We live in a flat

Page 66 of 75

Forbidden… but allowed on a case-by-case basis

On June 6, 2013

She vexed me today. We came home to find the dog was doing a little interior rearrangement of her own. A vase of roses toppled, the water spilled on the floor and laid stagnant about and under the TV console. That must have surprised and made her nervous. As I scolded and cleaned, I could find traces of saliva dripped in various corners of the living room and corridor.

“Bad girl. Bad. Bad.” went my almost monotone voice. I don’t scream at her but the human still needed to let out some frustration. And since I was cleaning anyway, my frustration went ahead to wipe the white TV console more thoroughly than normal and of course the floor behind and under it. “Bad. Bad.”

I was at the doctor this morning and tired. So I left her alone after I cleaned up to get my own rest. Perhaps an hour later, I heard strange noises that I thought could be her woofing a little in her sleep. Came out of the room to find her in the toilet puking on the newspapers and pee pad.

The two thoughts – worry and “thank god this dog is smart enough to go do it in the toilet” – occurred simultaneously.

“Good. Good girl!” I petted her gently and clapped, half hoping to lighten the mood so she doesn’t feel so awful and half hoping the praise will cement in her brain that ALL future episodes of puking should happen here. “Good job. Good girl.”

That was before I saw the two more puddles of vomit on her bed and another before her bed. She probably did not have the time to head for the toilet so she threw up all her breakfast, and guess what, bits of dried flowers and rose leaf there. I had mistaken her food tasting and self-intoxication session for interior redesign. = =!!!

She was to vomit 8 times in total. The last time, she set on the pee pad and she struggled a bit, her muzzle pinched looking before she threw up mostly white phlegm-looking liquid. Then it was almost as if she was exhausted, she shook off my petting hand and walked away from me to settled down on her own on the floor.

Her bed, grossly soaked and packed with soggy kibble, canned food, barley and the incriminating dried floral arrangement, was packed and dumped in the garbage. So now my sick dog is one bed short. THIS is the reason my friends why a dog should have at least TWO cheap beds and not one ridiculously over-priced bed from the pet shop. I feel so affirmed. Haha! :P

It started to thunder and rain. So today, for the comfort and ease of my poor sick dog, the forbidden study is not forbidden. (I hold my breath that she does not puke again in the study!)

The scenario is pretty similar to the last time she tried to intoxicate herself with a hydrangea leaf, except that that was one quarter of an extremely toxic leaf. So now on top of instituting the forbidden balcony, Mr P will have to consider more carefully when he buys flowers for his wife in future.

But no, that is not why she is behind bars in this picture. Haha :P

LIFE… as it happened.

Theoretically, Donna should be a forbidden subject since mongrels are not HDB-approved by default. You could seek approval but it is subject to approval on a case-by-case basis. And in the case where the dog is not approved, you need to rehome the dog. – –

On the micro-level, our household operates with similar methodology. Donna knows what’s forbidden about the house – the sofa, the kitchen, the rooms – unless we explicitly lets her on or in them. Barricades, like the child gate we’ve installed, are so effective in communicating boundaries.

I like to think our household governance is more compassionate than…. bureaucracy. Most people would have that preference.

Humans are not so easily deterred by rules and regulations. Our eyes seek out the holes and the cracks that sneaks us a peek into what lies behind the barricade. Sure we read the sign-posted “No Entry” disclaimers. But even before the developer was ready to hand over the keys, some more enterprising future neighbours of ours had already sneaked into the development to take pictures and videos of the corridors and the unlocked units.

The Sign Says… doesn’t mean people and dogs will follow.

Interesting isn’t it, how things forbidden present the most desirable adventures to humans and dogs alike.

That’s the answer to why that dog was behind bars in the forbidden kitchen in the first picture. She sneaked in, but unlike our human neighbours, she couldn’t sneak out again. :P

Reference
– when to take a vomiting dog to a vet
– ASPCA dog care – vomiting

My camera roll is full of junk

By weliveinaflat

On June 5, 2013

In Photography

It’s time to delete,
there’s no more space.
Gorillacam, Snapseed
refusing to save.

“We’re on strike!”
The apps are crashing.
The signs are clear,
Phone’s just not memory-sing.

It’s time to go,
free the parking lot,
please Batman and Robin,
this is not your slot.

So they raced past strange signboards,

Their capes uplifting.
Not sure ’bout their morals,
they almost went drifting.

A barking dog set them

scooting away,
ducking in the shadows
where gruesome holds sway.

“My wings’ getting tight,”
Batman stops in mid-flight,
“Rest I must.”
Robin dumbstruck by the fuss.

Batman hangs on a fence,
enjoys the cool breeze.
Security must be tight here.
Batman is pleased.

Because of the way it sounds in Chinese, a bat can be a sign of fortune to come. ; )

And yes, great excuse to purge the phone so that Donna pictures can erm… continue to be edited for future posts :P

This helped a lot in helping me to get rid of undeletable previously-synched photo albums in the iPhone that iTunes refused to let me remove. More than 12000mb saved!

lisamhos

Re: How to delete Photo Library from iPhone

Jul 9, 2012 11:04 AM (in response to davacoco)

I had this exact issue just now. I researched and compiled all of the answers. Surprisingly it worked.

1) On my PC desktop, I right clicked and created a new folder. I named it “Empty folder”.

2) I plugged in my phone to computer, opened iTunes.

3) Clicked on my phone on the left

4) Clicked on “photos” on the top

5) Clicked the box “Sync Photos with”

6) Choose the dropdown and “choose folder”

7) Click “desktop” option

8) Click on the folder that you created and named whatever you named it.

9) Click “apply/sync”

In doing so, it deleted the “Photo Library” with the little sunflower as well as a “My Photos” album it had also created, but it left all of my other photos that I wanted to keep.

I’m shocked that this actually worked.

Hope this helps you.

Forget the silver lining…

By weliveinaflat

On June 3, 2013

In Photography

… rainbow sighting from the balcony today!

A tiny rainbow has lost itself in our horizon today. Oh joy!

I was a sickly thing over the weekend. Yes, again. Hence this blog seems to have come to a bit of a standstill. : (

More activity when I recover. Thank you for the patience and love : ) while I slowly creep back into the zone. The viewfinder definitely helps with focusing! And also losing the big picture when one’s zoomed in too much! But yes, I’m blathering~

In which the dog amuses herself…

By weliveinaflat

On May 30, 2013

In Behaviour

What do you mean you’d rather sit there and drink coffee?

Well then, I SHALL amuse myself!

… amuse myself…amuse myself…amuse myself…amuse myself……amuse myself…

… there… I’m AMUSED.

It took me a while to clue into what she was doing sticking her nose into her toy bin, so the pictures started mid-way of her spreading her toys on the floor.

We didn’t measure when we bought the bin. So when we got home and compared, we worried that the bin was perhaps too high for her to comfortably get at her toys in the bin. Obviously a groundless worry.

She probably wanted to share her toys and play with me, except that I really needed to have my breakfast caffeine yesterday morning before I do anything else, heh~ :P Don’t worry, she got her fun after that :P

By the way, I discovered snoopygrams today.

Give yourselves a pat on the back people! :D

Kibble hunting in the flat

By weliveinaflat

On May 29, 2013

In Behaviour

Donna does not like kibble. She doesn’t. Period.

To demonstrate, I thought I will take pictures of my left hand offering kibble to her and she will show a disgusted face, sort of like this one when she refused to touch the toy car the other day.

See that’s what she does, sniff… telepathically send the “you want me to eat that??? Ur-g-hh” message as she pointedly looks away.

So here goes my left hand with the kibble… and of course she is going to sniff and raise her eyebrow at me…

… wait…”Crunch crunch”… wait a second… did she just eat the kibble?

She just ate the kibble! *I refused to take a picture of my stunned face.*

In the last couple of months, we’ve bought Canidae Grain-free Pure Sky, TOTW Pacific Stream and Wellness Core Reduced Fat Formula kibble for her. All of which she looked at with snorts of disdain. And just now she took a Fromm Dog Pork and Applesauce kibble without batting an eyelid! Are you joking me?

So I thought let’s test again.

… stupid dog ate the kibble.

I suppose I should be happy we finally found kibble that she actually liked enough to eat on its own without us having to top it with wet food, milk, yoghurt or tuna etc, etc.

So now you just have to be satisfied with not seeing her highness’ icy disdain which I had originally planned as a prelude to telling you the other silly game we play to get her to eat kibble on her own = =!

Sigh. Foiled by my dog.

Anyway back to the story of making it fun for Donna to eat kibble. I wrote this a month ago when Donna was still refusing to eat kibble, probably should have published it sooner, rather than later. (This is so not enjoyable, since there doesn’t seem to be a point to it now, is there?)

So anyway, about a month or more ago we started playing the kibble hunting game with Donna. It started because after a walk, Donna appeared too tired or lazy to want to get her food out of her Kong Genius Leo by herself. Or sometimes it rained too heavily in the morning and we opted to go for a quick loo break rather than a morning walk. We needed to find some way to run off that excess energy so that she does not get bored and then destructive if we had to leave her alone at home.

We already knew that Donna gets excited chasing after the kibble that fall out of her Kong Genius Leo. So on those mornings when she was too lazy to jump around with her Kong, I sat in the middle of the living room with a ration of her kibble and threw it one by one and she ran after them. It totally worked. It was quite amazing actually, I could understand chasing after food that you like, but chasing after food that you don’t? I can’t explain it but it worked with her. So good!

You decide how far, how fast and the direction you throw the kibble. And that determined the distance and speed the dog covers during this short exercise. Generally, start slow and build up. After the 5th kibble, Donna typically starts running up to the kibble and crunching it. Yes, the dog did not eat kibble then. She did not seem to use her sense of smell as much as her ears to hear the kibble skipping across the tiles and her eyes to see where the kibble lands before running to lap it up. The more praise and the faster the kibble gets thrown, the more excited she gets, bounding to the left and right after kibble, her tail waving in the air.

But I am careful not to get her too excited because she chases the next kibble even when she hasn’t finished crunching the previous kibble and that could possibly lead to her choking on half-crunched kibble bits while bounding around in excitement.

After a while, she would slow down, possibly panting as she walked calmly to the thrown kibble. That will be my cue for dumping the remaining kibble into her bowl topped up with a scoop of wet food so she would finish it.

Simple game, totally FREE, and gets her up on her feet and having fun. Not bad for breakfast interaction with the dog before we needed to get out of the house.

The downside? You find some gritty kibble crumbs underfoot but nothing sweeping the floor can’t solve.

Morning Light

By weliveinaflat

On May 28, 2013

In Photography

I love early mornings when the sun casts shadows on the glowing concrete.

See the dog…

… and know the humans are never far away.

How much is that doggy in the background?

By weliveinaflat

On May 27, 2013

In Photography

It’s kind of hard to relegate Donna to the background when I’m supposed to be holding onto the leash, so we’re depending on some multiple-exposure app goodness here! Hah!

I guess the Japanese doll graphic is copyrighted to the tissue box manufacturer whose product I took a photo of. It was handy since I was busy blowing my nose off from the influenza. :P

Another one, this time comprising photos of the dog at different distances away from me in the living room. Can you spot the one in the background?

iPhoneography Challenge (Abstraction)
It seems we can choose from the list of themes provided this week. I was keen to further explore multiple exposures, so I chose to do Abstraction. Although I’m not sure if this really fits. :/ Heh~
Apps used: Pudding Camera, Blendcam, Gorillacam, Snapseed

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.

Can my dog’s brown eyes turn green?

By weliveinaflat

On May 23, 2013

In Behaviour

People with multiple dogs in the household may have experienced doggy jealousy.

Yes! Dogs do get jealous according to this 2008 Time article that references a Dec. 10 study published in the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. When a pair of dogs were asked to perform an action but only one dog was rewarded, the unrewarded dog could possibly feel emotion that screams “Not Fair”.

To reveal Fido’s green-eyed monster, Range and three other scientists at the University of Vienna put together pairs of domestic dogs, each accompanied by an experimenter. Both dogs in each pair were given commands to place their paws in the experimenter’s hands, and when they obeyed, they were given a reward — a piece of bread or sausage. But when one dog wasn’t given a reward for obeying, and the other dog in the room was, the unrewarded dog would refuse to respond to the repeated commands. The scientists measured the dogs’ responses by how many times they had to prompt the unrewarded dog before it obeyed.

The dogs’ reactions to the unfair distribution of rewards is called “inequity aversion” — when an animal acts to stop perceived inequalities within its social group — and it’s a defining characteristic of social, or cooperative, species. “They wanted the same reward for the same work,” says Paul Morris, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Portsmouth who specializes in animal behavior. Morris is quick to explain that the study’s results aren’t anthropomorphic: “I’m not saying that dog jealousy is precisely like human jealousy.” Instead, he says, the dogs likely experienced a primitive form of envy. Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1865847,00.html#ixzz2U82fJyQZ

We are not a multiple dog household. (In fact, the Housing Development Board (HDB) rules does not allow more than one dog per household.) But sometimes, I wonder if our dog gets jealous, for example when I feel too hungry and decide to feed myself first before I feed her. Does she think “not fair”? I do know that she does come right up to the table and produce lots of sniff, sniff, sniff, sniffing before she snorts her disgust at my ignoring her and concentrating on my food. Then she turns and plonks herself on the floor, her back facing me almost as if she was mortally insulted. (Ok, that’s probably me attributing imaginary emotions to her :P)