{31aug2012: mosquito walk}

Excuse the absence. Work's been crazy busy!
As I mentioned in the tick post, there's an abandoned railway that we've been taking Darwin on for walks. Great for off leash walks, bad for me as the mosquitoes here seem to love me and whenever we walk down there I can guarantee to get at least 3 new bites. Ugh.

To get there we have to walk a couple blocks from our temporary house (we will FINALLY move into our place next week - still in walking distance to the railway!) and there is so much for Darwin to smell!

There are also quite a number of dogs that live around us and whenever we walk by they go nuts barking at Dar. She's been really good at ignoring them and just hurrying  past.

Once we get to the trail we'll check to see that there aren't any walkers/joggers/dogs and if it's clear (which it usually is) we'll let her go!

Darwin loves when its been raining because then she gets to run through the puddles of mud.

 

Off leash time makes Darwin very happy!

{19aug2012: tick!}

Nasty nasty nasty.
Darwin's first tick.
We went for a walk one night. Our landlord at the temporary place we're staying at told us about an abandoned railroad track a few blocks behind our house that's a good place to walk dogs. So we set out to find it (took us a couple times to actually find a connection down to it).
{this wayyyy!!!}

I don't know if it's because it's not super easy to get to or because of the possibility of snakes, but we hardly ever see people down there so it's a great place to let Darwin off leash for a little bit.

We got home from a short walk (30 minutes is about all Darwin could handle) and we were relaxing watching tv, giving belly rubs, when I noticed something on her belly.

Ewwww a little tick!
I quickly pulled it off her (it wasn't stuck to her, and wasn't fat and full of blood) and put it in a glass of soapy water.

I don't know if she got it on her walk on the railway trail or if she got it at quarantine and it died sucking her flea and ticked medicined blood. Either way it's disgusting and I hope we don't see any more of them.

{11aug2012: summer picnic}

Darwin got released from quarantine at the perfect time. The next day, Saturday, was our office summer picnic! They chose a place on the east coast that's dog friendly so Darwin could make her big debut.
Before we could do that though, we had to give Darwin a bath. She was a little stinky from travel and quarantine, and we thought she should make her first impression be a non-stinky one. So she got her first outside with a hose bath.... she was not a fan.

Then the FUN began. Not really. In Singapore it is VERY expensive to own a car so most people get around by taxi, bus or MRT. Dogs aren't allowed on the bus or MRT, which means regular taxis, or special pet taxis. The thing is pet taxi's are expensive. We had called a company and they told us it would be s$65 to take Darwin to the east coast. ONE WAY. HECK NO! The thing about regular taxi's are that many taxi drivers won't take dogs (some for religious reasons, some because they are afraid of dogs, etc). So we called a cab company (Comfort Cabs) we were told were a little more easy to get a dog friendly driver and told them we had a large dog. It took us about an hour standing outside in the heat and 4 cabs to find one that would actually take us.

(We learned that if we book a cab notifying them we have a dog, they can't say no and we shouldn't ask and just get right in. That seemed to work.)


Over an hour late, but we finally made it to the picnic!

We were a little nervous about how Darwin would do with that many people all at once, and also how some people would take to her. She did great and for the most part everyone loved her.

I even got her accessories to wear to hopefully win over some nervous people.

It was a really hot day (who am I kidding, they are all hot days here) and since we were at the beach I thought we should give Darwin some time to cool off in the water.




In all the madness of getting ready to leave in the morning we had forgot to feed Darwin (bad doggy parents), but luckily there was leftover rice after everyone ate so Darwin didn't go completely hungry.

{i love rice!}

We were there for a few hours so Darwin got a fair share of beach time.

 

One of our bosses son's was visiting and he LOVED Darwin. She had a blast chasing him on the beach too.

 
I was surprised that Darwin wasn't scared of the waves on the beach. What she was scared of though was the thunderstorm that we got caught in before we left. Luckily Darwin had a new friend to comfort her.

While Darwin was being comforted, Jason and I were both on our phones trying to call a taxi to pick us up. MAN. That was tough. Being that it was dumping down rain I think everyone in Singapore was trying to call a taxi at the same time. It took us an hour just to find one that would come, and while standing waiting for it we all got soaked. We had a blanket for Darwin though and covered the back seat and thankfully the cab driver didn't make a fuss that we were bringing a HUGE wet dog into his cab.
We survived our first adventure in a cab with Darwin. Whew.

{08aug2012: mostly wordless Wednesday}

evolution of a belly rub edition:
{ahhh so comfy...}

{ummm excuse me...}

{ahhh yes... that's what i'm talking about}

{and that is how you train your people to give you belly rubs}

{06aug2012: Free at last!}

Ok ok, I skipped the last few days of Darwin's quarantine. We did go every day we could, except once, on the 4th of July we had house hunting appointments and all the appointments happened during visiting hours. I can tell you that the remaining days were more of the same, show up at 4, let Darwin out to a run shortly after for 15 minutes, go back to her room and cool off in the a/c, petting and massaging, then another trip outside around 545 (technically you are only allowed one outside time in the run, but if it was slow they were nice enough to let us go out - which was most days - so Darwin could get one more potty break before we left).
Fast forward to Friday July 6. Release date.
Release time at quarantine is between 10am-12pm and our pet movers handled all of that. They told us they'd come by our house around 11 with Darwin. So at 1030 we left work and headed to our place. As we  got off the bus and were walking to the house we saw a van parked out in front and Darwin being walked around! (sorry, no pictures, they were early and I wasn't ready for them.)
After handing over their payment and getting all of her things (paperwork, bedding) we took her up to our temporary room to get her situated.
checking out the bathroom and kitchen...

getting comfy... 



really making herself at home...

We headed back to work once we saw she would be okay. And now that she's out our real adventures begin.

{04aug2012: Quarantine Day 6}

The quarantine has no visiting hours on Sunday so we felt really bad for Darwin. 

This is how she felt about that:

heheh just kidding... cheap toy = quick destuffing while being used as a tug toy. 

We did bring her another treat, this time, some left over bread from our dinner the night before. Darwin is totally my girl... we both love our starches! :)

Four days left of jail... so close!

{2aug2012: Quarantine Day 4}

Saturday's at quarantine the visiting hours are longer (2-6), but the thought of sitting in Darwin's tiny room for 4 hours wasn't exactly appealing. We also had errands to run so we did a little shopping at Mustafa in Little India before going up to quarantine. I was told by the driver who picked me up from the airport that Mustafa was the best place to go to get things for cheap. I was also told by some friends in the office that Mustafa is a CRAZY place and you could get lost in there (actually the wording was more like "always keep track of where the exits are" and "if a fire ever starts while you're there just sit down and prepare to die.") . I was a little nervous to go in there based on the descriptions, but we managed to survive (you can seriously buy everything you need there - the driver said they used to sell cars there too, but not anymore) and found a few things for Darwin. We shared one of them with her to keep her company.


The heat was way too much though and she wasn't interested in her new toy, what she was really into was the air condition.
{i love you cold air blowing machine}