Adorable or vomit blood*?

Axel has a cushion in the living room specifically for him to rest and play with when he is out from him playpen. Initially he used it for peeing. I had to slap his behind a few times before he finally got the message.

He now takes it as his landing ground when he is doing his "flight" routine at my living room. I used the word "flight" because when he is running, you see and feel as if all his legs are up on the air. Oh..and often times he land on my lap too!

I bought him a harness yesterday. He was pretty cool when I put it on him. Only when he started to run that he noticed this additional "accessory". So he was running and trying to reach the side of the harness at the same time. Looked pretty comical to me.

I attached the leash to his harness and tried to train him to walk along with me. With the magical power of treats in my hand, we managed to walk along well..although it's only for a short period of time. There were of course a few glitches here and there; such as he went on strike and lied flat on the floor refusing to budge. Nothing that the treats couldn't fix though!

Nowadays when I reached home, he would whine for me to let him out. I would usually play cool and ignore him for a while. Well... that would be after I have cleaned up his mess la. When he got calmer, I would let him out. I couldn't help but to feel like a mean daddy when dealing with Axel cos I seemed to shout at him a lot. Whenever I did that, he would go flat on the floor... and looked up to me with his puppy eyes. When I turned my back, off he went with the same mischief again. Adorable or vomit blood*??

(*vomit blood - an expression to denote frustration)

Nice & Clean

Brought Axel to the pet supplies shop in SS2(the breeders from whom we got Axel work there) for grooming last Sat. That was the 2nd time Axel went for a car ride. The first time was when we got him 3 weeks ago. He was a little confused and excited at the same time. He pee'ed and poo'ed inside his bag and I had to use a towel to cover them so that he won't step all over them.


Reached the pet supplies shop at around 11am and there were so many dogs waiting in line to be groomed. The breeders were so glad to see Axel and told us again how they did not mind to buy Axel back. Apparently Axel has this continuous fold on top of his nose which makes him rare. I told the breeders that it is too late for that. Bonding has already happened.

Had to wait for almost an hour or so before it was Axel's turn to be groomed. Met this nice lady who has a show Shih-Tzu there for grooming. She shared some of her dog keeping as well as dog showing experiences with us.

Axel was very scared and docile all the time in the shop. He basically was clinging to us. The lady said that we need to get him to socialise with other dogs so that he is less timid. She suggested that a dog's obedience class is a way to go. She attended the one at Pet Safari in Ikano Power Center and said that her Shih Tzu and her actually learned a lot of things from there.

We waited for an hour or so before it's Axel's turn. There was this poodle who was waiting for the owner to come; and she (or he??) was so craving for attention. Kept whining and barking at us to get our attention. I told her (or him??) to sit and she (or him??) actually sat and wagged her tail. I can't help but to see a poodle and think of it as a "she".

Axel got his nail clipped, his ears cleaned, his whiskers trimmed and a bath. He was very much submissive throughout the grooming session, something that we don't see at home.

After the grooming, we took him to the vet in Puchong and got him checked and vaccinated. I guess Axel was really dazed by all the happenings in a day. Dr. Agas (the vet) explained about the vaccination options that Axel could have. We went for the 9 in 1 vaccination which is RM10 more than the standard option.

Got Axel back and he came down with a mild fever. However he was acting as normal (i.e. the angelic devil characteristics) and eating fine. Dr. Agas has already told us the possibility of fever or sleeping the whole day after vaccination, so we were not overly concerned by that.

Mmm...so comfortable

Axel is making such good use of the "little" tummy that I have. I guess it must be a really comfortable cushion for him. See what I mean:

9 weeks old

Axel was born on the 11th Nov 2005. 11th Nov actually coincides with my best friends at Uni, Manida & Florence's birthdays. It is also the birthday of USM PPB (Persatuan Pelajar Buddhist). The name that was given to him by the breeder was "Chrysler" which is quite cool also.... but hehe, I still prefer Axel. As of today, Axel is about 9 weeks old. He has been staying with me for more than 2 weeks now.

He is getting used to the fact that he will be left alone from morning till evening; and I am getting used to getting back and be presented with his mess to clean up. He is paper trained though...it's the shredding and dragging the newspapers around that are causing the mess.

A pic of his cage + playpen is as below. They are placed in my kitchen taking almost half of the space. I got this inspiration from a Singaporean site on rearing dogs in Singapore. The information there is very useful for apartment living dog owners. I am planning to let him have the custody of the whole kitchen later on by taking out the play pen. Well... shall see how well can he behave before doing that.


So far, he is able to understand the "Sit" and "Down" command. He usually will obey these commands when he wants to get out of the play pen or when he is hungry. I will let him out to the living room every morning before I feed him and whenever I am home in the evening. He is always so eager to make use of his "stored up whole day" energy. Most time, he is clever enough to run back to his play pen to pee and poo; but other times he tend to just forget and do them on my marble floor. On catching him in this act, I would of course chased him back to his play pen... although the success rate of that is not always high.

Axel will be getting his 2nd vaccination jab this Saturday. Am planning to send him to the breeder for grooming first before we go to the vet. I do send his pictures to the breeder now and then. The breeder actually mentioned to me that if ever I changed my mind about keeping him, she is more than willing to take him back...with full refund. That actually convince me that she is really a pug lover, not someone who is just out to get some extra bucks.

The very beginning

I have been wanting to keep a dog for a very long time but as I was renting previously, it was not possible at all for me. Then when I finally moved to my own place, an apartment, I was a bit reluctant knowing that "by law", dogs should not be kept in apartments/condos.

Anyway I was very much in control in this sense...started to keep hamsters as a substitute until my "evil" friend Nancy got her silky terrier puppy named Dino and introduced me to him. At that juncture, it just got too tough for me to control myself anymore. So I started to read more about different breeds and their temperaments; and also surveyed around on how many apartment dwellers who actually rear dogs. I found out that there were quite a number of people living in my apartment block who have dogs as pets; as I could hear them (the dogs...not the owners!) barking or whining at times. I was told that as long as your neighbours do not complain, the management will usually close one eye.

On reading up on the different breed of dogs, I came across the pug. Aside from them being oh so cute, I started to like them a lot for the following reasons (from websites):

1) non barkers
2) doesn't grow too big
3) doesn't need extensive exercise
4) of course other important characteristics such as friendly, intelligent, bla, bla, bla...

As an apartment dweller, I guess the 1st 3 factors above are really important for me. So off I went searching for places to get pugs. Initially I thought of getting one from the pet shop but during that time, no pugs were available. Tried calling some newspaper advertisements and found that they are mostly dog brokers instead of breeders. So I really had no idea where to get one.

Then one day (Christmas eve 2005 to be exact), I went to this shop selling pet supplies in SS2. I walked in and could not find any puppies on display. So I asked a girl there on whether they sell puppies. She told me that the shop does not sell puppies but they have contact to some breeders. She then asked me which breed I was interested in. I told her "pug" and I could see her eyes lightened up immediately. She informed me that she has some pug puppies for sale, and that she is a home breeder, not a commercial breeder. She seemed to know a lot about pugs which put me at ease. So I made an appointment for her to bring the puppies over to the shop the next day.

The next day (Christmas day), I saw the puppies (2 males, 2 females) and immediately knew Axel(he wasn't named that yet) was the one for me. He was so playful but at the same time, not the dominant one. So I made my booking and the breeder said I can only collect it a week later as he was too young. The breeder really struck me as someone very nice and loving towards her dogs, and I knew she could be counted on for advices even after I have gotten Axel. Following are the pictures of Axel when I first laid my eyes on him.






So a week later (a day before New Year eve), I collected Axel and we started our lives together. I tell you, I was so terribly worried that his whines would wake up the neighbors. It was very much an adjusting time for me; as much as for him. I guess slowly he settled down; and I settled down too...