Mooncakes!!

The mid autumn festival is coming. This a festival celebrated by Chinese all over the world on the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar. It is said that the moon is the roundiest and brightest on this day.

On this day, families would gather together to eat mooncakes and drink chinese tea. Mooncakes are sweet pastries with lotus filling. According to popular belief, the custom of eating mooncakes began in the late Yuan dynasty. The Han people plotted to usurp the throne of the Mongolian ruler of the Yuan Dynasty and a rumor was spread that a plague was ravaging the land and can only be cured by eating special mooncakes in which the message of revolution on the 15th of the 8th moon is hidden. The people rose together on the designated day to overthrow the Yuan, and since that time mooncakes have become an integral part of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

As the human mooncakes are too sweet for us, Mummy and Geraldine Yi Yi decide to make some home made mooncakes for us. Instead of using lotus paste as filling, they are using sweet potatoes. And they uses Manukan Honey to replace some of the icing sugar for sweetness.

Here are some photos taken by Mummy and Geraldine Yi Yi.
Sweet potatoes filling

Snowskin dough
Finished mooncakes
Dog snowskin mooncake

Overall, they are happy with their first attempt. However there are still room for improvment. Mummy hope to try baked mooncake next time. I'm looking forward to more yummies :)

Newapaper Article

Pawrents were very shocked at one of the news in the papers today.

There was an unfortunate incident about a man who slam his poor dog on the floor for 10 mins till the poor dog died of head trauma.

Mummy attached the article below.


There is an online petition appealing for maximum penalty for the man responsible.
http://www.petitiononline.com/20082010/petition.html

Sad to say, I overheard pawrents saying that the man might walk away free if he can prove that he is mentally unsound. Mummy was also very angry with those people who witness the incident and do not come forward to stop the man. Where are your compassion?


We hope this incident will have some good out of it by making more people to step forward against animal abuse.

RIP, poor Pomeranian.

All about my people

My blog pal Oskar had come up with a great idea. It's All About Your People Day where we furries give credit to our people for doing a wonderful job in upkeeping us :) You can read all about Oskar's people and support his great idea by clicking the image below.




So this weekend, I shall blog about my slaves pawrents a.k.a humans.

My pawrents and I live in the sunny island of Singapore in the northern heartland of Yishun town. Singapore is a small country, scarce land and highly populated.

My daddy works in the IT industry and due to his work nature he needs to travel quite a lot. He loves to go off-roading, and sometimes I get to come along too. But unfortunately there is no much places in Singapore available for him to go off-roading so he goes to the neighbouring country Malaysia for this activity and I couldn't tag along any more. Daddy never had a dog before. I'm his first dog :) 


My Mummy is working as an engineer. Her hobbies is travelling and cooking. She loves to cook but hate the washing after cooking so most of the washing is done by Daddy. Mummy loves dogs and had a pomeranian once for 6 months when she was young. Her family gave up the pomeranian when they  move house and had to bunk in with their relatives as their new house was not yet ready then. Ever since, Mummy hope to get a dog when she get married.

So when Mummy and Daddy got their love nest in 2004, Mummy had been pestering Daddy to get her a dog. But her previous job requires her to travel to China quite often so the plan was shelved for some years till she changed to this present job. So in 2008, Mummy saw an adoption ad in the internet and "tricked" Daddy to go down to view the dog. So they went down with the intention to view the dog, but after looking at the handsome me, the rest are history :)


Birthday Surprise!!

Yesterday was Mummy's birthday. Daddy was planning a surprise for Mummy and he roped me in to help him :)

As usual, Daddy brought me down for my morning walk while Mummy prepared my breakfast. When we finish our walk, Daddy tied Mummy's birthday present to my collar at the lift lobby to our house and instructed me to go find Mummy once we reached home.

At first Mummy didn't see the present until she tried to take off my collar. She was very surprise and pleased that she gave me a bigger portion for my breakfast ^^

Hee hee, Daddy wouldn't be able to surprise Mummy without my help. See how important I am .

I'm the very important present bearer :)

Close up of Mummy's birthday present from Daddy.

After giving Mummy's her birthday present, Daddy showed her something from the newspapers. It's a birthday announcement from Daddy and us ^^ Happy Birthday Mummy!



P.S Mummy would like to thank all her friends for all the well wishes ^^

Casper the friendly "MS"

Pawrents has been busy.....why?

Cos there is a guest in the house.....he's Casper. He's a 12 week old salt n pepper puppy. They are helping a friend to look after the little fellow for the time being.

I don't quite like him cos he's whinny and likes to snatch my toys and my treats. He likes to seek pawrents attention every time. He also has a lot of energy cos he would play non stop like the energizer rabbit.

Here is Casper doing the shutter run


Here a video of him vs Mr. Crabby

Mr. Crabby is now badly injured and Mummy is trying to mend him. Get well soon Mr. Crabby.

Visit to the Vet

As most of you know that I recently had 2 bouts of seizure. Pawrents being the typical "Kiasu" (meaning cannot lose out mentality in dialect Hokkien) Singaporean, decided to bring me to another vet for a second opinion.

We went to Dr Tham from Jireh Veterinary Clinic as recommended by my pawpal Baubles and his Mummy. My first appointment with Dr Tham was on 22nd May. Dr Tham is a very patient vet and he listen to Daddy describing all the details regarding my seizure episodes.

After listening to Daddy, Dr Tham proceeds to explain some of the possible causes of seizure, e.g. liver shunt, pancreatic cancer, epilepsy, etc and some of the test which he would like to conduct to look at the possible cause of my seizure. Some of the tests that he would like to conduct include CBC, blood glucose, X-ray, etc. Then he proceed to do a physical examination on me. During which he found that I have a slower heart rate than normal and an ECG was to be performed to confirm this.

My ECG results shows that I might be having Bradycardia, which could be caused by sinus blockage or congential. While the rest of my test results yield normal reading, my T4 level was low. A low T4 reading could be due to hypothyroidism in which the thyroid gland is not producing enough hormones. And hypothyroidism can also cause the heart rate to be slowed.

Dr Tham feels that we should address the hypothyroidism as in extreme cases can cause seizure. Thus I was given thyroidxine and in the next review, his colleague Dr Poh (as Dr Tham is out of town) would review my T4 level and another round of ECG would be done. An ultrasound would also be done when Dr Tham is back from his trip to rule out liver shunt and sinus blockage.

The following week, we went back for the review with Dr Poh. Yippeee, my T4 level when up and my heart rate also increase from 60 per min to 70 plus per min. Things are looking good.

When Dr Tham was back, an ultrasound was conducted and luckily there is no liver shunt and sinus blockage. But, my heart wall was thicker than normal and there is an extra space in my heart. On the whole, Dr Tham feels that my condition is manageable and he hopes to increase my heartbeat to 90 per min.

Here are my X-ray done on my first appointment:


Can you see the heart?


Here you can see the liver and pancreas

My next review with Dr Tham is on early July. Hope to have more positive results :)

Appointment to the Vet

Tomorrow I'm going to the Vet again. Yup, for my seizure problem.

I will be doing an ultrasound tomorrow, thus pawrents have to fast me from 12 midnight today. Hope everything turns out well for me tomorrow. Please pray for me.

Today is Vesak Day, a day which the buddhists commemorate the birth, enlightenment and nirvana of Buddha.

Here wishing all buddhists a Happy Vesak Day. May the light of wisdom and the teaching of Buddha guide you to greater happiness and peace.



Woohoo.......I was also given an award, the Versatile Blogger Award, from Sugar the Golden Retriever.


The rules for accepting this award are:

1) Thank the blogger who gave you the award

Thank you, Sugar. You are indeed a versatile blogger with all the meaningful and informative post, I always enjoy going to your blog :)

2) I have to share 7 things about me

  • I love playing with balls. Small, big, rubber, plastic, I love them all :) But I don't fetch them for you.

  • While most of my pawpals hate brushing, I love it. I will happily follow Mummy when she take out the slicker brush

  • I love to mark my territory outside, thus I love to go for my walks.

  • I love to be pat but hate to be carried. I will nudge your hands for pats but will growl if you try to carry me.

  • I hate vacuum cleaner and mop. I will hide under the dinning table every time when I see them.

  • I hate to swim. I prefer to stay at the shoreline to watch the bikini girls with Daddy.

  • I love my food. Raw, home cooked or dehydrated, I love them all :)

3) Lastly, I have to pass this award to 15 blog pawpals

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

(Photo courtsey of Pony's Mummy)

I'm a sunshine boy. Look at my smile :D

I promise pawrents that I will get well soon!!

Sick!!!

Sorry for not posting recently. Mummy's been busy with her work and Daddy's been "flying" around. And I been busy making pawrents worry for me :(

Well, I'm sick lately. In fact, I was having loose stools for the 2 weeks. On top of having loose stools, I had 2 bout of seizures. Seizure is a very scary thing, I would just suddenly loss all my motor controls and cramp up. During the seizure, I would also "scream". During the seizure, pawrents would cuddle me and comfort me to ensure that I will not hurt myself.

We've been to the vet but she was unable to pin point what was the actual cause of my seizure. Seizure can be caused reactively by other organs problems, but my blood test rules that out. Thus the vet suggest that we do a CT scan to determine if there is any tumors or lesions in the brain that is causing the seizure. This is secondary seizure. If there is no tumors or lesions, then I will be treated as having idiopathic epilepsy i.e the cause of seizure is unknown.

To determine what is wrong with me, pawrents will be bringing me to seek a second opinion before we decide the next course of action.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying all the yummy home cooked food prepared by Mummy and all the attention that they are showering on me :)

Here are some links on canine seizure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy_in_animals
http://dogs.about.com/od/caninediseases/p/seizures.htm
http://www.essortment.com/all/seizuresdogsca_rfmm.htm
http://www.purelypets.com/articles/epilepsyarticle.htm

Reunion Dinner

On the eve of the Lunar New Year, it is a tradition for the whole family to get together to have reunion dinner together.

This year we had the reunion dinner at Grandpawrent's place. The humans had something called "steamboat" which doesn't look like a boat to me =.="

Mummy: Steamboat is actually hot pot and is traditionally eaten by the people from the northern china during winter.

Anyway, while the humans enjoyed their "steamboat", Baby Clover and I got a special treat from Geraldine Yi Yi (Mummy's sister).

Here are some photos of our reunion dinner

Steam Salmon with cauliflower, broccoli and carrots. Yummy!!

Waiting for our dinner

Baby Clover: Smells good. Can I eat now?

Time to tuck in!

I love salmon :)

Baby Clover saving some salmon for supper

We enjoyed our reunion dinner very much and finished it in record time. The humans also had a great time catching up with each other. How I wish I can have reunion dinner everyday. Woof!

It's the Tiger Year!!!

Happy Lunar New Year to all.



According to the chinese zodiac, this year is the year of the Tiger. Pawrents and I hereby wishing all a blessed and prosperous Tiger Year !!!

Post Christmas and New Year

Hi pals, sorry for not updating my blog for some time. Mummy have been quite busy with her work after her trip back from Hong Kong.

Dec 2009 was a great month. Although Daddy was not in town to celebrate the X'mas, we still managed to enjoy the season holidays with all the partying. Both pawrents and me had also receive many presents and gifts from my doggy pals and their pawrents.

Here are some photos that pawrents took


Look at all the present under the X'mas tree

Me and all the presents and gifts


All mine?


Besides the wonderful presents and gifts from my doggy pals, I've also received 2 parcels from overseas. One is from UK while the other is from US. They are from my dearest blog pals JD & Max and Nellie & Calvert. I was so excited about the parcels that I can't wait to open them.


What's this?

Is there food inside?

Woohoo!!!! A bag of goodies

Toys, Bone and a lovely X'mas Card from Nellie & Calvert
Advert Calendar from JD & Max. Yummy!!

I'm so touched and grateful to have such wonderful pals both in this sunny island and worldwide. Thank you to all my pals for all the presents and gifts.