Working with distractors

It's Day 4 of Tasha's daily dog obedience training. It's actually more like obedience training for US and conditioning for her. As we obey the routine we're committed to, she gets used to our new strange habits and learns to respond accordingly.

Starting today, we are introducing distractors to her usual walk-rest-walk regime. Now at every checkpoint, we set up something to catch her attention and make her wander away from us. As soon as she moves over to investigate, we wheel and walk in the opposite direction, forcing her to pay attention to us and follow our lead.

Today, we brought her favourite toy: a little, hollow, purple ball with a bell in it which we could shake and bounce in front of her. But at the same time, the one playing with the ball must not gesture or otherwise invite her to play along. If she accepts an invitation, it would not be fair of us to drag her away.

It turned out that she was already distracted enough with so many other void-deck stimuli, from litter and debris to the occasional passer-by that we didn't need the ball at all. Every time she got ahead of us, we turned and walked the other way.

This exercise is certainly more tiring than the previous one as rest stops are dictated, not by us, but by the reluctant trainee. If she didn't decide to stop and sit behind us, we just had to keep going.

Tomorrow, we'll try with the ball again as she finally seems to understand the rules of this new boring game: don't get ahead of your handler. And on Friday, maybe some food as well, just to be evil.

Stagestruck

Got a kick out of our favourite playwright's email to me telling NYeDC that he is using one of our Drama Night pix from last year as his profile photo for his Facebook fan page. ZX and his angry bird companion look sufficiently goofy to warrant such a distinction.

In the meantime, I said 'yes' to Sirius who offered me a role in one of this year's Drama Night plays. She later also offered me the Director's role and gave me the freedom to choose my own cast. Um... thanks. I think I've been had.

Exercise for a small dog

Tasha is doing her homework. Her recommended schedule is one 40-minute block or two 20-minute blocks per day for 10 weeks.

She's wearing her choke collar and we've attached a 15-foot leash to it. That's a lot of slack, if you ask me. The idea is for us to set up three or four checkpoints about 50 ft from each other to mark out our training route. Q: Where in S'pore can we find a 50 ft square space? A: Nowhere. We are walking an L-shaped route back and forth in a vacant void deck, and that'll have to do.

So the exercise: Starting at the first checkpoint, walk to the next without looking at your dog, or inviting her along. If she's good, she'll follow you, else at the end of the 15-ft leash, she'll get a tug and she'll come trotting up to you when you arrive at your destination. Hold for 30 seconds, then move off to the next checkpoint, again without inviting her, calling her or even looking at her. Repeat checkpoint to checkpoint in sequence for the duration of the exercise period.

The idea is to set a routine. When you walk, dog should automatically follow. When you stop, dog stops. This should happen with or without a leash, as yesterday's demonstrator dog so competently showed us. After a day, Tasha learned to follow, though she has no idea what to do with herself when we stop. Ideally, she should just sit and wait... but that's probably going to be another exercise for another time.

Lesson for us: let her poop before commencing training. When we were purposely not looking at her, well, let's just say that there was an unnecessary interruption to her lesson as I rushed around with baggie and tissue paper, picking up after her before any human traffic -- and her trailing leash -- could contact a landmine.

Here we have an emo shot of a dog in training

And this is Ginger George, the high-class freeloader who will only accept a canned Friskies from us. He's causing a premature distraction to Tasha, who should be exercising with distractions only from Day 4-6.

1st day of school

It's time for little Tasha to go to school and learn some basic obedience. Not that she's been particularly naughty, or anything, but if she's going to live in a human world and interact with other people and their dogs, it's good for her to live by a set of predictable rules.

As with every kid attending school for the first time, there are certain circumstances to get used to. Our trainer is the choke chain type. He explained that the choke chain does not harm the dog no matter how small, but is a form of effective communication between dog and handler. As you can see, she doesn't like it much. The metal chain and clasp are kinda' heavy and they drag the floor. But we have to accustom her to it anyway as it's going to play a major role in her training regimen.

After 10 weeks, with consistent daily practice, she should learn heel, stay, sit, stand, come. In the meantime, young as she is, she's demonstrating a disturbing affinity for her handsome male classmates. She was practically drooling over the demonstrator, an English sheepdog -- like a 14-year old going starry-eyed over the confident senior jock. Hmm... better keep an eye on this one.

Now free of the choke chain, she's clearly less distressed. Well, it isn't meant to stay on forever.

You have one job!

I am quite perturbed by grown adults who are grads, qualified and certified to work but can't think for themselves without referring to a crutch of a pre-digested template.

A proper dog

I wonder if it's too early to say, but Tasha's exhibiting proper toilet habits. There have been appreciably fewer 'accidents' indoors, and she understands what 'going out' means for her to do. Good girl, Tasha!

Personality-wise, she's turning out to be rambunctious, energetic and attention-seeking, while at rest she prefers to be around people. All these traits are expected of dog behaviour.

I mention this only because her doggie behaviour is something the cats are not used to. So far, both Maui and Kaiser have taken swipes at her when she got too close. Certainly, these relationships bear watching. Hopefully, they'll adapt to each other quickly.

Kickstarting a Pebble

Yes, I'm a bandwagon jumper on Kickstarter who ordered a Pebble e-paper smartwatch and made it the best funded project to date, contributing to the over US$10m raised via this crowdfunding portal.

The packaging Pebble ships in opens up into a well-padded interior, securely cradling the watch and its magnetic USB charging cable. Apparently, a single charge keeps the watch going for 5-7 days. We'll see.

The Pebble looks a bit big on my dainty wrist, but I like the idea of being able to change watch faces on the fly. Currently, there are digital, textual and whimsical watch faces to choose from, and when the SDK finally gets released in April, lots more users will be able to design more watch faces to add to the growing list of options available.

Apart from the cosmetic face changing ability, the cool idea behind the Pebble is that it pairs with your smartphone via Bluetooth and alerts you to incoming calls by displaying caller ID; SMS messages with sender info and a preview of the message; and with further firmware updates, other smartphone notifications from Facebook, Twitter and their ilk if you so desire. The practical effect is that you don't always have to fish your phone out of your pocket every time it buzzes in silent mode to see if a response is urgently needed. Just casually glance at your watch and nobody will be the wiser.

Other apps involving the in-built accelerometer are in the pipeline as well. For the moment, it activates the backlight through a flick of the wrist. Not much, but it's a cool one-handed operation which no other watch currently in the market can duplicate.

On the backplate you can see "Kickstarter Edition" showing that this unit is the very first commercially available production model of its kind. A lot of people who ordered the Pebble through Kickstarter are quite upset over how long it has taken the company to deliver. We've been waiting for very nearly a year and many initial backers' patience has worn thin. The company has only manufactured the jet black colour option to date. Good luck to those who ordered their Pebble in other colours.

The debate among Pebble backers is over what it is we have plonked our money down on. The most impatient think they have bought a product like they would have on Amazon or E-Bay. The many production delays have made these people feel that their money's been spirited away with nothing tangible to show for it.

Although I have been impatiently checking the delivery schedule on a near-daily basis and hyperventilating whenever a company update goes online, my take is that I haven't bought so much a product than I have a process. The product is only the reward for putting faith (and some money) in the process. What I felt I was funding was a learning process for the young entrepreneurs at Pebble, helping them with a little seed-money to develop a cool concept into a fully operational commercially available device I would be proud to wear on my wrist.

Despite the wait, I will say the company has been responsible with its startup capital. The production delays were mostly due to a steep learning curve; upscaling of production processes; R&D on further improvements such as waterproofing to a depth of 50m and upgrading Bluetooth to 4.0 from 2.0; acquiring proper FCC licencing; testing shipping procedures and schedules... but my Pebble is finally here. It works like it should, and though it still looks somewhat like a prototype I'm happy with it's geek-cool cred.

Just because I received my first Kickstarter delivery... I funded something else. Heh.

In other news: look what campus admin surprised me with today! Has it really been that long?

it's (about!) time

Ironically, the words "it's time" are printed on the package delivered to my house today. Ironic because I ordered it just shy of a year ago, hoping it would arrive by my birthday. Then I watched Christmas; New Year and Chinese New Year; Valentine's Day; and wife's birthday roll by... and finally, finally, it's here! Yet I still have to wait another 24 hours because no one was home to accept delivery and I have to collect it in person at the local post office during opening hours tomorrow. Rawr.

A Rocky morning

The Animal Rescue Squad swung into action again, reuniting this naughty runaway dog with his owner.

This bad boy was running around loose on campus with one of our students in hot pursuit. She eventually pinned him down, while I arrived huffing and puffing to see if assistance was required.

Fortunately, his owners had tagged him with his name (Rocky) and their cellphone numbers. A couple of calls later and we established contact; the owners' daughter would collect him from us.

Unfortunately, he decided not to wait with us any longer. Sensing a slight lapse in attention, he bounded off again and I had to run after him. He ran out of the main gate (without signing an early-leave form!), but at least had the good sense not to cross the main road; and even better sense to know that the construction site he ran into eventually was not any more hospitable for him. Making a U-turn, he ran back into my arms.

With a firm grip on his collar, we both marched back to campus. For safekeeping, we locked him in the new HODs' room with air-conditioning and lots of well-meaning company.

That would include Wayne who fetched him a bowl of water; Josh who feels it was partially his fault Rocky got away the second time; HOD PE who ran with me after the escapee; Gurmit who fetched a hefty hemp rope to secure him; Amy who rescued my tea from breakfast when we were so abruptly interrupted by the unauthorized new arrival, and offering her room to keep him in; and all the kaypoh little children who tried to make him feel all warm and welcome while we waited for owner to show up.

And that's where his owner caught up to him. Mission accomplished.

The Literature paradox

The reason why Literature as a school subject is in trouble is because we don't know what we want from it. By 'trouble', I mean that it is declining in take-up by students who are favouring the more 'practical' subjects like the sciences and math. All the hand-wringing that been going on in recent weeks is nothing new -- lit has been in decline for a long time now.

The issue isn't really about whether to keep it on as a subject or phase it out. No one is actively campaigning to eradicate it from the syllabus; a number of vocal supporters are rallying support for it; some are lamenting how pragmatic our society's become; but most are silently indifferent and will neither be sorry nor surprised if it dies a natural death.

I belong to the vocally indifferent camp. We love good books, but the link between the enjoyment of reading and having to take an exam about it is problematic. Both are diametrically opposite activities. Old man story follows:

Way back when I was a green trainee with a class of my own, I had to give a lit test. My objective was to see what creative things the kids could do with the poems they were reading. I designed a test to assess their interpretation of the text through a choreographed or dramatized group movement, i.e., a dramatic reading of the poem of their choice. I even designed a rubric so I could grade the performance with a clear conscience.

As much as the kids were astonished by my test design and rubric which I briefed them on beforehand, they astounded me with their interpretative performances. Working together, not only did they show they understood their poems, they showed that they were able to translate text into visuals, and visuals to aesthetic movement -- and they did it all on their own. I didn't teach them to do anything that they did, I just said, 'GO!', sat back and marvelled.

A couple of days later, I returned to the classroom with a heavy heart and a text-based re-test. Since the kids were sitting for a written exam at the end of the year, my mentors insisted that I give them a written test now. I guess they wanted to see how effectively the kids had memorized their Coles' Notes or whatever else they were studying. I never knew how the kids did on the re-test but I'd like to think that the rescinded test helped them some.

The lit exam is a very different animal from the simple activity of text reading. Despite the fluidity of subject matter, there's nothing whimsical about how questions are to be answered, or subjective in the way the answers are graded. The exam is purely mechanical in its emphasis on critical analysis, and that it rewards logic and structure -- just like the other kind of argumentative academic study. The questions require a scientific hypothesis and a mathematically logical approach to developing a reasoned conclusion.

Lit is a subject that bundles more content than its packaging can possibly hold. It's the elephant all of us blind men are feeling a different aspect of. Yes, it is creative, humanistic, historical, expressive, and everything else a lit buff identifies as good for the growing child; but it is also as practical as it gets, training the same child to think and appreciate current realities while developing a critical mind and a personal voice to match.

The problem is, people don't see how two contradictory objectives can co-exist in the same subject. Me, I enjoyed the books I read and most of the lit classes I attended. And I aced every test and exam I took beyond Sec 2. AND I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to be able to say that.

I don't believe anyone wants lit to die (apart from those poor sods who only know lit through memorizing notes), but if it is to have a renewed viability, the people setting the syllabus and the people setting the exams will have to start talking to each other once again to figure out how to market the best of both worlds and ditch the public opinion of lit stemming from the worst; while making it relevant to a generation of twits*.

*by which I mean people who tweet. On Twitter. Rather than like some old pedagogue ponderously pontificating on Blogger. 

Taoist send-off

It's been a rough few days. It's been like another month, another wake. There was no getting out of this one. The wife's closest aunt passed away over the weekend and for the first time I've been attending the full works of a Taoist send-off... in the capacity of favourite grand-niece's husband and designated driver.

From the ecclesiastical perspective, we do not share the same beliefs but as family I'm not about to be all stand-offish and disrespectful of the obligatory rituals. As I'm not immediate family, I don't have to play a part in the main proceedings. That gave me lots of time to grade papers at an unoccupied corner table of the tentage; but where I am expected to show the minimum of family support, I take the wife's lead.

I helped fold origami 'ingots' (the more, the merrier) to be burnt on behalf of the deceased; wore colours appropriate to the occasion; and for the short procession behind the hearse, I had a mourning sash tied around my waist -- though I waited in the car, ready to join the convoy headed up to Bright Hill.

Between these familial duties and caring for the new maltipup, there isn't much left to Spring Break. So I'm really glad my grading quota has been met... and now I can party the rest of what's left of my brains out the rest of the week. As if.

Baptism by poo

Let's start today's post with a cute pix. That's 'cos yesterday, Tasha really had her baptism by diarrhoea. This phenomenon appears to be our welcome-to-the-family tradition and most of our pets have gone through it, though to greater or lesser degrees.

It's hard enough toilet training a puppy, but when she gets the runs all the 'no' and 'good girl' messages get all mixed up in the frequent -- and messy -- 'accidents' that occur wherever in the house she is in.

Fortunately, the biggest damage was in the main bathroom where we confined her for a while. But we had to deal with smaller issues in the bedroom, living-room and study as well. And she thoroughly messed up her bedding, probably during a surprise attack.

The reason why we were so concerned was at about past midnight, there was blood in her stool. We bundled her into a large plastic bag lined with a pee mat and drove her straight to the 24-hour emergency clinic. For an after-hours consultation and prescription costing over $200 we got the very helpful diagnosis that our puppy was having a diarrhoea problem. Wow, thanks. They also showed us a magnified peek into a stool sample they'd taken to show us a microbial parasite that could be the cause of all this anxiety.

So, no unauthorised snacks for her and definitely no human food. Instead, a regimented feeding schedule, antibiotics and pepto bismol doses twice a day -- at least until her systems can process at a more mature level.

Congratulations, it's a maltipoo!

This post is a day late, but we have a dog to take to doggie events again! After being nameless for a day, she has finally got one we could both agree to: Tasha. Tasha is a cross-breed, fashionably referred to as a maltipoo (no prizes for guessing her parentage).

And so now with a new puppy in the house, we'll all be making a lot of adjustments while we adapt to a new personality in residence. For the moment, the cats are unhappy with this new addition and have gone off their food.

And for us, Tasha is no Q-tip replacement. Where Q-tip tended towards placidity, Tasha is a ball of energy and is quite demanding of attention. For a small pup, she has a sharp, high-pitched bark that can be quite startling. And the process of housetraining has to begin all over again.

Fortunately, this week begins Spring Break, so I can afford to spend a little more time at home to get this little fella acclimatized to our family, and us to her.

Raw or rawr!

Tried a sampling of Sunday Pets New Zealand freeze-dried beef and blueberry. I thought this combination might work and I would finally have grateful smitten felines circling my ankles every time I brought out the snack-pack...

Sadly, this was not the case.

Maui took a sniff, a lick, and when threatened with having to eat it for real, ran for the hills. Kaiser (above) only saw fit to bat it once across the floor with a deft paw. Clearly the boys are not impressed.

Only Momo will eat it, and even then, it seems she has reached maximum marginal utility with the freeze-dried stuff. She munched through this last piece (above) looking totally bored.

Fusspots!

Edit 01:

The cats continue to confuse me. At breakfast, I decided to get rid of the remaining sample by evenly distributing it all in their individual bowls. Before the other two cats got there, Maui wiped them all out. I've never put much stock in the fickleness of feline dietary preferences, but if this experiment has proven anything, it's that my cats are mad.

More adventures in the raw

Feeding the cats with the Ziwi Peak raw air-dried venison and fish. As usual, the boys will have nothing to do with it. One sniff and they're walking out of the kitchen already mentally composing a letter of complaint to the management.

And again, only Momo is willing to put her face in it and nom away.

Managed to convince Kaiser to try some of the stuff by adding a level spoonful of his regular kibble. Even so, he's no big fan going by his leftovers.

For dessert, Sunday Pets freeze-dried Manuka glazed lamb... but the cats have totally confused me. Yesterday, Kaiser couldn't get enough of the snack, today he absolutely refuses to touch it. Momo was the complete opposite: where yesterday she refused it outright, today she's eating it out of my hand.

So far, my experiments with raw pet food have been pretty inconclusive. If I'm going to plonk down actual money for a pack, it'll be a small pack just for Momo. The two boys can jolly well get a top-up of their current commercial crap, and like it.

Cats and raw snacks

No hard feelings. Ginger tom still recognizes us and begs us for food despite being wrongfully imprisoned in our cage for over 24 hours. Apparently, he's already been fixed, so the trip to the vet proved unnecessary -- apart from his ear tipping (which Elim says is very important).

Today we're visiting the ST classified ads sponsored pets event at ECP, reliving the good ol' days when we had a dog to bring to such an event. Maybe we will again soon... but that's left to be seen.

But that's how we wound up with a bunch of free sample Ziwi Peak air-dried (above) and Sunday Pets freeze-dried (below) raw food to try out on the cats at home.

This could get complicated. It's bath day for Momo (see her traumatized look above) and so we wanted to reward her with the Sunday Pets lamb snack (below). She sniffed it suspiciously; licked it once; took it into her mouth... and promptly spat it out again. Either she doesn't like it, or multi-tasking between lick-drying herself and snack-eating was conflicting with her taste processors. We'll try it again later.

Kaiser, on the other hand, went bananas over the lamb snack. The first two morsels he ate while perched on his favourite shelf. The third piece brought him to floor level where he chased me into the kitchen. Maui, as before, turned his nose up at the treat and let Kaiser have it. Above, Kaiser is polishing off Momo's refused piece.

So, each cat has it's own preferred raw food type. We have yet to find out what turns Maui on, but Kaiser goes for the cheaper lamb snack while hoity-toity Momo wants green-lipped mussels. How to remember all these specific little details? *headache

Gourmet girl

Latest update on the pet front is that despite the wife's hankering after a replacement Q-tip, we still have not found one. The one at the SPCA was not a mini-maltese and anyway she, being over four years old, has no history that we know of. We don't know her health condition, temperament, or even how she is going to react with three other cats in the house. Sad, but we gave her up to the third person on the wait list and hope she can find a good home there.

Least of all, I don't want a rebound dog picked up on impulse, thinking the same personality will be perfectly replicated when we should know very well it's not likely to be. If we got a puppy, we could watch her grow up, and adapt to her quirks as they develop.

In the meantime, Elim gave me a sampling of Sunday Pets freeze-dried raw mussels (above) to see how the cats would take to it. Out of the bag, the mussels smell like something even I would like to put in my mouth, but I bested temptation and gave the cats one each in their dinner bowls. The boys ran away screaming. Those two must have been brought up to eat commercial crap. Plebeians!

But Momo proved to have the more discerning palate. After a cautious sniff at the mussel in her bowl, she picked it up and ate it on the kitchen floor. The boys weren't troubling her, so she took her time to savour the delicate bouquet of this rare treat. Then she went back for seconds.

For her thirds --  la piece de resistance -- she chose a cozy spot on the kitchen rug to down the last one. I groaned inwardly over the prospect of having to clear the crumbs away, but Momo did a good job of mopping up most of the mess for me.

Freeze-dried mussels are gourmet food for cats with more mature tastebuds and who can appreciate the finer things in life. But they are only an appetizer, as far as Momo is concerned. She still came back for her regular two scoops of commercial kibble for dinner.

A little give... and take?

Q-tip left quite a bit of food behind, both kibble and canned. We donated it all to the SPCA. While we were there, the wife went to look at the dogs up for adoption. Her eye went to a female mini-maltese who was quite friendly.This 4-year old is already pledged to someone else, though, so the wife put her name on a waiting list. Something tells me she's already contemplating a Q-tip replacement...

Exit, stage left

Friday evening, we attended Tina's memorial (above) dressed in our old "z-Friends" costumes. Comprising a solid colour T-shirt underneath denim overalls, this was what we wore for our street gigs. Using (or rather, misusing) buckets and mops, we devised many ridiculous scenarios such as "astronauts"; "circus" and "Olympics" for the purpose of entertaining children and for other fringe activities. Of course, my set of overalls had gotten tight over the years. Sigh.

Anyway, a number of very eloquent people said a lot of very nice things about Tina which we all could nod to. Her straightness of back; her humility; her giving of herself to project, people and the community; her sense of quick-witted and spontaneous fun; her discipline; her genuineness; her respect for others regardless of age, background or experience... and so many other things we will miss now that she's gone.

So with red wine and white wine, masala tea and tetra-pak drinks, we toasted Tina even as we vowed to keep her memory alive while we kept theatre alive and thriving even though one of our biggest prime movers has exited, stage left for her curtain-call of great applause.

Not easily won

I once told x13 that we weren't scholar material. Every bit of success we got would not have been easily obtained, but rather the result of a very hard slog through blood, sweat and tears. Guess what? They girded up, put their noses to the grindstone and started grinding.

I've never taken a CT before that produced multiple distinction achievers at the 'A' Levels... until now. I shouldn't take pride in an achievement based on an effort not my own, but I can't help but be proud of x13 for their determination to do well and the grit to pull it off in the end. Very nicely done, kids!