The persistent rat

I've been getting frequent visits from a very persistent rat that insists on trying to get into my house. Because there's a gap between the bottom of my back door and the floor, it could get in through there, and I wanted a contractor to come and cover up that gap to prevent the rat from coming in, but he was always so busy and it was difficult to get him, so I had figure out ways to stop the rat from coming into the house

Initially I put a big piece of cardboard to block off the gap, but it could chew through it, even after I kept fixing it up and making it so thick, there's no way it would have gotten its teeth around the edge...it still managed to chew through.

It would also make its way in through my ground floor drain pipe in the bathroom. Even when I closed the bathroom door (it's one of accordian folding doors), the bugger even chewed the corner of the door and pushed it enough to get it open!

So I bought rat bait, which initially it ate, but then wised up and stopped eating it. So that didn't work either.

Finally I picked up a bunch of bricks and used them to block off the whole bottom of the door, which finally did the trick in preventing it from coming in through the door.

However, it didn't stop it from somehow climbing in through my kitchen WINDOW. Yes, the freakin' window. I saw it with my own eyes, and I couldn't believe it. The only way I think he could have done it is if it had climbed up my clothes dryer. Which means it would have climbed onto my clothes. Which really freaked me out.

So I decided enough was enough of this crazy rat. I didn't know why it kept insisting on trying to come in, considering I don't keep any food on the counter, and it must have some super sense of smell if it was coming for the food IN my drawers. Anyhow, it didn't want to, but decided it was time get a mousetrap (RM10 from ACE Hardware, in case you want one).

And I finally caught the little bugger.




Then came the problem of what to do with it. Of course, after all the trouble it caused me, I jokingly considered many options for how to make it suffer.  Like using to lighter to singe its feet. Or letting my dog or neighbourhood cat paw at it for an hour or so, which would terrify it and hopefully give it a heart attack. Or throwing it from a flyover onto a busy highway. Or make it eat nothing but rat poision until it got so weak, then throw it into the river. Or just leave it out in the sun to overheat.

In actual fact, I felt terrible at the thought of killing it, especially since I kept a family of gerbils as pets, and those are pretty much smaller versions of rats. So killing it felt kind of like killing a pet gerbil. Plus, seeing how the rat had consistently managed to circumvent whatever obstacles I put to try and stop it from coming into the house, it was obviously rather intelligent. Not to mention kinda cute.

But I couldn't let it go coz' I didn't want it terrorizing other people's houses. The idea of even keeping it as a pet even crossed my mind, which was of course a really bad idea considering all sorts of possible diseases it's carrying.

Eventually, I just did it in the most humane and fastest way I knew how, which is drowning. Doing it was not easy for me. I filled up my bin halfway, which wasn't enough to cover the cage, so while the cage was in there, I filled it up with more water, and the poor fella was hanging onto the top of the cage for dear life. A couple of times I took out the cage to see the terrified drenched rat clinging to the cage looking at me with its beady eyes, which did not make it any easier for me. But I did it anyway, and dumped the cage right back into the bin of water, which was full enough to cover the whole cage. And I was pacing around cursing the rat for being so persistent and forcing me to do this to kill it.

It died pretty quickly from the drowning, so I wrapped up the body, washed up my rubbish bin and chucked the bag in for garbage collection. It was kinda sad.

Hope I don't get any more crazy rat visitors, coz' I don't wanna be doing this on a regular basis!

The persistent rat

Puppies for Adoption at SS19 (Updated Dec 2012)

There's a litter of puppies about 2 months old near my place at SS19. Actually there were originally two litters from two mummy dogs who are sisters whose own mum was apparently caught by the dog catchers and these two barely escaped (was told this by a man staying nearby who also help to feed the female dogs). The pups in one of litter all have nice blue eyes and all of them are now adopted or missing (hopefully adopted into a nice family) except for one last brown one. At least one was adopted by a friend of mine, so I know he's in safe hands. I'm now trying to get the other littler adopted, of which there are about 8 of them.

Here's some pics of the blue eyed pups that already adopted or now missing:
 

 The fella above was the one adopted by my friend, which I think was a great choice in terms of cuteness.

 The ones not yet adopted are those below from the 2nd litter, including the furry all brown one which is the last remaining pup from the 1st blue-eyed litter, which has now mixed with the 2nd litter (previously they were separate but near each other). Some of the pups from the 2nd litter also have nice blue eyes. I posted an ad on petfinder.my, so hopefully all these fellas will get a good home soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 And just for fun, here are some pics of the pups going after momma doggy for milk. :)

 

 They all come to me when I call them now. I am overwhemed by the cuteness. :)

Please help give these cuties a good home!

Puppies for Adoption at SS19 (Updated Dec 2012)

Stuff I want for my house

I'm going to be moving out to my own place soon! And I have many things on my wishlist. :)


General basic stuff

- Curtains, need them for the living room. Something with a funky pattern like this


- Bedsheets, also with some awesome patterns like this


- Non-stick cookware. I actually saw a RED non-stick cookware set at Carrefour going for RM139. I am sooo wanting that

- Of course I would need red utensils to with the cookware, and I also saw a red set at Carrefour. Wee ha!

This would go nicely with the red cookset too. :D


- Plates and bowls too. Another awesome design :D

 - Induction cooker. Coz' gas stoves are a potential fire risk that a single lady can't afford to have and the only form of red I won't like


- Clothes dryer rack, else I'll have nothing but wet clothes to wear. And just so happens Carrefour also has a red set going for RM30-ish. On the shopping list it is.


- Garment steamer. Coz' iron and ironing board is just too troublesome




- Cute little display cabinet


 For security reasons

- Baseball bat. I'm kid you not. This will be kept in my room for use in case of unwanted intruders


- Fake surveillance camera, to ward off the crooks who are dumb enough to believe it's real


- Warning sign to put on the gate for added effect :P
 


Stuff I want for my dog
- My pooch should have a nice place to sleep too.

- And a couple of nice bowls to eat and drink from too



- Auto dog food dispenser, for those long days out, and if necessary, when I'm travelling (colour needs work though)


- Dog tag with his name on it and my number in case of emergencies ^_^





The stuff I can only dream about....









The good thing is that the house itself is painted white, so don't worry, your eyes will not melt when you come to visit my house of red stuff. I think.

Stuff I want for my house

B1A4 brightens up my day ^_^

I was in a bit of a down mood today, the kind of mood where I start wondering what's the point of everything and wondering if if a big black hole just appeared and swallowed me up, would that make the world a better place. Thankfully, it's not often I get into such moods, and of course when it does happen, the reasons are usually long and complicated.

Even more thankfully, I had just recently came across this rather cute and catchy song on Kpop radio (I've become quite a bit of a Kpop fan these days. I know, at first I thought they were all generic and manufactured as well, but Kpop started to grow on me, and now there's no turning back, baby!). Song is by B1A4, whom I never heard before this song (I still don't know any other their songs). But after plugging this tune into my ears, I was playing it on loop for a good part of the day. And it really helped to dispel that black cloud over my head. Unless, you really hate cutesy songs, it's kinda hard to listen to this without wanting to jump up and dance around with a goofy grin on your face.

Thank you guys for this awesome song, I know. And for the rest of you who are skeptical about Kpop, well, you never know, it might just grow on you too (plus most of them guys and gal groups are HOT).

B1A4 brightens up my day ^_^

Taming of the misunderstood mutt

In continuation from my previous post about my first day of helping out at PAWS, I so enjoyed my experience on the first day that I went back the next day to help out again. I also mentioned in my last post about this pretty looking dog that looks like a cocker spaniel mixed with a golden retriever, which has nice golden fur that I've kinda nicknamed it Goldilocks (and I'm pretty sure it's a female though there's so much fur down south, I couldn't really tell for sure). This same pretty looking dog was also very aggressive the first time I saw it, barking away like crazy when I got near it, and not in an excited manner, but more like, "you come closer and I'll eat your head off" kinda manner. Enough to scare most people off, including me the first time I saw it.

On the second day, I went with a friend and we started off feeding the doggies with some dog biscuits I bought from Giant, which were pink and kinda weird looking but Giant didn't have much choice and I was rushing. Then we both took  a couple of the mongrels out for a walk, my friend got a more curious dog that took time to sniff everything, so his walk was more relaxed. Whereas my dog would sniff a bit, then suddenly bolt off running, so I'm glad I had sneakers on coz' I had some pretty good exercise with that dog. It was like being in one of those comic scenes from those dog movies, where the dog is off like a rocket with hapless owner in tow, running back and forth across the screen.

After we were done with those two and brought them back, I then remembered the aggressive Goldilocks sitting at the back of the shelter alone in it's cage and separate from all the other dogs. I decided to check up on her again.

As expected, when I got closer, the seemingly quiet dog, jumped again and got into it's maniacally crazy mood. This time instead of backing off, I went right up to it. She was still barking crazily. I moved in really close to look right at her in the face, and asked "What the heck is wrong with you?". The response was, of course, more angry barking. The dog seemed aggressive, but I wasn't scared of it this time. Instead, I did what most normal people wouldn't do around a seemingly maniacal angrily barking dog. I reached out to touch it.

Amazingly, when I reached out to touch the top of her snout which was poking out of the cage (slowly, of course. I didn't want to lose my digits), she got quiet. So I stroked the snout, and she stayed completely still. She was enjoying it! So I tested the waters further and put my hand in the cage to stroke her left ear. She just sat there quietly, the only reaction was her heavy panting as a result of her earlier incessant barking. "Ok" I thought, "So far so good!". Then I used my other hand to stroke her left ear and also patted her head. And at one point, I really tested the water by putting my face close to the dog's face, so the tip of my cap was touching the dog's snout and my nose was all of two inches away from her jaws and if she suddenly acted up, my nose could have become her midday snack. No reaction. She was too busy enjoying me rubbing her ears.

When I stopped, she immediately jumped up against the cage, all excited. And I reached in to rub her neck.... also with a good response. I was like "Dang! This dog isn't angry, she just wants some loving!"

I decided then and there I wanted to take her out for a walk. I looked around for a shelter worker to help take her out. I didn't immediately see one, but went up to another volunteer there and said I wanted to walk this dog, and asked if I could just take it out. The lady saw the dog I was talking about and her eyes kinda widened and she said to be careful of it coz' it was a crazy dog that has bitten people before.

Didn't perturb me at all.

Then I saw a worker and who helped me to take the dog out. As soon as he unbolted the cage, the giant cocker spaniel lookalike just bolted out of the cage, like she couldn't wait to get out. Then she started barking at this elderly guy who was there visiting the shelter. It wasn't aggressive barking, but more like excited barking this time, but I was still worried that she would bite the man. In hindsight, I guess she must have been stuck in that cage for quite a while, and was just really excited to be out. Luckily the worker got it on a leash quickly and handed it to me. So I took it out, and on the way passed by another worker (the one who I helped to do the dog feeding the day before) and he also warned me to be careful of the dog. And so when I was walking out and passing some visitors, I in turned warned them not to touch her, just in case. Even my friend who followed me, but without another dog in tow, was a bit afraid to take over the leash. Haha!

But this dog with a reputation for being aggressive behaved nothing of the sort on her walk. She was happily walking around, not running too fast, but at a pace where I just had to walk quickly. I gave her occasional pats on her body and head without any adverse reaction. She seemed just like any other happy dog out for a walk, as can be seen from my pics below.

We walked along this small path outside paws which is a motorcycle lane. During our walk, a guy walked pass, but she didn't react to him (I still held on the leash tight, just in case). A bus stopped on the road next to us, and she was staring at it for a while, probably wondering what the heck was that huge chunk of moving metal, before we continued on. After reaching near to the end of the road, on her own accord, she turned back to the direction of the shelter, and we went back with no incident.

Once back in the shelter, I brought her easily to her cage, and to my surprise, she hopped right into her cage by herself, and promptly flopped down. And this same dog that just 20 minutes earlier was so aggressive and angry, had this look of pure contention and happiness on her face. After locking the cage, I reached in again and gave her another good rub on the ears, cooing at it for while, telling her she was a good dog. She just enjoyed all of it, happily panting away.

Looking at the pic, I think it's really hard to imagine that this sweet looking fella is known for being aggressive and bites people. But I suppose when you're stuck in a small space all day with no exercise and no love, you'd get a little cranky too, right?

To me, it just proves that any aggressive dog can be tamed if you know how to handle it right and you can figure out what it wants. I have no idea what Goldilock's history was... probably she was neglected by her previous owner who didn't bother to take her out for walks and left her caged all day? And that's why she became aggressive, which in turn would have left the silly owner to dump her at PAWS coz he/she didn't know how to handle her. It's a guess, of course. But it's the most likely one I can think of on why she became aggressive when actually it was so easy to make her calm and good natured. And it makes me wish pet owners would try to make a bit more effort to figure out their dogs instead of just brainlessly dumping their animals once they start acting up.

Well, to know that I helped turn an aggressive animal into a happy little bunny with something as simple as a rub on the ears and short 15 minute walk, it's just awesome. I can definitely say that this experience just really made my whole day. And maybe the rest of my week until I go back again to load up on that feel-good feeling. :-)

Taming of the misunderstood mutt