I'm 6!

It's finally the last day of the year, and I've just passed my 6th Barkday.  This year, my M had no time to bake my cake herself (actually, she ran out of ideas on what to bake), so as she was googling around, she saw this dog bakery called The Barkery, which was also spreading the cheer of Christmas to shelter dogs by donating proceeds to the shelters as well.  So my M ordered my cake, and ordered another cake for the shelter dogs for Christmas as well.

Since my barkday is very close to Christmas (on the 29 Dec, to be exact), we always celebrate my barkday together with Christmas.  My cake came tied up in a nice blue ribbon.



Of course, I have to do the customary pose with the cake, and now my siblings are joining in too.



And we have to sing the standard Barkday song with the candle.... Forgive my still internet-shy M, who looks like a criminal with a blurred face.

Can we sing faster? The wax's gonna drip on my cake!!


Finally the song is done and the wax.... I mean candle, is removed.

Hurry up, please!


As barkday dog, I get the first lick.  Luckily Jack and Joey were not here this year, or I'll be very stressed with them barking at the side.



I have no idea what my sister is trying to do, imitating me.  I hope she's not gonna eat the whole cake.  Sidenote to baby brother, don't learn from your silly sister and try to eat MY food.



Scuba was getting impatient with all the things the humans made us do before we get to actually eat the cake. I think he wanted to self-serive.



Scuba: No.... I wanted that piece!!


And I FINALLY get to eat my cake.  Forgive my crazed look, it was a VERY long wait, including the time needed to cut the cake.



Hope you guys had a wonderful 2012 (like me) and will have a greater 2013!

Well trained

My apologies for the lack of updates, but life has been pretty routine (read: boring) for me since the birth of my baby brother.  It now involves a lot of logistics to bring out the whole family, with strollers, diapers, leashes, bags and stuff.

But not to worry, I'm doing very well at home.  In face, I've just successfully trained my baby sister.

I think she's done pretty well. 

Now... if I can only get her to share all her toys with me....

Look at all the treasures!

Mug Shot

Just sharing a funny faced mug shot that my M took.  I was sitting at the foot of her bed and dozing off...

My M also commented that I am getting old, the fur around my muzzle is starting to get white.  Look at my nose taken in 2008, when it's still all brown.



But my M says I still behaves like a puppy sometimes. The body may be old but the mind will never be old! Go me!

All wrapped up

Spot anything different about me in this photo?

 

Take a closer look.... at my elbow.

Look at poor injured me!
 

Before you go into panic mode, don't worry, I didn't really break both my elbows while attempting breakdancing. It's actually pressure sores, or calluses on my elbows from resting on hard surfaces for prolonged period of time. I've always prefer the cool floor to beds/ sofas and I usually plonk myself down so over the years, my elbows have become bare and in my M's opinion, quite ugly.

 

Close up of my ugly sore.
 

My M noticed that I kept licking my elbows and it was getting a bit raw and red and she was worried that I'll get them infected. So she decided to wrap them up. We tried socks initially but it kept slipping down and ended up being ankle wraps instead. So she got those bandages from the pharmacy to wrap things up first. I got quite a few strange looks from passer-bys when going on walks. I bet they must have thought I'n an abused dog, or maybe they thought how can a dog with injured elbows walk so normally. However, the long term solution to my ugly elbows is to make me sleep less on the floor, so my M went to buy me a new mattress.

Not that I don't appreciate it, but I still prefer the floor so my M has resorted to ordering me to stay on the bed. Sometimes I still try to sneak away when she's not noticing.

(M: Helios never had the habit of sleeping on soft surfaces. Back when Herbie was around, Herbie would join me on the sofa bed for afternoon naps but Helios even as a pup, can only stay on the bed for about 5 minutes before jumping up and down and under the bed before ending up sleeping on the floor. He would only go to Herbie's bed when herbie was around but never go and sleep on the bed on his own. So now I have to force him to sleep on the new mattress every night. Initially he keeps going off the mattress in the middle of the night but he's getting better the last few nights, only leaving it when it's near morning.)

Don't tell my M, but I think I'm slowly getting used to my new mattress.

Now she just hopes that the fur will slowly grow back over my ugly elbows.

Water Fun

The park near our home was extensively renovated last year and we haven't had a chance to totally explore the new changes, so last Sunday, my MM decided to take my baby sister to check out the new water play area for kids. When I heard 'water play' I was immediately interested. I LOVE water (just not in the bath). Look at all the fun my sister and all the kids were having!



So I waited for my turn to join in.... and waited..... But it seems that my job there is just to be a guard dog. :( Look at all the things I'm guarding!!

Stroller, camera bag, diaper bag, shoes, bicycle, plastic bags...

Apparently my M doesn't want me to go play coz she doesn't want me to go crazy running after the water and scaring the other kids. Although I didn't get to play, I took my guard job very seriously. I made sure no one took our things.
Look left.... look front... look right...
 

And I even supervised the play to make sure nothing happens to my baby sister.
 

I don't mind not being able to play as long as I get to go out with the whole family. I hope we'll go to the park again soon.

Attention Seeker

My M always call me the attention seeking boy, because I cannot take no for an answer.



Sometimes, when the humans don't give you enough attention, you have to help yourself.  I think this is what they call 'self-service'.

Baby Brother!

My apologies for the lack of updates, but our house has been a bit busy recently with the new addition of my baby brother.  Yes, he's finally out last week!

Here's me with my siblings, after he came back from the hospital...


And all of us sleeping....


On another note, my M has been wondering what I've been trying to dig.  I particularly like this area of the living room and will regularly attempt to dig at the area. She's hoping there's some buried gold in there.

Digging for gold?

Foot Rest

I am sorry to report that I am now an official foot rest during meal times outside...

As you can see, I'm not exactly very excited about stinky feet on me.  But the treats after the meals sort of make up for it.

New Bedmate

Recently I've gotten myself a new bedmate... She's none other than my baby sister. For some strange reason, she'd rather sleep on the floor under her bed with me than to sleep ON the bed. In case you can't see me, I've pointed myself out for you. And even when I was settling myself down on the other side of the room, she'd make my M ask me to join her under the bed. So now I have to share my sleeping space with her. Luckily, there's a lot of floor space... Aunty V said that maybe I should sleep ON the bed instead. I think that's a good idea, you think my M will let me sleep on the bed and my baby sister sleep under the bed?

Jack's Birthday

My apologies for the total lack of updates recently, I'm still very much alive, just that nothing interesting has been going on in my life, except that it was Jack's Barkday last week and we had cake for the next 3 days coz the humans bought too much. My M took a video of my baby sister singing the barkday song and me hovering in the background waiting for a bite. Other than that, we've got a new live-in housekeeper recently, so I'm having company at home during the day. So far this new housekeeper seems quite good, just that she never handled dogs before and was really, really careful with me, to the point that she's always keeping me on a tight leash. I blame it on my M warning her that I have a tendency to pull and sometimes fight with other dominant male dogs. My M decided not to tell her to loosen up, as her keeping me on a tight leash is better than me taking her unawares and pulling and slipping the leash out of her fingers. Hopefully she'll learn how to handle me soon and find out that I'm not that much of a danger to the public and give me a looser rein.

Outnumbered soon!

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is, I'm going to have a baby brother soon!

The bad news is, it's a human brother, not a canine one.

Just as my baby sister has finally outgrown the 'attempting to pluck my fur' stage (most of the time), the 'attempting to eat my body parts' stage and 'attempting to pull various extensions of my body' stage, I have to go through this all over again!!

And now there will be 2 baby humans against one of me!!!

I have a few more months of peace left... so I better make the best use of it.

On the bright side, I happened to see my M email my breeder to keep her on the waiting list for late 2013 litter. Keeping my paws crossed that means I'll be getting a canine sibling later to even up the score a little.

Kicked out

I have been kicked out of the bedroom.

My baby sister is starting to sleep in her own room (finally!) and her only condition is I must sleep with her. So for the first time in my life, I am sleeping away from M when we're in the same house.

My M came to check in on us last night after my baby sister fell asleep and I thought she was there to rescue me and let me go back to my room to sleep. I kept pawing and nose-butting her and sticking very close to her to prevent her from escaping but she managed to squeeze her way out of the door and leave me behind in the new room.

I hope I can move back to my own room soon, I've not been getting proper sleep at night for the past two nights. :(

Head on collision

There was a minor accident at home yesterday.

Remember I once blogged about having fun with my baby sister playing bubbles? Well, we had another session of bubble fun yesterday.

Then my baby sister decided she wanted to catch bubbles as well and my M was given the task of shooting the bubbles. And we were both going after the same bubble when we ran head long into each other. I went away unscathed but one of my tooth accidentally poked my baby sister near the brow and there was a small pin prick wound which bled.

She started bawling immediately. I guess it must be pretty painful but luckily my baby sister was never much of a crybaby and my M managed to pacify her within minutes. I got banned from further bubble fun and my baby sister made me promise not to bang her head again.

I'm glad my baby sister's ok. I'd feel really bad if something happened to her. Anyway, that night my M had a talk with her to say it was an accident and we were both at fault for not looking where we were running so my baby sister came to apologize to me for knocking into me as well.

I lurve my baby sister!

Happy Chinese New Year!

So sorry that I haven't been blogging for the whole of January. I can only blame my lazy M for not uploading my videos and photos.

Anyway, it was the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year last week and I went visiting with the family. Unfortunately, my M was too lazy to take any pictures, other than the one where my baby sister and her distant cousin was running around the dining table with me.



It was quite tiring running after the 2 kiddos that I was totally knocked out before the night is over.



My M is supposed to blog about our earlier picnic outing. Let's see how long she'll take this time to actually uplaod the photos. :P