Chewie - last steps

12Nov2013

Chewie passed away this morning, around 9:30am, according to my dad's caregiver, Dina. She called me at 9:45am at work while I was in a meeting. Needless to say, I was devastated but not really surprised - and very relieved for Chewie.

Dina had heard Chewie gag loudly, so she carried Chewie to her bed. But when my dad and her were ready to leave the house for his dialysis, Chewie had already passed on. Dina found Chewie on the floor, her bowels voided and her eyes still open. I told her to leave her eyes open because I think Chewie wanted to see me. I called Tengoku to arrange for the cremation and asked Mag to meet me at home.

When I came home, Chewie was still lying in her poo! I hugged, kissed her and closed her eyes. I think her body was still warm. I carried her body, stiff with rigour mortis, into the bathroom to clean her up. I did what she hated the most - wash her in the bathroom. And blew dry her and combed her hair for the last time. This time she did not/ could not complain or whine. I can't believe how much I actually miss her whining and crying... (Video of her bathing and whining)

The night before had been bad for both of us.

We hardly slept. Chewie had had her ups and downs but in the last 2 days, she hadn't been eating or drinking. I knew that was a prelude to something bad. Not eating is still tolerable, but not drinking? Chewie's eyes stayed open the whole night. It was as if she was trying to stay awake, or maybe she was in such pain that she could not rest. That night, I had spoken to Jacq Ong (Susan's animal communicator friend) - I don't normally take to this kind of thing but Jacq shared some interesting ideas about what Chewie might be feeling. I just listened and felt uncontrollably sad. I cried even though I know I should not cry in front of Chewie. But she was not the sort of dog that senses her owner's feelings! Jacq said that Chewie showed her a sunny day - she wanted to go out with me in the sun.

We hung up and I patted Chewie to sleep, or tried to. Her ribs protruded - they were like the keys of a xylophone. I put my ear to her chest and counted for a minute, listening to her slow deep breathing and her slow shuud-shuuud of a heartbeat. Her heart rate was about 30 beats a minutes. Every few minutes, she would tremble in pain, and she heaved and gagged. But nothing came out as she had had no food in her! Every spasm tired her out so much that she collapsed in my arms as I held her chest up to help her to sit up. It tore my heart to watch her suffer.

We went repeatedly through the cycle until it was almost 4am. I decided to force her to take some Polysilic III Suspension to calm her stomach. She dragged herself on all fours (with my help) and drank some water! By 5am, I was exhausted and fell asleep. I was sure Chewie continued gagging as I slept.

When I woke up this morning, she was lying outside my door looking at me with her big black longan eyes. I'd promised to carry her downstairs to be in the sun but it was raining! I had also planned to call the vet for an appointment (again) but there was no need now.

Tuesday - the second work-day of the week, the 45th day since that fateful day at the vet's when Dr Ly told me she had liver failure. Then came a litany of ailments - her heart walls were thickening, she had high blood pressure, indigestion, nausea, blood in the stools and even vaginitis. They were just some of the many afflictions that developed in the same month.

Godma came by with beautiful flowers and we decorated her bed. Chewie looked so at peace, like she was sleeping. The pet cremation guys were very professional and compassionate. We both said our goodbyes and then she was pushed into the incinerator. It takes 2 hours to cremate a small dog such as her! It's like stewing meat for hours until the bones soften! Haha.. bad analogy.

I took her ashes to the Botanic Gardens. I don't know why I did that. Perhaps to remind myself of the places that a happy white dog used to prowl. It was cool after the rain and yet sunny. Her favourite brook bubbled, without her. Her favourite lamp posts and bushes beckoned, but Chewie wasn't there to take the bait. (Old clip of her fun Botanic Gardens walkies)

She may not be in the same dimension as me now, but I am sure she is happy wherever she is.

The vets, when they checked her, always said Chewie didn't look so bad. But just because she looked so well groomed didn't mean she wasn't sick. I knew she was in much pain, but there was only so much I could do for her. I would like to think that I eased her journey to the Rainbow Bridge. I hope I did not prolong her pain.

The house is quiet tonight. No pitter-patter of tiny paws, long nails scraping on the floor (yes, mommy is lazy), no mischievous eyes glancing at me, tempting me to touch her and then running away, no big black eyes staring at me while I take a leak, no wet nose pushing the door open, no mommy-carry-me-onto-the-bed paw, no sound of her tongue tapping the water bottle spout as she drinks, no pee-saturated newspaper shoved in the corner of her tray because she wants to help us clear the poop.

It rained the whole of today - as if Mother Nature too is mourning Chewie's passing.

Chewie Takes a Star Turn

Heyyyyy! Chewie was asked to 'act' in a commercial just last month!

Here are a couple of shots taken in Hair & Make-up... although she needed neither! She's a natural beauty!! LOL.. spoken like a true 'xing ma', right?






AND..... this is the result - her < 1 second of fame! HAHAHA...



THIS I KNOW... BUT NOW THIS YOU KNOW!!!!

Who Let The Dogs Out !!!

Chewie and I went to a spiffy human/doggie restaurant on Deepavali called Pawtobello at Mohd Sultan Road.

We'd signed up for this Paw Wow event organised by a radio station (93.8 Live). The event was supposed to include a talk on aromatherapy for our furry friends. Not to be too critical, we found the speaker a little too pretentious and not at all informative. She was fudging over subjects and did not answer questions to the point. I'm still not sure how aromatherapy can help Chewie.

Anyway, it was still a fun day for Chewie because she got to meet so many dogs!! There was a super friendly Rottweiler (who was posing as a Golden Retriever that day. shhh...) and some hyper spaniels. Some dogs were barky and some dogs were shy. Others liked to snap and smell. But one thing's for sure - they were all spoilt pooches!



CHOW TIME!!!!



Enjoy the video :)

Introducing Tuesday!

Tuesday is a dog, in case you were wondering ;) my brother's dog.



So, my brother's family finally decided to adopt a dog and guess what? This little cutie 1½ yr old Shih Tzu was from SPCA! We could only speculate as to why his previous owner put him there because SPCA was not allowed to divulge that information.

After a couple days of viewing and interviewing all the family members, they finally brought the dog home on 3 July 2007, a TUESDAY! No prizes for guessing why he's named that. hehe..

My brother and my niece Ruth fell in love with him at first sight and he is such a lovable dog! I went to meet Tuesday on Thursday and on Sunday, Chewie's Botanic Gardens day, we asked if Tuesday could join us! Confusing... LOL..

I spend a full 15 mins scratching Tue's back and he just lay still on my lap the whole time! Amazing!! I think he just enjoys being scratched and pampered.

On Sunday, I brought Chewie upstairs and immediately the 2 dogs started chasing each other around the house - each trying to dominate the other. This can get pretty violent, especially when they knock into furniture. After a while, I brought them out and once distracted by the smells outside, they managed to ignore / tolerate each other for a bit.



I held Tues' leash while Mag held Chewie's but Chewie kept trying to heel next to me (the good girl) and Tuesday kept trying to run across my path, getting us all entangled.. LOL.. We really need to get used to this.

But still... it was lots of fun walking 2 dogs!! Mag took some lovely photos with her Canon EOS 400D.



In this next gif, you can see Tuesday trying to sniff at Chewie again, and Chewie finally getting up to get away from him! Hahaha..


Next Sunday, we go bring Tuesday out again :-)

Chewie and Chirpie

When I got back from Croatia, dad told me that Chewie has a new friend - a bird, a Common Myna that flies to our balcony almost daily! It stays there for a while, just out of reach of Chewie of course. And according to my dad, Chewie and the myna Chirpie have a conversation. Chewie would bark and wag her tail (but then that could be seen as apprehension), and the myna would chirp back. When Chewie isn't at the balcony, Chirpie would even call her. Cute!

Here's a video taken by Dina who thought she was taking photographs! LOL...

Click the photo to view the video on youTube :

Hot Dog!

We had to check up on a geocache (Trickle Trickle Splash Splash) we hid here and DecoyDog (Chewie) went along with us!

While we were distracted with trying to look 'cool' and act 'natural', Chewie decided to take a cool dip yesterday and wondered RIGHT INTO THE LITTLE STREAM!!


She just flopped onto her tummy right there in the algae-covered rock!! LOL..


By the time we noticed, she had her little belly all wet and was enjoying the cool stream ;-) haha... Isn't she cute???

OH .. btw, Olivia Newton John is coming to Singapore!??!! I hope she doesn't sprain her hips while jivin' on stage to Xanadu!!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Today is the FIRST DAY of Chinese New Year!!

Let me wish one and all a new year filled with abundance - of wealth, of health, of luck and of food!! It's the year of the Pig afterall!!! Oink oink!



Every year, I create a CNY greeting for all my friends by making Chewie pose for me. Well, for this year's creation - I made Chewie sit & "stay", surrounded by new year goodies. One of the boxes fell and gave her a shock of her life! And it was pretty hard to make her come back to her position again... Poor thing, I'm always forcing her to do stuff :P hee hee...

And CNY is also the time for pineapple tarts. I don't quite trust the ones on sale. Besides, the price is always quite exorbitant. So I always make my own...

This year, we had lots of preparation to do, so it's only one batch with 3 pineapples.

Here's the recipe in case anyone wants to try it.

Pastry Ingredients 1 cup plain floor 1 cup self raising floor 150g butter (SCS is best) 1 egg (beaten) 2 tbsp (or more) Cold water (must be COLD!!) a little salt

Pineapple Jam Ingredients 2 cups grated pineapple 1½ cups granulated sugar 4 cloves

Put the pineapple jam ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil over a slow fire. Stir constantly until the sugar is dissolved and the jam is thick. (This is the most troublesome part as you need to keep stirring and stirring so that the pineapple does not stick to the saucepan.) Stop before it becomes too dark. Remove from heat and allow to cool. I usually allow it to cool overnight and refridgerate it.



The dough is best done in a cool room with cool fingers.

Sift the floor and salt into a mixing bowl. Rub in butter lightly with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Make a well in the centre of the mixture. Pour in the beaten egg and cold water. Bind the ingredients together gently. Do not knead too much. Be sure to use fingertips.

Sprinkle a little flour over the pastry board and roll out the pastry thinly. Cut pastry with a pineapple cutter.



Place pineapple in the centre and decorate with leftover pastry. Brush the top of each tart with beaten egg.



Preheat the oven to 160°C and bake for about 20 mins. Cool on a wire rack and store in air-tight container.



Our messy table...



And you can see Chewie posing above with the final product!

Best in Show 2007

It's the time of year again... No, I don't mean just Valentine's Day!! It's time for the Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show!! The most prestigious title you can ever get - Best In Show - that is if you're a show dog.

Introducing Ch Felicity's Diamond Jim - WKC Best in Show 2007!


Wow.. what a grand animal. I searched for videos on youTube. Here's one of them. I think it might be too soon as the competition was just over. There are a few videos that show the preparation the owners do before the show. Really interesting. The official Judging videos are on the Westminster Kennel Club website.

It is certainly NO EASY task preparing for one of these shows! This reminded me of training with Chewie 4 years ago in 2003. But that wasn't for this kind of "beauty contest" show; it was for the "smarties" - Dog Obedience Trials. And boy was it tough! We had group training every Sunday and when the competition drew nearer, training was increased to twice a week and then to 3 times a week! That was excluding the nightly training on my own with Chewie.

We had to run through the basic set of commands - heel, stop & sit, stop & down, stop & stand, stay, come, finish, slow heel and running heel. Everything had to be perfect - the angle she sits, the distance she heels from you, the speed that she responds. It's all important.



In our category, which was Pre-Novice, the easiest class of the obedience dogs, Chewie did pretty well and PASSED!! A third of the participants were disqualified for serious mistakes, but Chewie made it!!!



My dog is naturally frisky and it was amazing that she managed to behave for those few minutes in the rink! For the recall (I call her to 'come' from about 6 meters away), she ran to me so fast and so happily that she could not brake in time!! Plus the floor at the Singapore Expo was quite slippery, so she slammed into my shin before sitting! LOL... the audience laughed too. I probably lost points for that but she was so cute!! I was so happy and so proud!! Still am :-)

SKC Obedience Trails Dec 2003


What happened after 2003 you might ask...? Well, work got in the way and I was too busy to keep up the training. Plus Chewie is spoilt silly by my dad at home, and he gives her all sorts of contradicting commands - I train her while he 'untrains' her. So Chewie had to give up the life of a 'show dog' and became a 'lap dog'. Oh,.. more like a "don't touch me, I'm the Queen" dog.

Faces of Saigon

Can you tell I missed my dog? I keep seeing Chewie everywhere!! And my searches on the web for the Vietnamese word for dog (Chó - the way the lady at a Ao Dai shop said it, it sounded like "Choarr") came up with various horrifying links and pictures of Vietnamese eating Dog Meat! Couldn't bear to look at them.

Cute doggies, but not so clean - I guess if the owners don't bathe, why bother bathing the dogs? They get dirty so fast anyway...



There was a guy selling dogs on the street. He had a cage with at least 5 dogs inside, not counting the 2 little puppies he was carrying and 1 big one sitting on top. Quite pitiful. He shouted at me for taking pictures, so we scurried away.

Touts and street peddlers were everywhere and they don't give up easily. I was offered the waffles to 'try please' but I respectfully declined. Apparently, if you buy from one, all of them will herd after you!



Whatever you want, you name it, they'll have it. Their stalls are portable and movable. Food stalls have tables and chairs that are not of the normal height - didn't take a picture unfortunately. They're low and you kinda sit/squat on the low stools.



The most popular item in Saigon must be the face mask - almost all the motorcyclists wear them. They come in all sizes and patterns, suitable for kids from 1 to 92, some covering down to the neck, attached with velcro at the back of the head. The whole dusty city seems to be a gigantic construction site - nothing seems to be finished. It's like somebody forgot about the work in progress and just packed up and left. Having said that, it's quite amazing that at the end of the day, your nose-shit is not black in colour, like it would be if you were in Hongkong!

Street scenes in Saigon :

Merry Christmas Woof!

This morning I tried to get the dogs dressed up in their reindeer and santa outfits but you know lah, these 2 rascals, they just won't stay still! Teddy isn't used to staying still and Chewie just looks sulky and sad.

Finally managed to snap a few shots (actually, a LOT but most are not usable) but none that I was really totally pleased with.

So here's a montage of the dogs wishing one and all

A Very Merry Christmas!!!

As I am typing this, Teddy is now lying at my feet (my contstant shadow and leg warmer) and Chewie is snoozing at the door. LOL...

Two Sweet Rascals

Today is Teddy's last day staying with me! *sob* So I thought I should grab the 2 rascals and make them pose for pictures. Don't be misled by their doleful eyes and calm disposition... they get very violent when they are fighting for my attention!







Yawnnnnn.....!! Posing is such hard work for a model!

A Visitor In The House!

I'm dog-sitting my god-dog Teddy this week!!!! :-) Picked him up from my friend's place on Saturday morning and together with Mag and Chewie, we went for a walk at Botanic Gardens first. I was hoping that going out to a neutral place would make the dogs like each other more. I can only hope...

The last time Teddy stayed over, Chewie wasn't too pleased and they kept going at each other the whole night, each trying to dominate the other by "climbing on top". Needless to say, none of us got any sleep!

This time, after the exercise they both got at Botac, I reckon they didn't have the energy to fight anymore! Haha..

After coming home and settling down a bit, I decided to cut Teddy's hair around his nose (so he can see better) and around his arse (because unmentionables were getting stuck there)!

Then I shaved & cut all the hair off from around his paws cos he was slipping and sliding all over our marble floor. LOL... Poor Teddy... he has to put up with ME! hahaha...


Chewie, on the other hand, was not too happy to have someone fighting for mummy's attention! Any chance she gets, she would try to 'hump' him (yes, she does... it's a sign of dominance) but of course he would not let her, which makes her all the more angrier and she would bark and growl at him!

Teddy is one super manja dog and he loves to be patted!! He looks at you like this :


With a look like that, who can resist patting him? Once you do that, he goes all SOFT and melts onto the floor, all four paws in the air, begging for more tummy rubs... LOL..

My dad and Dina have only praises for Teddy - that he's very 'kwai' (good) and no trouble at all. When I come home at night, I now have TWO noisy dogs greeting me at the door!! :D








Their pee places - separated by a chair so that they do not step on each other's trays.


Teddy sleeps next to my bed, Chewie on my bed.


The last time Teddy stayed over at my place was about 6 years ago (pre-Chewie days), when we were still staying in Bukit Gombak! Here's an old picture from back then. Gosh, we both look so much younger!!