First, it was horribly, horribly hot – our thermometer said 33°C (92°F) INDOORS! – and we have no AC machine in this house in Sydney. My human, Hsin-Yi, opened every window & door in our house but even the breeze that blew through the house was HOT AIR!!   Me & Muesli barely had energy to do anything…we just spent our whole day doing this:

My humans couldn’t even sleep at night because they felt like they were burning up. Hsin-Yi kept getting up in the middle of the night & going to the bathroom to splash water on herself and wet her arms & feet, because then she would feel a little bit cooler in bed while the water was evoporating!

And then, suddenly, in the middle of the week, the horrible hot weather went away but we got THIS instead!

Hmm...I am NOT convinced...

ALL DAY!!!!

It has been raining non-stop since Wednesday. Which means a lot of VERY wet walks for me…

Honestly, I told Hsin-Yi it doesn’t matter – I really don’t need to go out walking in the rain – but she said snootily ”We’re not fair-weather walkers!” - and that it’s really important for us doggies (no matter what size!) to go out a bit every day, if possible. Even just for a very short walk. Just to stretch our legs & have a change of scene. It’s good for our bodies and  good for our minds (and good for our humans too!). They only skip my walk if somebody is sickie or the weather is really bad.

My humans believe that having regular exercise every day (even just a little bit!) is better than having days of doing nothing at all and then suddenly doing huge hikes or big running & playing (that’s how you get injured easily)…just like how it’s better for humans to do a bit of walking every day rather than a crazy gym session once a week. They think this is one of the reasons I’ve remained so fit & agile and kept in very good condition, even as a senior doggie. And it’s good for my “mental well-being” too – no matter how big our house, it’s not good for us doggies to be cooped up in the same place all day – and a healthy mind leads to a healthy body!

But don’t worry – I have had some ‘dry’ adventures too! Hee! hee! One of them was visiting a big pet store near us. It’s called PETstock and you might remember we went to one of its shops back in Newcastle but this was the first time we visited one in Sydney.

It was great – nice & big & roomy with wide aisles to walk down (my humans don’t like taking me to small, cramped pet stores coz it’s really hard for me to turn & move around in there – and not enough space if we meet a strange doggie!) and the Staff Humans were so friendly!

They gave me lots of treats just for “being gorgeous” – hee! hee!

We had a good time checking out all the cool doggie stuff…

…and we were really pleased to see that they stocked my Raw Diet BARF patties! (I have Raw Meaty Bones like chicken wings or lamb brisket for my breakfast in the mornings but I have BARF patties for my dinner in the evenings.  They are ground meat & bone, mixed with veggies like broccoli, celery, spinach & carrot; fruits like apple, pear, grapefruit & orange; offal like beef kidney, heart & tripe and some other good things like flax seeds & garlic. They come in different flavours, like Lamb, Pork, Beef, Rabbit, Kangaroo or  Chicken – my favourite is the Combo flavour! . My humans usually also give me a bit of wholegrains with my patties, like oatmeal or brown rice, and sometimes a raw egg or some healthy leftovers.) Oh, of course, on Sundays I get oily fish, like sardines or mackerel!

I also met a couple of young fans!

They were very nice, well-trained human-pups who knew how to behave around doggies. I showed them a couple of my tricks and they gave me some treats!

OK, time to pay for our stuff now…

Ooh…what’s that? Would I like more treats? Don’t mind if I do!

I like this pet store! I sure hope we come here again soon!

(I wish they’d do something about the slippy floors though! Even when I was sitting, I kept sliding backwards! Look at my back legs all splayed out in this picture!)

Well, aside from my exciting visit to the pet store, I also had another exciting thing happen…I got a parcel from Italy!

It was from my great friend, Lucille the Italian Dane.

Do you remember when my humans were visiting France last year and Lucille’s humans had specially driven all the way from Italy to France just to meet up with them?

Well, Lucille was wearing her beautiful chain collar. Hsin-Yi had always admired this collar – she thinks us Danes have such long, graceful lines in our bodies, it’s a shame to break them – and she likes the way a chain sits at the base of our necks, like a necklace, and doesn’t break the line of our necks, the way thick buckle collars do. Even when I wear my blue daisy buckle collar, I have it on very, very loose, at the base of my neck. (of course, a lot of times when posing for photos, it looks best to have NO collar at all! And since I’m very good about obeying Hsin-Yi – hands-free! – it doesn’t really matter what kind of collar I’m wearing, if any! )

Lucille’s collar was very pretty – it is a double row of silver chains and is a martingale-style collar.

Well, Lucille & her human had remembered Hsin-Yi admiring it and guess what? They got the same collar and sent it all the way to Australia for me!

I love it! Don’t you think it looks just like a silver necklace? Matches my silver hairs, I think!

And Muesli got a new collar too! Lucille got her a really pretty ‘girly’ collar with little pink ribbons all around. (I don’t know who got more excited about this collar… Muesli or Paul! )

And they hadn’t forgotten Hsin-Yi either! Lucille’s human had bought her a lovely woolly hat & special gloves, in one of Hsin-Yi’s favourite colours: turquoise! It’s a bit hot now still for Hsin-Yi to wear them - hee! hee! – but when winter comes in June, she’ll be getting them on!

Finally, some of you may know that it was Chinese New Year – the Year of the Dragon – recently. My humans didn’t do much to celebrate this year. Last year, in Newcastle, Hsin-Yi had made a special Chinese New Year dinner with the special foods you eat for good luck (well, OK, she cheated and ordered 1/2 of it from takeaway! ) – and I got to taste spring rolls and even some special sticky Chinese New Year cake! (if you missed that post, you can read it here)

But this year, she was really busy and didn’t feel like doing much at all. (Although she did take care not to wash her hair or throw out any rubbish or do any cleaning on Chinese New Year Day (23rd Jan)…otherwise, you’ll wash/sweep all your good luck away! ) The one thing she did do, though, was get a little pot of Lucky Bamboo!

Chinese humans often give Lucky Bamboo to each other at Chinese New Year – it is supposed to be very good Feng Shui. It is “lucky” because it brings all the 5 elements: Fire, Earth, Wood, Metal & Water into balance, in your home. The Wood is the bamboo, the Water is the water it grows in, the Fire is the red ribbon that the bamboo stalks are tied with and the Metal is the little metal coin on the pot.

Chinese people also love bamboo in general – because of its special meanings. Bamboo is very, very strong and grows very straight (“upright integrity”) but when a storm comes, it bends with the wind, only to spring up straight again when the storm is over. This is how Chinese people believe everyone should be:  ”to have the ability to cope with adversity and still stand firmly without losing its original ground” – to be flexible and open (hollow bamboo) to new ideas but at the same time, be strong & sure of yourself.

Even if you don’t believe all that stuff, lots of people like Lucky Bamboo because it is so pretty – the green looks so lovely in a room and the curly, spiral patterns are so beautiful; it doesn’t wither & die quickly like a vase of flowers and it’s so easy to grow – all it needs is a pot with stones and some water, and hardly any special care or fertilisers (especially good if you have Black Thumbs, like Hsin-Yi!! )

Oh, it isn’t curly naturally, by the way! You have to grow it in special ways to make it become like that – special Gardner Humans lay them on their sides and cover them up so that they only get sunshine from 1 side – so that they grow towards the light and against gravity! You have to rotate the plant slowly to get those beautiful curls & spirals, so it can take quite a long time to “make” Lucky Bamboo!

(* Actually, Lucky Bamboo is not really a bamboo at all! It’s proper name is ‘Dracaena sanderana’ and it’s a member of the lily family and in the wild, it grows in the dark, tropical forests of Africa & SE Asia. )

Well, although my humans didn’t celebrate much at home, they did go out to have a Chinese New Year dinner with my new friend, Boo the black Dane’s human, Sarah - in Sydney’s Chinatown…

In case you’re wondering, yes, that was Paul showing Sarah how to use chopsticks properly…that’s because Hsin-Yi is hopeless and she uses her chopsticks wrong! She crosses them, instead of having them on top of each other, whereas Paul uses them the ‘correct’ way…half the time, Hsin-Yi asks for a fork anyway! Paul says she is an embarrassment to Chinese humans but Hsin-Yi says the important thing is to get the food into the mouth – who cares how it gets there?

WRONG way to hold chopsticks (and how Hsin-Yi holds them!!)

CORRECT way to hold chopsticks

* Images from http://ieatishootipost.sg/2009/05/how-do-you-hold-your-chopsticks-let-us.html

After dinner, my humans & Sarah went to watch the Chinese New Year parade. My humans had been to the parade once before, when they were living in Sydney 11yrs ago and that had been great – but this one was quite different and they were very disappointed! They weren’t playing Chinese music a lot of the time (music like ”When the saints go marching in” and “Go west!” does NOT give the right atmosphere!! ) and a lot of the floats were really “commercial”, from companies that had nothing to do with Chinese stuff at all!

Also, the parade people weren’t very enthusiastic – even though they were dressed up in costumes, they were just walking around, looking bored and not doing much, which Hsin-Yi thought was shameful…if you’re going to take part in a parade, then you have to ‘peform’! Otherwise, why bother??

Anyway, Hsin-Yi managed to get some pictures – here are the best of the bunch!

I think I’m glad I stayed home with my Lucky Bamboo!

* ps. I don’t know why but the Spam filter on my blog seems to have gotten extra sensitive lately – a lot of my friends’ comments are ending up in there! So don’t worry if your comment disappears after you click on “Post Comment” – it’s probably gone into the Spam folder – but we check that every day and we will fish it out!

Afterwards, my teeth were all lovely and white & clean and the vet told my humans that it would be good if they could brush my teeth regularly – to keep my teeth that way for as long as possible.

Well, Hsin-Yi had socialised me to a toothbrush from a young pup – even though I didn’t need my teeth brushed then, she likes to always prepare for the future – just in case one day I need to cope with something, if I am already socialised to it then it wouldn’t be so scary & stressy (she says it’s like teaching a human pup to swim so that they always have that skill if they ever fall in the water, even if they don’t plan on going to swimming pools or beaches much) – it’s the same reason she always gives the kitties in our house regular baths – so that they are used to it – so if they ever need a bath (eg. got something poisonous on their fur), they would be easy to handle and wouldn’t feel so stressy.

the usual pet toothbrushes...

Anyway, so I had already learnt to accept a normal pet toothbrush and also a “finger brush” – but my humans were usually quite lazy and hardly ever brushed my teeth. They said it was such a hassle and not very easy to do, coz I would keep “clamping down” on their fingers or the brush and it was hard to reach the back teeth…

…but then after the vet’s advice, my humans decided that they had to try again and be better about brushing my teeth.

Then Hsin-Yi had a brilliant idea: why not teach me to accept a Buzzy Toothbrush? A lot of humans use Buzzy Toothbrushes to clean their teeth (they call them “electric toothbrushes“) – and they say it cleans the teeth better & faster. Hsin-Yi thought it would be the same for doggie teeth and it would also make it easier for them to reach the inside, back parts of my mouth and it doesn’t matter if I clamp down a bit, because the ‘head’ part of the toothbrush would still be rotating and brushing and doing it work…all it would need is for her to ‘desensititise me’ to it and teach me to associate it with nice things, so I would not be scared of it.

So Hsin-Yi found a cheap Buzzy Toothbrush from the supermarket with an extra-large head and then the fun began!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7e8LJPkfUs

Now my humans try to do this every couple of days, after dinner. On the other days, I usually get my Nylabone after dinner…so far, my teeth are still gleaming and hopefully, this way, my teeth will stay nice & clean for a very long time!

* Sorry – we’ve fallen behind with our Google Reader and visiting blogs again! Please bear with us – we’ll try to come round & catch up with everybody as soon as we can!

We had a really tough time in Brisbane – we had to go through 3 vets before we found my wonderful Dr Seung Ho at the Central New Farm Vets (recommended by one of my lovely readers – Oscar the Weirmaraner!) – and in Newcastle, we also had to go through 2 vets before we found the great Hamilton Vet Clinic and Dr Anthony…

So when we moved to Sydney, my humans were really worried. In such a big city, how would we know which vet to choose? How many vets would we have to go through before we found one we liked & could trust?

Then my new friend, Boo, came to the rescue! He told me about his wonderful vet, Dr Ian Murdoch at the Pennant Hills Vet Hospital - who also happens to look after all the Danes that come through Great Dane Rescue NSW. Dr Ian also used to have Danes himself…and he now has a Newfie puppy. So he knows a lot about giant breed doggies – plus he believes in the 3yr vaccine protocol, doesn’t think we should just buy all the supplements, vitamins, injections, etc that pet companies make, without good research-based evidence, and understands about the Raw Diet…He’s the perfect vet for us!

Boo’s human thinks Dr Ian is so good that she drives 40mins to see him – so my humans decided that’s what we would do too. Pennant Hills is on the North Shore of Sydney so it is quite far away from us – but in any case, my humans decided that in an emergency, they would be taking me to the local emergency vet anyway so it wouldn’t make much difference – and they would rather drive further to take me to see a really good regular vet.

So last week, my humans took me & Muesli to go and register with Dr Ian…

While we were waiting for our turn, we got to know the Head Nurse, Shannon who…guess what? Has a Dane too! Yup, he’s a blue Dane called Orbit and he eats the Raw Diet like me!

Well, soon it was our turn to go in & see Dr Ian…I liked him instantly!

Although I had just had a check-up before we left Newcastle, Dr Ian gave me another little “once-over” just to make sure everything was in still ’ship-shape’…

He said I was very good – both a good girl and in good shape! Hee! Hee! He said my heart sounded good, my tummy felt good, my hips moved good, I was moving around well, my eyes were clear, my nails were short, my ears were clean…and my teeth were VERY clean!!

While Dr Ian was writing down his notes about me, I decided it was time to make myself more comfortable. My humans started laughing at me and telling Dr Ian how lazy I was and how I couldn’t stay standing for longer than a minute – if nothing was actively happening, I would always lie down…

…well, honestly – standing is a lot of effort, you know? The wise doggie is the one who doesn’t miss a chance for a little snooze…anytime, anywhere! Don’t they know my motto yet? ‘Why stand when you can sit, why sit when you can lie down?‘

And now…it was Muesli’s turn!

Since Muesli is usually terrified of strangers – especially men – my humans thought she’d freeze up as soon as she came out of her crate…but no! She instantly started scampering around, exploring the room! Maybe it was because we weren’t at home? She even didn’t seem to mind much when Dr Ian picked her up…

This was the 1st time Muesli had been weighed in a long while...and she had grown! She was now 4kg and we think this is going to be her adult weight now. She is a nice slim dainty kitty! Hsin-Yi says she has heard that grey tabbies often become "fat cats" so she is determined Muesli isn't going to end up like that!

Muesli was given the all-clear as well – and will be coming back to see Dr Ian in March when she needs her 1st annual vaccine boosters (after that, she’ll be going on the 3 yearly vaccine like me).

So we all trooped back into the reception where I  got more cuddles & treats! I LOVE going to the vet!!

And my humans got a treat too – just before we left, they got to meet Orbit!

Orbit - the 'Orlando Bloom' of Great Danes

I didn’t get to meet him because Orbit usually comes to work every day with Shannon and so he sees the clinic as ‘his’ place and can get a bit territorial about it – and so he might feel a bit grumpy if he meets a strange doggie there. It would be better for me & Orbit to meet another time on “neutral territory”. So I went to wait outside in the car machine (with the AC on!) while Shannon brought Orbit from a back room into reception, to meet my humans…

…Hsin-Yi thought he was really pretty – yup, she said ‘pretty’, even though Orbit is a boy – and before you think she was insulting him, she meant that he was ‘pretty’ like Orlando Bloom!

Orbit does lots of training with his human, Shannon – such as Obedience – and they even showed us a couple of tricks that they’d learnt, which they said was “inspired by us”!  *blush*

Hsin-Yi was really excited to meet another Dane owner who is into doing training stuff as well (rather than showing, ‘coz Hsin-Yi isn’t really interested in that – but most Dane people are usually more interested in showing than dog sports!).

I do hope I get a chance to meet Orbit properly soon – maybe on a playdate? And hey – he’s only 4yrs old…purrrrr…you know how I do like my ‘toyboys’!! Hee! Hee!

OK, now the rest of this post is especially for my blog friends, Oreo & Chewy and their human, Sara - who asked last time for some pictures of Sydney yummies!

Well, you know Paul was really lucky this year not to be ‘on-call’ over Christmas & New Year…in fact, he had 2 weeks off – which my humans say is almost as good as winning the lottery! So my humans said this was a great chance to do some sightseeing in our new city…except…well, from the pictures I found in their camera machine, it seems to me that they’re seeing Sydney through their STOMACHS!!

Spicy Thai Green Papaya Salad - Hsin-Yi's FAVOURITE!!!

.

Beer-battered Fish 'n' Chips

.

Sushi Train...

.

Grilled Prawns with Watermelon, Ginger & Rocket Salad

.

"Death by Chocolate"! - Max Brenner

.

Won Ton Noodle Soup - Ding Tai Fung, Sydney

.

Italian cookies in Leichhardt, Sydney's "Little Italy"

.

Crispy Coconut Prawns - @Home Thai, Glebe

.

Apple Fritters with Cinnamon Icecream

.

Vietnamese Rice-Paper Rolls - Xiclo, Chatswood

.

Chilli, Garlic & Prawn Linguine - Mezza Picca Cafe, Leichhardt

.

And here is one of their favourites: a chocolaterie in Glebe called San Churro, serving real Spanish hot chocolate and of course, those yummy, crispy Spanish doughnuts called churros!

Well, see, the problem is - the part of Sydney we live in is famous for having some of the city’s best restaurants & cafes  – so every time my humans head out, they never seem to get further than the cafe down the road…and the next thing you know, they’re busy seeing some ‘sights’ on the menu and deciding that the Sydney Opera House can wait another day!

They did manage to go and visit Sydney’s Taronga Zoo – but Hsin-Yi took so many photos that I’ll have to tell you all about it in another post!

Still, I guess the cafe lifestyle isn’t so bad…’coz sometimes us doggies get to join in!

And this time, because we’re moving to an even smaller house in Sydney, which is all weird & narrow (!) , Hsin-Yi has to do even more sorting and careful planning before she starts packing, to work out what has to remain in boxes after we move (she certainly won’t be able to have all her books out anymore! ) and what can be unpacked & squeezed into this tiny new house…

She hasn’t started putting things in boxes yet but she’s been busy calling lots of people, like the Telephone & Internet company and the Gas company and Electricity company and Movers who will be moving all our stuff to Sydney…

…and the Special Cleaning people from the Rental Agents to clean the house completely after we’re gone…

…and even Pest Control people to come and spray the house for fleas – because the Rental Agents said we have to, even though me & Muesli certainly don’t have fleas – how insulting!

(we have always been wormed & treated for fleas & stuff) But it was part of our promise when they said they would let pets live in this house…

But don’t worry – my humans are still taking me for walks every day and I’m still getting some fun adventures…like playing Jenga!

See, a while ago, one of Paul’s Human Vet friends invited my humans to their house for lunch…so my humans wanted to “return the hospitality”!

And wasn’t it a good thing that Hsin-Yi tried out that shish taouk recipe because that’s what she decided to make for lunch!

She also decided to make tabouleh to go with it – this is a special kind of Arabic salad which is very yummy (chopped parsley, tomatoes, cucumbers & cous cous, with LOTS of lemon juice, a bit of olive oil & a pinch of salt!) but takes hours & hours to chop up so Hsin-Yi doesn’t make it very often.

And she also made her special Arabic basmati rice, with fried onions, chicken stock & herbs – mixed with crunchy toasted almonds, pine nuts & sultanas…this is really, really yummy! (and it’s one of the few things that Hsin-Yi can make pretty safely without a total disaster…)

And this time the shish taouk turned out perfectly – Hsin-Yi didn’t overcook or burn the chicken…what a miracle!

(* shish taouk is a kind of Arabic chicken marinated in yoghurt, garlic, tomato sauce, lemon juice, cumin, paprika and sumac, a special kind of Arabic spice. If you want to know more about how to make it, you can check out my previous post: Cooking Shish Taouk! )

As usual, I wasn’t allowed near the dining table when the humans are eating…HUMPH! I decided to sulk on the floor next to them…

I did get to check out the leftovers, though, while they were having dessert (my humans definitely bought those ‘coz Hsin-Yi couldn’t bake if her life depended on it – ha! ha! )

Mm-mm…I did pretty well too – I got 2 pieces of Turkish bread with houmus and even scored a few leftover pieces of the shish taouk chicken! I didn’t get to taste any of the dessert, though, ‘coz it was mostly chocolate and you know how chocolate is really poisonous to us doggies!

After lunch, the humans all decided to play some games – the first one they decided to play was Jenga. If any of you don’t know this game, it is great fun – you have to take 1 piece of wood out from a tower of wooden pieces – using just ONE hand – and put it back at the top. Everyone gets a turn and it gets harder & harder not to topple the tower over as more & more wood pieces are taken away from the bottom and it starts swaying everywhere!

I was a great help, of course – I used my 3 brain cells really hard – although I don’t know why the humans all started squealing every time I tried to sniff the tower!

Guess which clumsy human knocked the tower over in the end?

After that, we played another game called Articulate! You probably all know this game – you have to describe as many words as you can for your partner to guess in a minute – so you can move forward the most number of places on the board…

I have to say, this wasn’t such an interesting game – the humans were just gabbling a lot at each other, very fast – so I got a bit bored and just lay down next to them and went to sleep!

Oh, but I have been having some nasty stuff happen to me too!

Remember I told you that Hsin-Yi often cleans out my ear yuckies? Well, she had been noticing lately that I seemed to be getting more and more yuckies in my left ear – horrible dark brown/black yuckies that were stinky too – and no matter how much she cleaned them out, they kept coming back! She used to clean my ears every 2 weeks or so but lately, she was having to clean my left ear every couple of days! Plus it looked really red and hot to touch – and I would flinch and cry a bit when she touched the inside…

…so when I went to the Vets last week for my annual Kennel Cough vaccine, my humans asked him to check my ears too. The vet stuck a special sort of mini-telescope down my ear to look inside to see what was wrong – and he took some of the ear yuckies out too, to look at them under a microscope…

I was a very good girl and held very still while he was looking in my ear, even though it was horribly red & sore and really ouchie when he pushed the mini-telescope inside – I just cried very softly to myself – but my humans patted me and told me that it would be over soon…

When the vet came back, he said I had a yeast infection in my left ear! That was why I kept getting so many ear yuckies and why it was so sore & red. He got a nurse to come & show my humans how to wash out my ears with a special solution…

…ooh, I didn’t like that ear wash! It filled my ears with strange-smelly, watery stuff and was wet everywhere! Yuck! Water in my ears!

SHAKE! SHAKE! SHAKE!

When my ears were finally all clean again, the vet gave my humans a special antifungal/antibiotic medicine to put in my left ear – I have to have drops in my ear twice a day now, for the next 2 weeks, and then I’m going back to the vets for a last check-up. I hope the medicine works soon so my ears don’t feel so ouchie anymore!

Last thing before we left, the vet gave me my Kennel Cough vaccine…

* I am not getting my other vaccinations, eg, Parvo, Distemper, Adenovirus/Hepatitis, every year anymore because of the risk of vaccine reactions and the scientific research which shows that annual boosters are not really necessary because immunity for the ‘core diseases’ last for much longer than year (sometimes up to 5+ yrs!) and yearly vaccines sometimes do more harm than good (this is for ADULT doggies – puppies still need all their vaccinations).

So my humans have now switched me to the 3-yearly vaccine for the ‘core’ diseases. But of course, Kennel Cough still has to be re-boosted every year and Lepto too, if you live in a high-risk area – in fact, immunity for those 2  actually last less than a year – some kennels ask for Kennel Cough every 8 months because of this. Oh, and of course, Rabies vaccine if you live somewhere like America. In places like Australia, NZ and UK, which are rabies-free, we don’t have to worry about rabies vaccines at all.

* For full details, here are the latest 2011 Canine Vaccine Guidelines from the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA): https://www.aahanet.org/PublicDocuments/CanineVaccineGuidelines.pdf

….and then, of course, I got lots of treats! That made up for everything. I also always get lots of pats & cuddles & attention from everybody at the vet clinic whenever I go – I do love all the attention!

My humans think it’s a really good thing that I went to my first puppy pre-school at my vets (back in Auckland)…

…and I also had lots of “just socialisation visits” to the vet when I was a puppy (my humans would take me in every few weeks, just to be weighed & get some treats & fuss from the nurses – they did this a LOT in my 1st year, so that I went to the vet more often for nice things than for scary things) -

- because since then, I have always associated Vets with exciting fun and treats and lots of positive things – so that even though scary things happen to me there sometimes, I never get really grumpy or scared and I always wag my tail and go in there happily because I always think of it as a place where “nice things happen”.

Spending lots of time doing this kind of positive conditioning to help us form positive associations during our ‘imprinting period‘ as puppies is REALLY important – this is what “socialisation” really means – not just taking us to 4 weeks of puppy school and that’s it!

My humans spent lots of time in my first few weeks taking me to LOTS of places – outside the local supermarket, outside the primary school at hometime, into town on a busy weekend, next to busy roads, to the bus station, to the beach, to the local farm park to see the animals… where I could meet lots of different kinds of people & human pups (& get treats from them!) and be exposed to all sorts of noises & lights and other strange things – in a fun, positive way. Even if it meant that they had to carry me around – all 12kgs / 27lbs  of me! – before I had finished my puppy shots.

This way I formed lots of positive associations during my most impressionable time (sort of like credit in the bank, Hsin-Yi says! ) – and so even if I get a scary/bad experience later, I still recover quickly from it and don’t think it’s a big deal.

(Me at 8 weeks - the first time on the scale at the vets...I was 9.8kg / 21.6lbs! )

.

This is why lots of time invested in early socialisation & positive conditioning for puppies is so important – it helps us grow up into confident, stable, happy doggies who can cope even when things get a bit scary!

(And even if you’ve missed the early time, you can still do socialisation like this, eg. with an adult rescue doggie – it just might take a bit longer. In fact, all doggies should continue getting positive socialisation all through their lives! My humans still make time to take me out for “socialisation visits” to lots of different places…and I’m a senior doggie now! The human world is such a strange place full of things that we doggies don’t understand so it really helps when our humans take the time to keep socialising us, so that it seems a less scary, stressy place! )