Goodbye, fur friend

Looking at all my pictures of Toby ...

Together again

Top dog

There is only one thing to do with the other dog is hogging parental attention: Conquer Mummy's pillow!

Synchronised sleeping (part gazillion)

Sometimes they do a mirror image ...

... then one flips over and they're sychronised again.

The master manoeuvre involves the big stuffed dog right between them.
Notice there's no room for the humans on the sofa. It's a variation of the Spread & Conquer move,  more commonly seen on the bed at night.

Jagger

Jagger was the first dog we got to know when we first moved here. He was a stand-out, not just because almost every other dog was something white and fluffy, or a mini-Schnauzer. Then, we only had one dog, a mini-Schnauzer, and still I couldn't tell the other mini-Schnauzers apart.

Jagger was a Jack Russell. But not just any JRT. He was the tallest JRT I've ever met. When eventually we had Rupert, Jagger towered over our fox terrier. (He humped him too. But then Roop gets humped a lot, even by Queeni.)

And after getting to know Jagger, we got to know his human. She was still in secondary school then, a quiet teenager. But a responsible one. You had to be when you're in charge of feeding, walking and looking after a JRT who knows what he wants. And so when a dogsitter bailed on us when we were about to leave for a holiday, she came over, stayed over and looked after our two.

We saw her grow up, finish school, go through polytechnic, graduate, and start working. Oh, and there was a boyfriend along the way. He lived in the next block, and they used to walk their dogs together, and then come up and play with ours. And then the boyfriend became an ex-boyfriend, and then there was another boyfriend.

And Jagger got old, got cancer and has passed on. We feel like we've lost a dog too. Soon, his markings on the grass, the lamp posts and pillars will fade. And Queeni and Rupert will no longer smell him. I'm sure they will remember him though. We are honoured that they are two of only three dogs (the third one being the ex-boyfriend's dog, that fluffy brown one in the picture) that Jagger never barked at, never tried to bite. Because we were all friends.

Goodbye, friend.

The surgeon is in

The patients. Most got by with minor surgery but one needed an amputation and another was too far gone to save.

The eager assistant. Also the culprit behind the patients' condition. You can tell by the glint in his eyes.

Uncut triptych

Lazy Sunday lie-in

Neighbourhood watch

The family on the ground floor have taken in a few semi-feral cats and kittens. That is, they set down food, water and a cat bed on the corridor outside their flat. Of late, they've taken the cat bed indoors, and now the cats are free to wander in and out of their flat.

What the cats don't realise is that the invitation isn't extended to every house. Just a few days ago, I saw a ginger unceremoniously booted out by their next door neighbour. Now, he's tied mesh netting to his gate to block the cats from getting in.

So what's an adventurous cat to do? It climbs up the stairs one floor. Our front door is always shut so that the dogs don't become a nuisance and bark every time someone walks past. But most people here leave their front doors open (though the gates are usually closed) for better ventilation.

So Mr Cat strolls into the flat across the landing, leaps up on the sofa and makes himself at home. The wide-eyed five-year-old ran to the kitchen to report to his mother, "Cat watching TV!" to her bewilderment. The two-year-old thought it was a stuffed toy with batteries included and tried to scoop it up. Mum however, would have none of it.

So now our dogs have been seconded to cat sentry duty. Our front door is propped open, and they're encouraged to bark loudly at anyone who walks past, especially if the passer-by is feline.

New guy

We have a "new" vet. He's been in the practice more than 10 years and leads the team of vets, but I last saw him two dogs ago. When Queeni developed a string of medical issues, the practice owner and senior vet took us over, and we saw him exclusively. Now, he's retired to tend his fruit trees and relax with his koi (and I'm pretty sure we paid for all that), he handed us back to the next most senior guy. He won't even do referral consultations anymore, he won't start what he can't follow up. We said goodbye to him sorrowfully last year, and made an appointment with the highly recommended "new" one for Queeni's vaccination today.

We're going to get along with the "new" vet just fine. HRH didn't growl at him, and that's the benchmark. Previously, the senior vet was the only one she didn't try to bite; he had a Doolittle way about him, one of the junior vets said to us.

New guy is nice and chatty, which is what you'd want. Not someone who pokes a needle in and "see you next year". He looked at the dynamics between Queeni and Rupert, and told us how about his two dogs, one smart and one not really -- "some dogs, you know they're not altogether there", looking at Rupert. Sweetest dog ever, just without the smarts. Yup, he's got Rupert down pat and won Queeni over.

We're all going to get along.

Quality control

Meaty smells were wafting out of the oven as L cooked, and Rupert just had to go for a sniff.

"He's quality control, our personal FDA," I joked as L tried to shoo him out.

"Well, anyone would pass his standards, they're not that high," L retorted as Roop went from sniffing the oven door to sniffing the dustbin.

"Err, he's China FDA."

Curled-up dog

Last night, both dogs slept under the covers. When L came back from using the bathroom, he started patting the lumps on the bed to check that all the dogs were in the room (Rupert had been inadvertently shut out of the bedroom before, when L didn't realise that he had followed him out).

Queeni was easily located, Roop not so. L started patting my side of the bed.

"That's my leg."

He patted another lump.

"That's my other leg."

Now he started smoothening down all the lumps on my side of the bed.

"He's between my legs."

And that's how I slept. Contorted. With one dog between my legs and another pressed up against the small of my back.

Dog yoga, a friend calls it.

Who says I don't exercise?

Our pack guardians

Last week's Economist had a lovely article on how research backs what any dog owner will tell you -- that man's best friend is capable of empathy.

All they had had to do was to ask someone who lives with dogs. If only the researchers had come to my house first. I know when I cry, one dog presses up against me while the other looks anxiously at me and then starts bringing me toys. When there's an empty spot in bed because one human pack member isn't home, they take up sleeping positions on either side of me, body contact all the time, guarding, comforting, protecting.

Well, I've since realised that their empathy also extends to people not inside our little family pack. L had over some friends from his physio/rehab group -- two fellow patients and a physiotherapist. The little gathering took place partly because the mother of one of the patients asked L if he could hang out with her son, to draw him out a bit, get him out and about. The young man had been disabled after a stroke a year ago, lost his job, lost his fiancee, and didn't do anything other than stay in bed all day if he wasn't at the physio group. Nobody said it but I suspect he was also severely depressed. Well, who wouldn't be?

When he came to our house, he was polite but detached, almost sullen. I tried to get a conversation going but it really was just him answering me. But pretty soon, both dogs had taken up position next to him, one on each side. They were getting into that bookend mode of guarding and comforting. In a minute, the younger one was belly up, getting a chest rub. The older one was pressed up against him, her head in his lap. Well, Rupert is always everybody's friend, and a bit of a slut at that, anything for a chest rub. But Queeni was a surprise. She's normally the stand-offish one, and there she was, snuggling to a stranger, chin pressed into his lap. She clearly knew that was someone who needed to be taken care of. And then he asked to take a photo with the dogs. For a brief moment, the dullness in his eyes was lighted up by a flicker of a smile.

Everybody should have a dog.

Long to reign over us all

OK, so some queen is celebrating her silver jubilee this weekend. But this Queen has ruled 70 years in human years already. QE II has some catching up to do.

Watching paint dry again

It seems like only yesterday that I had a new puppy on my lap, watching the block across being repainted. Now the block is getting another lick of paint. And the puppy is a irascible teenager.

Synchronised sleeping

Spot the dog

Spot the dog

As long as you can breathe ...

There can be only one Queen

The pillow is wrong. Mummy is not the Queen. I am the Queen.

Friday afternoon

L left the front door open because he ordered a McDonald's delivery, so Rupert stood by the door and waited -- not for hamburgers but for me to come home from work. That's my boyo!

Sharing

The Queen gets the head of the bed (along with the pillows), and the minion gets the foot, and we all get along -- the humans will have to fit somewhere in the middle.

The other item at the foot of bed is Cat, the stuffed toy. One human (who wasn't wearing his glasses at the time) has been known to address Cat, thinking that it was Queeni (being the same colour and size as her) and wondering why he wasn't getting a response.

Marking territory

Somebody dragged the life-sized stuffed dog into the crate. Now Nobody can get in.

The suspected culprit looks pleased with himself, and has a glint in his eyes.