Mutts & Me - Plus the adventures of Toy & Tui!: rehabilitate

I just realised, this is gonna be the 2nd post of 2014 and its already April. My god.

Im currently lying down with Toytoy beside me (shes has been licking the pillow for the past 10 mins, and still doing so).

So... what have I been up to?

Shelter work was quite _____ (I cant find the right word) for the past few months. Was assigned to Tex and he almost drove me crazy with the constant pulling and tugging on our walks. Tried alot of methods but it doesnt work because his attention was 0 the minute we bring him out. Felt so frustrated when I bring him for walks because he drains all my energy within 15mins. So during the Cny break I took time off to find back my determination + motivation to continue working on him. (In between then I mostly brought my bf out for walk :X) I was at the brink of giving up rehabilitating him. And Im glad I didnt.

In my opinion, I realised when you want to help a dog, you dont just help, help (when the care and love doesnt come from within). To me, when I work on Tex for the first few times, I help because I need to, not because I really want to (as I felt that I couldnt connect with him). You can cheat the others, or lie to yourself, but they (the dogs) can sense it. That feeling sucked. Thats when I decided to give it another shot - start building bond with him from scratched, unlike Tui which I dont know why I fall in love with him the moment I had a long eye contact with him, bond and trust need to be built. For him and for me. With love, my patience level for him increased, you dont have to purposely remind/control yourself to remain calm, you will just naturally do. Just like how I spent my time working on Tiger, Coco and socks. Not sure how other volunteers work... but this is what I feel, I need to have a certain kind of bond with the dog before I can put my heart and time in productively.. :D

Together with "Ah Mah" Cinthia, we took turns to charge him in the kennel. I would say luckily she hanged on because somehow she was one of the reason that I didnt stop - we supposed to work as a team, if I backed out, left her only and that makes me feel bad. Tex behaves very well in the kennel, very attentive especially when there's food. But the moment he goes out *BAMMMMMM* you can fly. Then again he is really super sweet and can sit very well beside you waiting for treats. Months passed and we decided to bring him out for short walks. Sadly, he was very reluctant to leave kennel when we were all ready to bring him out. For my case, I had to coaxed/pull abit and wait for him... that took me about 15-20 mins to get to the garden area.

With Cynthia's help (we go on different days lah, so i didnt really see her in the shelter but she brought him out for walks together with Jia Hui, Baby, Sasha and Peanut), Tex improved quite abit! Now he can go for pack walk without killing me immediately. (So far we went to pet movers nia).. Gonna try walking to Halus this weekend with him and hopefully he will maintain.. Loose leash walking yo! *Cross fingers*

Handsome boy

In between March, I embarked on my special- long procastinated-project of painting the kennel walls again. This time round, alone LOL.

I started on a weekend and I realised Im too naive to think that I can paint the walls with 5 cans of paints, a brush, a plate and a pencil. Awesome. WHERE IS THE THINNER TO CLEAN/WASH THE BRUSH. -____-" Previously when we painted LOL kennel (Labour of Love) all the stuff were provided. See lah, take things for granted.

So in the end I only managed to draw the rough sketch and painted the outline on that day. Went to get all the necessary items and more colors ;) before I went back on a weekday to complete my project.

I sat there for a good 5 hours. Tiring. But the kind of simple happiness couldnt be replace. Just paint, listen to songs, occasionally gg into the kennel to play with the boys (3Ts).. Naise..

Here's the final product:

Poop Poop

Poor boys had to be locked up for 5 hrs while I paint. Dont wanna risk my art work nor their lives. Later they go and lick the paint i die..

Here's Kai kai and Xin xin.

If you have watched the dance video of 2 dogs imitating korean girls (Keep jumping non-stop), yeah..

They are the ones..

They looked like 3 T's family, blend in perfectly.

Super affectionate and love to pounce on you!

Here's a random pic of Tomas.

Signature Sio Bak pose.

Here's Lucky~ And Ps: Look at Fat jack behind..

Jackjack

Tonkin after drinking milk..

He planned to save those milk for supper..

Visited Tonic during one of the weekday as he fainted in the shelter due to stroke. Old boy can still eat and drink alot. Luckily...

Brought Tui boy for a swim at Pasir ris park the other day.

The sun was scotching hot but we havent go to the beach for soooo long..

and so....

Tui: Dont like that look at me leh, never see people swim so gracefully before meh?

It was worth the sweat when I see him running into the waters and swimming happily..

Crocodile dog

i know right, the water damn dirty. It was high tide.

Looking at the malay family having bbq. And they were looking at him too (He was showcasing all his tricks in order to get the home cooked chicken i brought). Secretly 暗爽 and Hao lian when I heard them passing comments to one another, they sound impressed. Muahaha.

This kind of face only appear when I have food in my hand -__-

The journey back was so torturing for the both of us.

On the way back into kennel I decided to put my bag in the car first, the moment i opened the car door.... ZZZZ FATTY TUI QUICKLY RAN UP and PARK HIMSELF INFRONT OF THE AIRCON.

Kns. Den where i sit?!

Tried coaxing him and pulling him out but he was super determined to rest for a good 10 min. I had to sit at the back while waiting for him to rest finish. Dog slave.

Meanwhile In the Big Big House...

Muddie boy had his surgery to remove his right eye. Went to visit him before his surgery

Muddie

A Happy Mud

Indie the princess

Miller the fat boy, opps. Not anymore. After shedding 14 kg, he can now pounce on me like he only weigh 4 kg. I almost broke my back.

Dumbo~~~

Camcam, do you love Auntie May?

*Jeanine, I really... dun wan to be called Auntie T_T*

Little boyfie giving Elliot a hug

My personal couch

Uncle Weijie giving Muddie a good massage

Our simi simi group photo. I love this pic!

On a separate occasion, we celebrated Elliot's 10th Birthday in da big big house.

Few days before his bday he got attacked by mudmud :( Hence the wound on his face. It was really bad...

May you live your life healthily and may we celebrate more birthdays with you in years to come Elliot.

We love you.

I decided to do more updates another day. If not I tomorrow cannot wake up for work liao.

Good Night Peeps!!!

TGIF!! ITS 12.00 AM.

BYEBYE~~~

Have been working on Coco, Tiger and Socks for the past 1 month, but Tiger went for homestay halfway through before I could see any progress in her, and got lost after that :(

Their standard position when I come in.

The trios

Tiger

Coco

Socks

*The picture damn fail, sorry if you see already will pek cek*

Too many lost dogs cases happening..

Chilli, walker, and now Tiger.. Sadly, I don't think she can survive in the outside world like Chilli..

And I wonder how is she doing now.

So without Tiger, I diverted my time and attention towards Coco and socks,and occasionally the 3 giants - Emma, Ernie and Eddie..

Do re me fa (soh) at the back

Ernie posing for cam haha

Look at sock's tamjiak face!!

Ernie is also very tamjiak one

Can you see the (soh) behind??

PS: Look at socks again, can only see her teeth hahaha!

My fav pic of Emma

Eddie

They are a whole sweet bunch especially Ernie. People will normally judge him before they get to know him due to his size and color, yes he is BIG and BLACK, but that doesn't mean he is aggressive and scary. He will prove you wrong!

CUTE BO ?!?! His antena ears *AWWW*

Ernie has special talent

not graceful enough T_T

Coco and socks are slowly opening up. And I make sure I prepare a lot of high value food for them every session. (Coco lah, so choosy, don't want to eat the more economical treats *Side stare*, Socks more Cincai, everything also eat).

Very blur pic, they are trying to run away from the bangala worker who was cleaning the kennel..

Socks:

Remember on the first session: She will freeze in a corner everytime I go into the kennel and twitch/shiver whenever I touch her body.

Like a mouse

Always this corner, this position..

Touching her head was quite a challenge as she tend to avoid and run around

Today: She wagged her tail and glinting smile when I stand outside its kennel.
:DDDD

Im able to touch her on her head without her running away that much, or at least she doesn't twitch anymore (need to work more to desensitize her to human touch), when I have super high value food, heh heh, she will shamelessly run up to me and show me her puppy eyes glowing with sparkles.

At times, Socks will also attempt to steal the food off my hand, cheeky girl!

Happy socks :)

However till now, she is still very wary of unfamiliar faces/ when she sense somebody is outside the main kennel, she will run and hide in a corner. Have to slowly find way to work on that hmmm.

When Im working with Coco and Socks, this neighbouring furball will peep over, hoping to get some food from me

How to ignore his pitiful look!?!?!

Coco:

On the first session, her face is like that:

Second session also like that.

Third session, STILL LIKE THAT.

With tails tugged in. Although she doesn't show any signs of aggression, she definitely isn't very happy with my presence. I know -_-

Minghui teaching me how to train her with food

Over these few weeks, she learnt how to give eye contact when I feed her..

And today she wag her tail at me also!!! SUPER TOUCHED SIA!!
Last session I realized that she can also be very sweet. and that she likes people to saying her cheeks, oh, she give me a short lick on my face too!

SMILE MORE COCO!!

Tried putting collar on her today, (ok, some of you must be thinking, collar only what very hard to put meh.. But you are wrong. Some dogs tend to run up and dog, dodging here and there to avoid the collar, it is very tiring for the humans to chase them around especially when we are rushing for packwalk), so for Coco, 60% of the time she will freeze there, 40% will dodge her head away, but so far so good. Spammed her with treats everytime I put and remove the collar. She will also react to her name when I call her now!! Whoo hoo! Sense of accomplishment.

Maybe to the people who have been interacting with her all along, this might be something very normal but ahem, its a small milestone for me. And seeing this gives me the motivation to commit more to this 2 babies, they sure have the potential to go out and see the world :D

**********************

Some random updates here and there:

Went for the Nat Geo Free Pet Shop Event last week