Dog-watching

Woops. I was stuck in the twilight that is the Penultimate Fantasy IIIVVV whatever in Boozember 2007 that I forgot it is now 2008. What the hell?

So Christmas is over and New Year has also come and gone, oops, sorry I missed it all. It seems like just yesterday it was Christmas day and we were toasting on algae and mud.

Having missed much of the new year since somehow it's 2008 and CNY is just around the corner, the blog has been sorely neglected for the lesser entity that is Facebook. Lesser -- because this site looks so much more awesome. Yay. (It's just easier to post things there and now that I've procrastinated for months on installing photoshop here, Facebook is not only the blog-roll, photo posts and commentary substitute, it is also a great way to loaf at work.)

I went down to the dog show at Expo this morning for my shift at the SPCA booth and brought along my trusty camera because you know, you get all kinds of strange sightings at these things. You get the total freak shows and the totally gorgeous animals (and sometimes totally gorgeous guys who train these clever animals).

Performing the "Stay" and "down" command during the obedience trials. See the lazy husky in the bottom right corner? So funny.

Later, the agility/obstacle courses were very impressive, but it all happens too quickly for a good shot with my humble point-and-shoot.

Like I said; beautiful animals:



Total freak shows:

What the hell?

Ok, the grey hound I can understand, he gets cold, and the air-conditioning in the hall was pretty nasty. But the fur... I could do without. There were many other freaks but I'd leave that to Facebook.

The highlight of the day was probably dog-watching outside after my shift when I shot some paparazzi shots of funny people and their funny dogs.

What a neat way to keep those pesky cocker spaniel ears out of the way!! And very fashionable too I must say. This pair came with a huge retriever that also wore this... head band thingie.

Silly little mop of a dog. Must be a crazy bitch to brush.

Funny tiny dogs meet. Silly dress on a silly dog. Dog owners never fail to amaze.

Big fluffy samoyed spies a curious tri-colour corgi. So cute. Another volunteer at the stall brought his corgi along with him and she was so fat and short, her belly was an inch away from the floor. zomg!

Too Much Drama

3 words: too much drama.

I got home from duty at the dog show this morning to be greeted with news that we are interim foster family to this fella:



Meet Rabbit the husky (I kid you not) getting washed up on the balcony.

A suspected victim of abuse (who lived in a tiny HDB!) and of skittish nature, Rabbit looks more like a pure-bred mongrel than husky. Kind of like this happy fella we met on the way back from the park yesterday:



But anyway.

We couldn't bring ourselves to call him "Rabbit" so he has been affectionately referred to as "Dog" for the time being. Apparently, his unfortunate name was attributed to his uncanny resemblance to a rabbit when he was a wee pup. Like, W.T.F.

Mum yelled at him just now about pulling up plants, "NO, RABBIT, NO!" and you could just imagine the hilarity of it all; we were in fits of laughter for a good 2 minutes.

Labeeeet.

I hope he survives this foster period, unlike poor Lucky who died a few months back while I was trying to re-home him. Yeah, I know irony.

SPCA World Animal Day: Adventure at ECP

The carnival started out warm, sunny, friendly and verily furry as happy people trotted in all-smiles with their furry friends. We all had such a good time chatting with everyone who came by to say hi. By noon, I was absolutely exhausted. The duck dropped by with his massive camera as usual but that's great cos he took many furry pictures!


At ca. 1:15pm, a line of park-goers formed along the shoreline and I was wondering hey wth? Only to realise that they were all gazing in awe at the most massive mother of a water spout I've ever seen in my life. People were excitedly taking photos, posing, pointing and grinning like idiots, conveniently ignoring the dark sky looming above.



Oh.... it looks beautiful in the pictures, but 5 minutes after everyone admired the large spout, a gale hit our tentage with such force it took so much of our stock with it past marine cove and into the carpark some 30m away.

The spout had actually hit the shoreline. As with all waterspouts, I expected it to die off as it approached the shore. But inspite of passing through the shallow intertidal, it spun past the breakwater and onto land. As it grounded just about 10 meters away from us, we could see clearly the swirl of salt spray as it hit the beach hut pub with patrons desperately scooting to the inside.

The wind blew 3 of the tent's legs off the ground and required like 10 people to hold each down!

Amidst the carnage, volunteers desperately tried to salvage our loot and move all our bulky stuff into the center of the tent. Selina called for the generator to be shut off in case people came into contact with the power units by accident.

People holding up the tent legs decided it was no use, and yelled for everyone to run out. Civil defence was called.

As we evacuated the tent into the heavy rain, we nearly fell from the strength of the gale. Standing under the meagre shelter of the Beach Hut pub of marine cove, we watched in silent prayer that the tentage would not be blown off. What if the pieces hit the restaurants and carpark?

The rain soon reduced to a drizzle and volunteers scooted back to view the wreckage. Things were soaked and blown across the entire area. We salvaged what we could and tried to ignore our soaked clothes and shoes.

Not to be called a wash-out in tomorrow's newspapers, organisers quickly decided to re-set the event to carry on for the rest of the afternoon.

As we took in the damage at ground zero, people quickly picked up the pace. Sort out what's wet, what's dry, what's too wrecked to be used, what should go into the garbage. How shall we waterproof our table since it's soaked through? It certainly was inspiring to see everyone in their washed-out appearances quickly working together. Our spirits were far from dampened.

What an adventure indeed. No sooner had we returned to the site to re-setup, did numbers of pet owners trail in to check out the water-soaked carnival. In between trying to set up the tables, we had to entertain enthusiastic members of the public. We seriously could not figure out where they'd all appeared from when just a second ago, the rain was so thick you could barely see 20 meters ahead.

Thank dog its Sunday

I headed to the expo this morning for my shift at the SPCA booth and mentally slapped myself for forgetting to charge the camera battery last night. Predictably, the power went out halfway through my shift and I missed out on some sweet mutts. I ran into some familiar faces from the dog run last month and had a chat with their pet, a nice old man.

For the first time, I scrutinised a poster of animal abuse and saw photos of a dying poodle at a HDB lift lobby, a stray cat with both ears cut off and another with its side scalded. The photo of the last cat was like a huge, bloody version of the bunny carcass we saw on east coast, and now more than ever I am convinced that the bunny was a scald victim prior to its unfortunate demise. How anyone can find it in their hearts to do such things is beyond me.

Oh cheerrup; funny dog photos to appreciate here:

hantunemones?

It was a fruitful morning low tide as the anemone seekers tried hard (often very frustrating to watch) to sample these elusive creatures but it was an enlightening experience nonetheless; both listening to Dr Daphne and my trailing Marcus as he bestowed some interesting trivia in between taking photos of our finds. The bunny eyes were sharp that morning!

Dog walk at SPCA this morning was perplexing; a dog I always walk suddenly decides he doesn't like to walk without a friend, only moving his fat ass when another walker brought out his kennel neighbour.

I had the most fun with kay and tam tonight and boy, was it a first time properly grooving together in our 10 years of friendship. Oh, and the surgeon removed the stitches today. Strange feeling. I'd somehow developed a certain... fondness to the sutures. Hmm.

In other news, things may be looking up in the job search; I'm keeping the bunny toes crossed!

A bunny and other animals

This picture pretty much sums up this morning's dog run. I haven't coo-cooed and coddled anything for a long time (and I still do not understand how human babies are adorable. I mean, seriously, compare our hairless "michelin man" babies to this sweetie!). What an adorable little baby husky. It's hard to believe she's going to grow that much!

(Btw, the tee shirt says "Sit lah!". Buy one!)

To answer

[Updated on 11 July]

To answer to all of you, as if I owe you all an explanation, the ominous question: "What has the bunny been up to these days?"

If you were thinking the bunny has been making herself useful, you are probably half right. If you were thinking the bunny was bumming around and spending money, you got the other half right. The bunny is not shy to admit these things. Because I'm spent from typing the previous post flaming someone who can't even get his blog layout right, I will blog in pictures.

Sunday breakfasts at the beach.

Weekly fleas with YC and Sheep. This was taken at the recent Maad flea at Red Dot. This designer put together lamps from unconventional display pieces, like say, this "NOT FOR HIRE" taxicab top and even detergent bottles.



"Free Magic Stones" seen on floor at the Maad flea.

We managed to get excellent material for TCP there. The Maad flea shouldn't really be called a flea since many things were brand new and overpriced. Then again, it should probably have been called a designer showcase. Amazing stuff featured, my favourites were paulMysh art for photography and other artwork, and whitedogbobby, who got featured in TCP.

More grafitti we encountered off Rochor Canal Road while getting lost finding Kelantan St.: Random worn flooring at a coffee shop, "Think Tities (sic, I'm sure LOL)", "[...] Date of completion: NEVER! [...]", "Stolen bikes ride faster".

Jokes. Note "No loitering sign". Taken at Farrer Park station post-Little India gluttony.

Feeding the resident lizard living under the microwave.

On field trip to the Mangroves on the first day of Semester 4; watch out for crocs at Sungei Buloh. I hear it was erected (the sign) after one or two sightings only. I like to think it's an excuse to put up such a cool sign.

Out chilling with the girls, we walked past the new Supreme Court, its entire facade decorated with slabs of symmetrical marble like this. I call this Vagina Building.

Twice to three times a week, I head down to the SPCA to walk the dogs. Partly for the great workout (brisk walking for 2+ hours), but mostly because I just love the dogs there so much. Some pics taken from this morning since it was pouring so we couldn't take the dogs out. Instead we stuck around to comb them all down. My favourite dogs, in no order of preference:

Bobo, sweetest mutt in the kennel. Medium-sized mongrel that nobody wants to adopt. Why??



Brownie the bearded collie, whose beard got sheared.



At feeding time. My two favouritest dogs in the kennel: Roscoe the husky (left) and Hugo the Alaskan Malamut. The biggest dogs there (after the great dane) but with the sweetest, most docile yet playful natures. Roscoe's howling "Food! Food! Food! Food!"



Hugo: "Whatchoo lookin' at?!" I like to think he speaks with a southern drawl like some old mid-west cowboy heh heh.



Roscoe: "Hugo got more food than me?"

I would've gone into their kennels or taken them out to take some better shots but at feeding time it's not the wisest thing to do.

Other animals: Cat ass, Hugo and I out on a walk, new kitten additions to the cattery.