Down but not out

I'm down with flu for the past few days and am now facing the prospect of a home-bound weekend.

BUT... I am not sad. In fact, far from it, I'm actually pretty happy. 

Here's why:

My very own limited edition copy of Gears of War 2 one whole week before it's slated to hit the store shelves! Wooohooooo!

Locusts beware!

JacJac Daycare 2

We sent JacJac for his first session of daycare this morning. We have been talking about this for some days and had joked that even JacJac has to attend 豆豆班。

All was well and introduction done properly. JacJac was there for approximately 7 hours before I finally picked him up around 1730hrs. 

I spoke to the handler and learnt that JacJac had been taking refuge under one of their tables most of the time except for when he wanted a drink or when he was brought out for his walk. This is exactly what we have observed --- that JacJac prefers interaction with humans more than dogs. Some authors on canine behaviour describes this symptom as the dog thinking itself to be human, or at least close to humans and above other dogs. 

Hmm... we can only hope that he successfully overcome this with time in case he develops some unsavoury character traits, e.g. aggression or stress around other dogs which may in turn cause some sudden and unexpected behaviour that may give way to grief like his "monster leash" episode. 

JacJac Daycare

We have been scouring Singapore for a reliable and responsible dog-sitter for JacJac for those times when the both of us would be travelling and out of town. He was terribly unhappy the last time we boarded him with the breeder for our recent Bangkok trip.  Not that the breeder was irresponsible but they basically caged him up for the whole day which is bad for any dog, more so a high energy breed like JacJac.

There isn't really much available in terms of quality boarding services for dogs in Singapore. 

Most of the ones we saw also basically cage their "customers" up for the whole day with short periods of solitary playtime in poorly maintained enclosures devoid of any shade accompanied by staff who are more interested in chatting or SMS on their mobile phones. How is this unlike self-masturbation without the climax? The dogs will simply look at the handler expecting some form of interaction and eventually invariably sit or lie down to wait out their allocated yard-time. 

We got to know K9 Kulture from a dog-lover friend of ours and decided to check it out. All appears fine and we have registered the little guy for 6 sessions, possibly more depending on his progress. Currently, JacJac appears to prefer interaction with humans rather than his fellow canines so we can only hope that he learns to socialise and behave well around other dogs.