individual IG accounts and DMs, etc and if we want to go out as a group, it’s just difficult to manage such conversations on IG and/or watsapp. You can read more about her thoughts here.
I was never active on Facebook or in groups, so you can imagine we are all learning along the way.
Our activities so far
To date, Donna has gone to some informal outings organised by individual members of the group, such as:
A morning walk along the Green Corridor and
A mid-autumn BBQ party that I co-hosted.
But these are all small, informal outings to celebrate birthdays, recee the trails/route for official events or just inpromptu gatherings to hang out with dogs.
Our first official group event
We finally had our first official group event invitation extended to all over 100 members of the group. The outing was Cycling at Punggol Settlement. Fifteen dogs attended the event and we’re really pleased because less people than that accepted the invite.
Our next official events are the Halloween Picnic and Walk and our Christmas Party. The numbers of people indicating they’ll attend so far are good, but you know, as humans we always hope it’s better.
Group goals and objectives
At the end of the day, our Goal is to provide opportunities for all our dogs to mingle with all breeds of dogs. We are not a breed-specific dog group and we are proud of that.
To support this goal, we have been doing the following:
- Organised one event per month so meetups are consistent
- Organised a mix of different events to give all dogs equal opportunity to attend.
- A new photo contest theme every two weeks to encourage owners to share and learn more about each other’s dogs online, so we have topics to break the ice with when we have face-to-face meetings during events.
- Provide a group space online where members are more than welcome to chat and organise their own informal small group outings
While we say we are an all-breed group, sometimes, the photos can be misleading. There will be times where more of a certain type of dog attends an event, and then we may look like a Sheltie dog group or a Japanese Spitz group. We try to be all breed inclusive, but we can only be if owners of different breeds are interested to attend the specific events we organise.
A cycling activity may be more interesting to medium and big dog breeds that have lower risks of hip and elbow dysplasia. Small dog owners may not be interested in the active lifestyles that bigger dog owners prefer. There are a 101 reasons why people attend or do not attend events.
We can provide the opportunities, but dog owners themselves need to want to attend and mingle in order to help make the events a success. I am quiet and introvert by nature, so I guess, we humans can learn a lot from the dogs that aren’t shy. Haha!
So see you at our next event, and help spread the way to your other dog lover insta-friends so we can see more breeds around! ;)
Come cycling with Donna at Punggol Settlement!
Actually, the rental shops here offer more than bicycles. Some of the machines let you work out and enjoy the scenery along the Punggol Waterway at the same time. ;)
Come on with me and my super fluffy puffy chest friends on our Saturday morning adventure!
Where are we, you may ask.
Clue no #1: It’s Green Everywhere.
