Recent pics during Search & Rescue Training

Here's some pictures taken during my search & rescue training.

I was made to pose beside this huge machine.




















Heroic pose















Did you notice my 'superman cape' beside me? Well, I'm only allowed to wear it when 'working'.




Here's me trying my best to sniff out the victim.














Erm.. HC said the victim is definitely not hidden in the drain. Rats, maybe.. but not human victims!


Maybe the victim is hidden underneath the rubble?














Yup! I got it. I am actually barking in the bottom pic.

The training session was usually between 10mins to 30mins. But each time, it really tires me out as I got to 'think' like mad.

(HC : Joey is very 'careful' during his search. He will try to find the best way to reach the victim before indication. In a way, this is good as it narrows down the area. But he takes longer to indicate - meaning more tiring for both of us. Esp me since I hate the sun! haha)

Lost another tooth

4 yrs ago, I had a surgery to remove my right largest pre-molar .

Recently, both Jack and I lost one of our front tooth.

HC thinks that Jack's lost was due to decay as his front had more tartar as it is not used to chewing bone (note : chewing bones help to lessen tartar.)

However, mine was lost due to too vigorous chewing! HC knew it was chipped instead of dropped off as part of my tooth is still embedded in the gum. However, she doesn't think surgery is required as it doesn't look swollen or infected.

My former glorious teeth














Less 1 tooth... sob..

(HC : I guess this is part of aging process. ..sigh.. but luckily, their teeth are still generally clean and healthy for their age. )

My favourite game with humans

HC was asked numerous times by strangers how she taught me to play fetch. Alot of humans told her that their dog either ran away with the ball, or chase after it but didn't retrieve the ball back to the owner.

This article might help : The Peeing Post - Trick or Treat?

Of course it is important that we - the dog have an interest in the toy. If your dog doesn't like ball, try playing the fetch game with other types of toy.

There are also some that said their dogs only play fetch at home but not when they're outside - in fact the owners said their dogs go crazy at dog park and not listen to any commands! I think it got to do with the fact that the dog enjoys other dogs' company better than with their humans. Some humans don't mind the fact that their dog's best friend is "some other dog" and not them. Well... this article sums it all.

Anyway.. I love playing ball with humans so much that I like to train babies to throw ball for me. Here's the video from Helios' blog.

Happy 9th Adoption Anniversary

Time really flies. This is the 9th year since Jack came to live with HC.

Jack was a mean terror 9 years ago. He bit humans whenever things were not to his liking i.e. time for shower, training,being touched or when he's just unhappy that someone walked pass when he's asleep. Well, actually almost everything were not to his liking then.

HC remembered that during his first training class - he sat with his bum facing the trainer no matter how HC tried to push him to sit facing trainer. hahaha..

Now, he is so much better behaved. I guess it has to do with love, security, patience and training. He no longer has to worry about being abandoned... (HC added : when something is not to his liking nowadays - he just grumbled.. ALOT.. hahaha)


Happy 9th Anniversary, Jack. (7.5 yrs with me since I came later)














Jack is the not-as-handsome dog, on the left side.

An Old Photo

Auntie V sent HC an old photo she took of me when we last stayed over while HC went for an overseas trip.

Me, Scuba (bull terrier) and Pepper the cat was made to stay inside a chest.

I think Auntie V put me there cos I was being a busybody - following her everywhere while she was packing her room..... so she decided to put me in the chest. Of course, she had to put her own pets - Scuba and Pepper to fill up the empty chest.

HC asked Auntie V why Jack wasn't in the picture. The answer was, "Do you think anyone of us dared to carry Jack into the chest?"

Darn, I should have been as fierce as Jack - then I won't have to stay in the chest!

Search & Rescue Demo + Inhales Food

Today is a special day.

HC brought me to Parkway Parade for a pet event as the SCDF's search team were conducting a demo.

During the demo, which is a simplified version of our actual training, they placed 4 large boxes and hid a young kid in 1 of them. Luckily, I didn't disappoint HC - and were able to find the victim very quickly. Just a few barks and seconds - the demo ended.

After the demo, I was rewarded with humans'ICE CREAM! Woah - this is better than normal training as I usually only get ball as a reward.

We walked around abit, and just before HC decided to bring me home - she heard that there is a HUNGRIEST DOG CONTEST. She knew I would do very well as I am a very greedy dog who "inhales" food.

Before the start of contest - food was laid down about a metre away from us. See how much I was straining against the leash to try to get closer to the food? (HC: this is embarrassing - but the other dogs were calmly waiting! Others might think I starved Joey for days!)




















Look at how I "inhale" food?

















There were 4 other dogs participating - I was too busy to look at them , but I think I might be the smallest dog as I think I saw a mini schnauzer, german shephard, lab...

and needless to say, I won the contest paws down... hahahahaha...

(HC: big dogs were given 2 portions of food - but I seriously don't think I've see any dogs that eat as fast as Joey.. hahaha)

Busy with new toy

I am so busy with my new toy!

I tried to kill it so many times but aren't successsful!















Reason being that it was made for tough love and to be pulled apart into 3 pieces.

darn! please teach me how to kill it properly.

For you information, I had one exactly the same only it's dressed as a clown. It's so well stitched that it had maintained intact despite being with me for a couple of years. HC bought me a new one simply because it's starting to show signs of wear and tear due to age.

I can't believe how difficult it is to kill them! *shake head*

Hot hot day

It was a crazily hot few days recently.... too hot for me to go out to play.
So I tried to nap, but someone keep taking pictures of me.
I know, I know - it's tough to be this handsome!

Bull terrier wanna be

Many people have commented that my brother Jack look like a bull terrier...

and he decided to do weird things with his eye to achieve the bull-terrier-beady-eyes look.
















This is how a real bull terrier looked like (My friend Scuba)





































haha.. do you think Jack look like Scuba?


(HC : Jack had a small problem (literally) with his eyes recently. It's like he can barely opened them and he couldn't focus at all ! Luckily he recovered within 2 days...)

Robi - HC's New Best Friend

HC brought home her new best friend - Robi.

He's round, loud and plain looking....

Jack didn't like him - he kept shouting at Robi "WHo are you? what do you want? you're loud.. but I can be LOUDER!!!"

Me? Since he is HC's new best friend - I wagged my tail but looked a bit worried as he sure is noisy and runs around fast like a little mouse. Should I play catch with him?

Security blanket

I totally hate the thunderstorm!!!

One - I can't go out to play when it's raining... and two - well I have to admit I am scared of the loud thunder... :(

If I am lucky and HC is home, this is what I would do..















I would demand to sit on HC's lap and rest my head on her arm to seek security. She complained that by putting my head on her arm - she can't use the laptop!

After a while of not being able to surf the net, I was pushed back to my own bed.
So I seek solace with my dearest beary.

Alarm Clock

HC just found out that I have another talent!

HC was feeling guilty that she has not brought us to Sentosa for a month cos she hasn't been unable to wake up early enough. So one Sat night, she told me "if you wake me at 5.15a.m., I'll bring you to the beach".

True enough, the next morning, I woke HC up by putting my face real close to her. HC woke up and she was surprised to see the clock at 5.15a.m!

So, she kept her promise.

I am so glad to have this talent. Maybe I should wake her every morning at the same time?

hiak hiak hiak...

Stuff from U.S.A.

Alfie's mum recently went to USA for a holiday - and gave us these....





















Beer for dogs! Alfie's mum remembered we blogged about this back in May 2006, and make a 1.5 hours car ride just to get this. We are so deeply touched by her kindness and generosity.

She gave us 4 bottles of the beer, and HC made us share it with other canines friends.

wait.... she is definitely not a 'CANINE'!!!!




















This is Helios' greedy baby sister.

Scuba had a go with this... he seems to like it!




















Helios was not interested at all as he was trying to play with Jack - and of course Jack was trying his best to ignore Helios' effort.


Me? Of course I loved it! I drank so much and so fast that HC had to physically restrained me as she's afraid I might drink till my bladder burst. HAHAHAHA...














My stupid brother Jack does not want to drink the beer initially- I think he thought it's poison? cos he only drank if after he saw how much I enjoyed the beer.

Besides the beer, Alfie's mum (a.k.a Auntie SK) also bought me two bouncy toys.

















This video will show how much I love the toy.


Thank you Auntie SK !

Sad Plight

We are feeling really sad and guilty after reading about this dog's plight.

Guilty because here I was complaining about the slight allergies from cherries, and HC was happily shopping for Gucci sunglass yesterday.... and some poor dogs were in dire need for assistance.

His name is Davee, a shelter dog who does not have a home to call his own -

You can read more about his plight here - http://maovellous.wordpress.com/ and here http://projectjk.blogspot.com/2009/01/davee-open-wound.html

Davee's vet bills will not come cheap. If you have spare cash - please donate.....

Allergies

I have always been slightly allergic to grass. Thus, HC ensure that she washed me thoroughly after every walk and put some antiseptic cream on the rashes.

However, recently I started to have more rashes, on my body as well as belly. HC does not think it is merely from the grass. She applied alot more cream all over and put on this hideous thing on me so that I won't try to lick it off.

I hate this thing - can you tell from my body language?































HC remembered that for the last week, she has been feeding us 1 cherry every night as she heard that cherries has natural melatonin and aids in sleeping (actually, we don't need melatonin to sleep!!!). Anyway, she reckoned that I must be allergic to cherry since there is no change to our diet/routine.

How can any dog be allergic to cherry?? Look how nice, big and juicy these are.... how can it be... life is so unfair!

Actually, HC does not need to stop our cherries consumption. All she has to do is to continue to feed me so that I can slowly develop an immunity to it.. RIGHT??? HEARD THAT???

Buffalo horns and Bull Terrier

It's the Lunar New Year - the year of Ox, so I'm going to blog about something related to this animal.

HC received a souvenir from Vietnam - a bangle made from buffalo horns. She was packing her stuff on the floor - but someone decided the bangle is his..

Jack chewing the bangle

And when reprimanded, he acted all innocent.

Within a few minutes - there is a chip off the bangle

Another bull was in trouble..

There's scuba - our bull terrier friend.

He had a pimple lookalike lump on his shoulders a few weeks ago. His mum went to squeeze it - presumably to make it better. But within weeks, the pimple grew to a black wart - and the vet suggest to remove it and get it tested. The results will only be out in 2 weeks - but the vet said it's probably not serious.

And, this bull may look tough but he's such a baby. He was whining immediately after surgery, and the nurse had to pat him for 15 mins. Then when he's home - he whines whenever someone walks away. I knew it cos we were there, and Scuba whined when he saw HC - and whined even louder when HC pats him - to seek more attention!

What a babyyyyyyy..........

Missing in action

I've not blogged for a while...

No.. I am not sick nor dead, just that my human PA is lazy busy, just as well since I am now suffering from writer's block.

Since I can't think of anything to write about - I shall post my happy picture.

Can you guess why I am so happy?

haha... yeah.. I was waiting for my human to throw the ball.

Bermuda Triangle

There's a bermuda triangle right outisde my house!



My ball will mysteriously disappeared when I am playing a game of fetch. I tried looking and calling my ball-ball to appear but it didn't work.



Joey : yoo-hoo.. anybody there?



























(HC : Joey has lost so many balls inside this drain that I think it might be clogged with balls one day. And it didn't help that sometimes he did it on purpose *roll eyes*)



HC usually bring a spare ball for me - but no matter what, I still want my missing ball-ball!

Then I had a bright idea, I took the abandoned ball and threw it inside the drain. Voila! The force from abandoned ball pushed out my missing ball-ball!

I am HAPPY!

(HC : well, I am still short of 1 ball! Now the 'abandoned ball' is still stuck inside the drain! What a silly dog!)

Updates...

Despite having an injection on the first vet visit, my fever hasn’t really subsided, and I was still not keeping food down. So HC brought me in for another consultation the next day, and needless to say – another thermometer up my ass and painful injection at my rear.

A day after the second vet visit, I was able to eat without vomiting. However, immediately after eating, I yelped in pain for 5 mins! I think my ‘gassy’ stomach couldn’t take in food without protesting. (HC : It is so pitiful to see Joey yelping in pain. He would stop yelping only when I pat him. I know exactly how it feels cos I am prone to gastritis too)

And thanks to all the well-wishers + 2 injections + big hole in HC’s pocket, I have recovered after 3 days in bed. These 3 days were the most miserable days of my entire life! I was practically in bed ALL THE TIME staring at HC miserably. But the good thing is I got lots of hugs in return.

(HC : I knew Joey had fully recovered when he finally woke up at 8p.m. on Wednesday night and ask to play ball. As a reward, I gave him a new ball. He was soooo ecstatic!)

Hot Hot Dog

Two days ago, we went to Scuba's place to decorate Xmas tree (ok. the humans did - we were only interested in eating the fallen baby breaths). Anyway, Scuba's mum was sympathetic to our hungry stomach and decided to treat us huge deer tendons each.

As mine was really huge, the rest of the dogs finished theirs before me. So i guess I was very worried and take bigger gulps than usual.

By the time I finished it, HC took a look at my bloated tummy and my unusual stand and got worried. She quickly brought me home as she thinks I was gonna puked. True enough I puked once in the car.

As for the rest of the night, HC could tell that I was very uncomfortable. She was worried that the deer tendon was stuck in my insides, (like how Scuba got an oxtail stuck and had to have an operation).

Anyway, she brought me straight to vet the next morning as she felt that my body was hot (not "hot bod", but temperature "hot") and I was having chills and shivering uncontrollably.
The worst thing was i wasn't even interested in food - which was really unusual for me.

The vet diagnosed me as having gastritis and high fever of 39.9 degrees and said I was a hot dog! The vet also drawn alot of blood from my left paw (OMG) and said that the good news is that the fever is due to bacterial infection. He said that most likely, there is nothing stuck in my insides and he does not see a need to spend unnecessary money on doing X-rays. However, should I not recover in the next few days, then he will do further tests.

Anyway, the vet said I am a good dog, and didn't misbehave (i.e. bite) like the JRTs when I had needles stuck in my left paw and bum. I guess JRTs had a reputation?

HC : I guess he had gastritis due to overeating and had also taken large gulps of air when trying to chew the huge tendon. Usually Joey will shriek when he has his temperature taken and injections, but I guess he was too weak to protest verbally.
For the entire day/night, Joey was weak. He does want to eat and drink but will vomit soon after. I had bad gastritis and fever myself once, and know that once you eat/drink, the gas will pushed it out again.
Last night about 3a.m., he behaved weirdly and walked around aimlessly and dazed. Luckily, the vet had informed me earlier that this was a common side effect from the injection. Else I'll really be worried the entire night. Finally, I scooped him up to my bed (I was really tired as I was woken so many times) and he slept throughout after that.
The good thing is this morning, I fed him a spoonful of salmon which he didn't puked out. I also heard him bulping loudly which is a good sign that gas from his stomach is being released. He was just lying down on his bed sadly when I left him for work. :(

I hope to see a more cheery Joey later..

At the vet's office

At home

!!!!!!!

We were on the way to the dog park recently. Just when HC was opening the gate – 3 kids with a tiny little mongrel puppy started shouting, “don’t come in – our dog will bite!!” HC looked at the little puppy (which she guessed about 2-3 months) and then decided to take the ‘risk’.

She told the kids, “in that case, YOU will have to control your dog.”

The kids continued, “really…. Don’t come in… our dog is a GUARD DOG!”

At that point, HC was trying hard to stop herself from sniggering.

(HC : I suspect the kids were too inexperienced to differentiate between puppy playbiting and real aggressiveness. Furthermore, the pup looked to be 2 months old and showed no signs of aggression. I am confident that Jack and Joey are able to handle this little pup considering he is only 1/3 of their size. I was also amused that they think their two month old pup is a GUARD dog…. heehee)

After we stepped in, the puppy wasn’t even confident enough to come greet us. Of course, both of us tried to sniff/hump him a bit to show him whose boss before our real boss (ahem) stopped us.

HC then tried to ply some information from the kids about the puppy.

HC : “Where did you get the puppy?”

Kid : “My brother’s friend sold him to us at S$300”

HC eyes popped – take another look at the dog, obviously a mongrel - black with slight tan markings on face, and LONG SKINNY tail and said “oh… that is too much to pay!”

Kid : “No… he is a rottweiler.. so it’s ok!”

HC : “he looks like a mongrel to me”

Kid : “No.. he is a Rottweiler.. maybe not so pure”

!!!!!!!!!

HC : I like mongrels and have seen enough mongrels and rottweiler to know the difference. But it is incredulous that some stupid backyard breeder would breed a mongrel and sold it off as a rottweiler. I pitied those that are conned this way. But then again, maybe it is a good thing for the kid to think that they have got a rottweiler guard dog? Perhaps they will treasure him more? Some people are more ‘breed’ conscious than others.

Ommmmm....

Meditating in process....

Joey added : "That's not me! It's Jack".. hahaha

Revenge is sweet

A couple of days ago, we (dogs) were all dumped at Scuba’s house while the humans went for dinner.

As a revenge for being dumped, we asked Jack to help since he’s the only one with ‘stuff’ to spare.

Guess what greeted the humans when they opened the door? Well, Jack has offloaded his wet poo in the living room and toilet. However, Auntie V said the most unusual thing: “I am impressed that Jack knew how to go poo in the toilet!”. HC was not impressed though because she had walked both of us for at least 15 mins to ‘offload’ us – but Jack simply wasn’t interested.

(HC : it is really embarrassing for Jack to mess up Scuba’s place. However, the only consolation was that I knew Jack did it in the toilet first, but when he got too much shit and no space in the toilet, he did it in the living room. He has this habit of wanting ‘space’ for his shit)

Also, the humans were in such a rush that they forgot the most important thing - that is keeping the cat’s food away. But HC thought we didn’t eat much of it, cos there are still kibbles left in the bowl when they checked.

But she’s sooo wrong.

At night, Jack drank a lot of water – which is unusual cos dogs on raw food drank very little water. Also, he looks bloated and vomited a little. The next day, more horrors awaits – Jack pooped almost 1 week worth of shit – during the day as well as middle of the night. Needless to say, HC is not amused.

Jack looking very pleased with himself.

Great Pretender

HC found evidence of our language abilities.

The other day, the humans were having dinner and we were doing our usual waiting - patiently at the bottom of the table.

Suddenly, we heard Auntie V said, " if no one wants this ginseng chicken, I shall give it ot the dogs". I know we - canines are supposed to act as if we don't understand human language, but we were so excited that we forgot all about the pretence. Immediately after Auntie V said that, I was whining, Jack is barking and Scuba woke from his sleep and started staring at the dining table.

(HC: I am amazed that the dogs understood what was said. I have to clarify that when V said it, she didn't look at the dogs and were speaking to us (humans) in a normal conversational tone. However, I also realised that the dogs' language abilities diminished whenever they were told to stop chewing their paws, stop barking, stop eating etc *roll eyes*)


Joey: oops.. I hope I won't have to work for a living like the humans. I definitely prefer to lay in bed while HC work her ass off!

Cool Nights, Warm Nights

Recently, the weather is going a little crazy. It either too warm or too cold.

When it's cold, Jack will hide inside his bed and sleep.





















When the weather is warm. Jack will only hide his head.