First time on the beach!

We brought Happy to Pui O beach on South Lantau on Christmas Day! It was her first visit to a beach and she simply LOVED it!! I played frisbee with her and enjoyed watching her running and catching the frisbee. She absolutely went wild digging on the beach too!! After a free romp on the beach, we visited our friend's new house in Mui Wo. It's a lovely 3 - storey village house with a huge garden. It is still under renovation though. Happy had a good time exploring and sniffing out the place and playing ball (actually the 'ball' is a baby pomelo) with our friend's 7 years old daughter! She is so sweet and took good care of Happy by bringing her natural 'mountain' water to drink and giving Happy blueberries as a treat! hahaha As for D & I, we stuffed ourselves on an entire box of chocolate while sitting in the garden!!! :( hmm... have to go easy on that one....Besides that, we all had a good time out there! :) (The photos didn't turned out very clear as there were heavy fog on the beach)

Happy's growing-up pics

Happy's photos when she was younger...

zzz..zzz...zzzz....

Santa dog is asleep..z z z z z z...z z.. z.. .z.......

So Relax..

caught something..

Gosh! Happy had diarrhea and vomiting for the last two days! She has recovered today, no more vomiting and stool is back to normal. Thank God! We were puzzled by her condition, she acted normal, her usual active and cheerful self, but had diarrhea and vomiting! Weird. She might have caught something while out on her walks or even from her usual 'walking gangs' (the village dogs)................

snake attack!

We walked Happy on our usual 2 km route uphill and back this evening. Buddy the rookie village dog came along with us. As Happy was having her potty in the bushes, Buddy ventured into a thick pile of vegetation about 3 metres away from where Happy was taking a dump. In a flash, I saw Buddy being attacked by a startled snake! Thank God Buddy's reaction was quick enough to avoid being bitten by the snake (He jerked backward as the snake attacked him.) The whole thing went by in a flash, the snake disappeared as fast as it appeared, even before I can identify it! We left that area quickly and continued the rest of our walk uneventfully. This area is teeming with snakes! Thank God no one was hurt!

Sha Lo Wan, Lantau Island

D & I brought Happy for a hike this morning.. it has been a long while since we last hiked with her. As the weather is getting better, it's time to start hiking again! :)

We hiked the Tung Chung - Tai O trail by the coast. We didn't hike the whole trail though, just to Sha Lo Wan and back, total distance about 9 km plus. It took us about 2 1/2 hrs to complete the whole trip. Happy enjoyed it so much! She had a good work-out this morning!  For photos, click here.

blessed birthday!!

Happy turned two today! How times fly! She has been with us for 22 months. She's a big girl now. She weighs about 22kg, lean and muscular and she runs like a horse! It is such a joy having her although she can be a pain sometimes.... she has her moods.... but we still love her!! :) She gets to eat her favorite lamb shoulder raw meat for dinner tonight and also two big slices of brown sugar coconut cake that I have 'steamed' for her this morning.. hm.. she loves coconut and this is the only time in the entire year that she gets to eat cake... yummy... and as another rare treat for her on her birthday, we gave her a small piece of bbq pork, she loves it!! She is sleeping contentedly now... with a smile on her face...

our new charge..

Our friend left his dog under our care while he and his family went overseas for the summer holidays...the dog (F) is quite a handful with three issues that I knew of.... so far.

We walked her twice already, my gosh! She is a major 'leash puller'...if there is such a word..haha...we have to resort to using the 'Gentle Leader head halter' that we used to train Happy with on F. She has such a major attitude while the Gentle Leader was put on her initially. She tried SO hard to dislodge it! No wonder the Gentle Leader advertisement said that it is 'a ten minute attitude adjuster'! Haha the more dominant a dog, the greater the struggle against it. F now knows that she is no longer the boss! She did walk a little nicer although not fully heeling yet, but it is a major improvement from 'before us'. ;)

Ooh another issue I found out this morning while feeding her was that she guards her food! She growled and bared her teeth at me when I accidentally went near her while she was eating. I went ballistic! I abhorred such bad attitude from dogs. I wasn't afraid of her, instead, I stood my ground and advanced towards her and very loudly and firmly said 'NO'. She was SO fierce! For a moment I thought she was going to bite! I growled back and stood over her and her food, pretending to claim the food as mine. It took quite a bit of courage to stand firm in this situation. (Caution: Please don't try this on your own if you are not sure of the dog, it will bite. Seek professional help!) I was so fierce staring and looming over her that she urinated and was trembling! (Note: Urinating in this situation is a submissive gesture that a dog shows.) She ran and hide under the table. After this whole episode, she kind of get the idea that I am the boss and she dare not touch the food. A while later, I coaxed her into eating the food, she did, but she did not dare to guard it anymore even when I tried to touch the food while she is eating. She is overall quite a sweet dog. All is well after that, after cleaning up the place, I left. What a morning! It is so important to train a dog well since puppy hood, or else, they will harbour all kinds of undesirable traits/issues that might posed as a threat to human especially to children. Lastly, sigh! I prayed that owners of dogs in the world will be more responsible and kind. I forgot to mention, she is a very vocal dog . Gosh! can she bark! She wakes up the whole neighbourhood! I would think that it is the responsibility of the owner to train the dog not to 'nuisance' bark. SIGH!

gosh!

D & I went to the PETEXPO this morning. Wow! So many noisy dogs with their clueless owners! We saw so many dogs pulling and pulling on the leash! I really pity the persons walking the dogs...what sore arms they must have had at the end of the day! Also there were quite a number of anxious and stressed out dogs there, probably they are not used to this kind of crowded and noisy environment. The sad thing was, from our observations, we noticed that the owners of these dogs weren't even aware of the conditions of their dogs!

We checked out the 'Freeze-dried raw meat' dog food that I have mentioned in my earlier post. Guess what, the price was incredibly expensive! Their biggest packet 500g cost HKD 250 which makes 2 kg of food after adding water. For Happy's weight, she needs 500-650g of raw meat/meaty bones per day, so their biggest packet will only last her 3-4 meals!!! (Happy eats one meal a day). For 250 HKD, I can feed Happy for half a month with good quality raw meat from the butcher! Talk about being ripped off! -_-

Here's the calculation:

One pkt of freeze-dried = 250 HKD (Exhibition price)

Provides 3 meals for Happy, so one meal is 250 divide 3 = 83.33 HKD per meal per day.

so, for 30 days = 83.33 x 30 = 2500 HKD per month.

For HKD 2500, I can feed Happy for about FOUR AND A HALF TO FIVE MONTHS with real wholesome raw meaty bones from the butcher or the supermarket!

pet expo

The 4th Hongkong PETEXPO 2009 is coming! It's on the 31st July-2 Aug. Can't wait to go there to grab some items for Happy. Dog toys such as ropes, balls and even dog snacks are as cheap as HKD 10 at the expo! Good time to stock up for the whole year! hahahaha... See u there!

get ripped off!

D showed me an advertisement on the papers, it was about a NZ company selling freeze-dried raw food for canine. Last year, an Australian company also advertised and started selling their frozen pre-packaged raw meat products for dogs and cats. It's great in a way that people here are being made aware of the benefits of feeding their pets raw meat by these companies. BUT, one thing I am concerned about is that they are being made to pay BIG bucks for all these commercialized pre-packaged raw meat products when they can get raw meat and meaty bones from either the local supermarkets or even the traditional markets here for probably a fraction of the price!! These pre-packaged food usually contained the addition of vegetables and fruits which the dogs can't utilized and the meat and bones are all grounded up... which left nothing for the dogs to chew and clean their teeth with.!!

Anyway, at the end of the day, it is way better to feed their beloved pets EXPENSIVE pre-packaged raw meat products then kibble (pellets of dried dog food filled with grains) or even canned dog food filled with meat by-products, colouring and preservatives!! Who am I to complain? Haha :)
**I might have to stock up on some of these light weight freeze-dried raw meat stuff if ever Happy gets to go camping with us! I think you just have to add water and voila... you get raw meat! Superb for camp trips with your pets!

gosh! weather is so hot!

I wish winter is here sooooon.... I perspired tons of perspiration everyday! I wondered how Happy handle summer with her fur coat on 24/7! God's amazing creation! :)

We went for a dip in Wong Lung Hang dam pool again yesterday, as the weather was super hot. Boy! The pool was pretty crowded for a monday evening, there were a few older men, teenagers and lots of boys! After seeing so many people there, we went to try the North Dragon dam pool instead, but found out that it was not an ideal pool as the accessible site that we tried to enter the water from was all soft soil and sand. My feet sank into it and the soil seemed to give way, not very safe indeed. So, in the end, we swam at the Wong Lung Hang dam pool. I kept Happy leashed almost all the time in the pool (except while she was swimming) as there might be some people there who were afraid of dogs! A few older teenagers appeared to be fascinated by Happy as they kept watching her while she swam. Happy even went over to greet the most handsome one amongst the young men! hahaha She is getting pretty confident in the water, she even dare to plunge/dive into the pool with a huge splash! It looked like she was enjoying herself tremendously! Praise the Lord!

close call!

What's wrong with that dog!!!! Happy was almost attacked by that white dog with black patches again this evening! We left our house to take Happy for a walk, as we were walking to the main road, suddenly that dog charged at us from behind! Thank God D was alert enough to notice it, I was not even aware of it until the dog was almost behind Happy. D had to kick the dog in the muzzle to deter it from advancing any further. Thank God Happy was leashed as it allowed me to quickly pulled her and walked away while D dealt with that dog! The owner of dog wasn't even anywhere in sight!! Sigh! Such irresponsiblity appalled me! I forgot to mention that we almost bumped into this unleashed dog with the owner yesterday, but I was alert enough to avoid it. I heard the owner's voice before we rounded the corner and quickly back-tracked and took a detour to avoid a head on confrontation with that dog. I hate doing this! Lord I leave this matter into your hand, You will deal with it in the best way and Happy is protected and shielded from any harm. Thankyou Lord!

bugs no more

Looks like Frontline Plus took care of the bugs on Happy. She is scratching less & less and is a happy dog! She is sleeping peacefully in our room now, well just for a short while to enjoy the aircondition before we have to chase her out later when we are about to go to bed. Nitey nite!

feedback

Phew! I managed to sew Happy's backpack instead of bringing it to the seamstress. I have it re-tested and it worked fine. Looks like I do not have to spend a bomb getting her the Mountainsmith or Wolfpack Banzai! Thank God!
As of yesterday, she was still being bugged by the bugs! So, I decided to use Frontline Plus on her last night, it was the last resort as I tried to avoid putting these products on her as much as possible. Guess this time round I needed the help! :( I hated seeing her so unsettled scratching away! Let's pray this stuff works!
D told me that Happy passed very loose stool this morning while he took her out for a walk. I wondered if the bugs' bites are causing it? She seemed quite okay this afternoon albeit a little quiet....hmm...

zak zak zak zak..

Happy scratched and scratched for the past two days.... more than usual! I thought it was flea, but it turned out that it was not, but a kind of red-coloured mites. It was on the outer flap of her ears and at the entrance of her ear. It was sucking her blood! I also found two red bumps on her back and a few on her front legs! I think the bumps on her back and legs are from the mosquitoes. Thank God it wasn't flea!! Guess she must have picked up the red-coloured mites from our hike in the mountain two days ago! I tried looking up for information on the mites, but still couldn't identify them. They are neither lice or ear mites or chiggers.... hmm.. puzzled me...

Anyway, I managed to remove all the mites ( only a few of them actually) and gave her a good soapy scrub down. It looked like it worked and she is sleeping peacefully now, gone are all those 'zak, zak, zak' annoying scratching sound! Hahahaha Thank God she has a strong immune system that prevented any serious infestation!

doggy backpack

D & I just went to S.S.P. I bought a doggy backpack for Happy. It only cost me HKD110.00. It's orange and green in colour, Happy looked sharp in it! She took to the backpack instantly. We tested it out during her evening walk just now... she seemed to love it and felt important wearing it. Give the dog a job!! From now on, she is going to carry her own water!

BUT, guess what, the stripe in the front part broke from the seam!! Hmm... no wonder it cost only HKD 110. I will have to get it fix and reinforced all the seams at the seamstress tomorrow. Sigh! If it doesn't work, I might have to get a mountainsmith or a wolfpack banzai from online shopping! It might cost me a bomb after shipping charges!!! But, these two products do have great reviews and they last. We shall wait and see.... till tomorrow.

raw-feeding

It is pouring outside and Happy is having her princess nap, cosily tucked in her bed.

D & I just came back from the wet market, we bought 2 slabs of frozen pork ribs ( grass-fed black pigs), it's Happy's favourite! We bought a pig's heart for her too. We feed her a variety of raw food such as, beef steak, pork steak and ribs, lamb, whole chicken, duck, turkey, pig's/beef hearts and liver, eggs and fish.

I am an advocate for raw-feeding. The action of tearing the raw meat apart not only exercises her neck and jaw, it satiates her desire to chew, and at the same time the chewing of the meat cleans her teeth too! As raw meat is easily assimilated in the digestive system and fully absorbed by the body, the amount of waste produced is minimal. No more big smelly stool that takes forever to disintegrate, which kibble-fed dogs produced. Most kibble dog food are full of grains which the dogs cannot utilize in their body! Dogs are carnivores, their digestive system is short and it's meant to handle raw meat. Some dog owners, after having switched their dogs to raw-feeding found that the allergies that their dogs were suffering all along were gone! (These allergies were caused by the grains in the kibble.)

The benefits of raw-feeding goes on and on. The 'normal' stinky doggy breath and body odour that pet-owners deemed 'the norm' and have been putting up with no longer exist! Coats are beautiful, shiny and fur colour is rich. Immune system are boosted and her strong immune system has made her a rather inhospitable host for any serious infestation! She still gets the occasional tick after a romp in the bushes, but that usually doesn't posed a big problem for her. Overall, I am glad that I made the decision to switch Happy to raw food while she was still a puppy! I have a healthy and happy dog!!

she swims!

It was so hot at home, both D & I were drenched with perspiration... let's go to Wong Lung Hang stream for a dip! Great idea! We'll drive and then take a 20 minutes walk to Wong Lung Hang dam catchment pool. Happy is coming along with us. When we were halfway walking along Wong Lung Hang Road, it started to rain, then it began to pour!! We were caught in the rain! I didn't want to turn back and go home, so we waited for the rain to stop. We continued our walk when the rain got lighter. Finally, when we reached the dam, the rain stopped. The water was crystal clear and very clean, it's unbelievable! Without hesitation, I leashed Happy and walked into the pool. She was quite resistant about getting into the pool initially, but after some force and encouragement, I got her in and she started to swim! Hooray! At last, my baby swam. It was such a joy to see her overcame her fear of swimming. After a while, when she gained enough confidence, she even swam after D to the other side of the pool a few times!! Both of us were so proud of her and kept encouraging and praising her, Happy enjoyed it so much and so did we! Praise the Lord!

dog attack!

D & I went for our routine walk with Happy this evening, on the way, we met our neighbour walking her two big dogs. One of them, the white dog with black patches which was not leashed attacked Happy unprovoked! As Happy wasn't leashed, we couldn't pull her away quickly. The dog was really fierce and Happy was so scared, she had her tail tucked in fear and urinated on the floor which is the ultimate doggy submissive gesture but that dog still wouldn't let up!!. D had no choice but to kick the attacking dog in the ribs twice to save Happy, which was pinned down on the floor by that big dog still attacking her. The owner just stood there doing nothing except yelled at her dog! Sigh! I felt really unsettled after this incident, I prayed that Happy and her doggy calming signals (Great book - On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals by Turid Rugaas) will not be greatly affected by this dog with it's unfriendliness and defective body language. In future, we'll take extra care not to bump into this neighbour and her mad dogs!

D said a prayer for me as I was quite affected by it. Now I felt better as Jesus is my peace! We prayed for Happy too, that she will be unaffected by this incident and that she will have Daddy God's protection on the road in future! Amen! She is such a blessed dog!

beware of heat stroke!

Happy loves to go for walks, especially on long hikes in the mountains and even stream-trekking! We try to accommodate her most of the times depending on the weather and locations of our hikes. Summer is not a good time for her, as the weather is really really HOT! We just heard in the news that two Golden Retrievers died of heat stroke while out hiking with their owner in this weather. Such a sad incident due to the ignorance of the dog owner. Sigh! Check out this website for more knowledge on canine heat exhaustion/stroke.

Happy doesn't like to swim, although we had tried several times on different occasions to lure her into the water, she just wouldn't go into the water! The strange thing is, she loves running and splashing in shallow water till she gets all wet, but just short of immersing herself completely in water to swim! Anyway, we'll continue to work on that. Happy adores stream-trekking, but we've decided not to bring her for any future trips because she has a bad habit of bumping into our legs while we are trekking and balancing on the rocks and boulders. For our own safety, it is better this way. Sori my baby!

happy

Happy, our sweet darling dog, she will be 2 years old in August 2009! Wow! How times fly! We adopted her from an animal rescue shelter when she was just a wee little nine weeks old cutie pie.

She has been raw-fed since she was three months old. The benefits of raw-feeding are tremendous such as healthy shiny coat, clean teeth, no doggy breath and odor, minimal stool and most importantly, she is strong and breeming with health from this diet! I will talk more about raw-feeding in my future post, till then!