Cobi~A Dash of Salt n Pepper

Mooncakes!!

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 03:51:00 +0000

The mid autumn festival is coming. This a festival celebrated by Chinese all over the world on the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar. It is said that the moon is the roundiest and brightest on this day.

On this day, families would gather together to eat mooncakes and drink chinese tea. Mooncakes are sweet pastries with lotus filling. According to popular belief, the custom of eating mooncakes began in the late Yuan dynasty. The Han people plotted to usurp the throne of the Mongolian ruler of the Yuan Dynasty and a rumor was spread that a plague was ravaging the land and can only be cured by eating special mooncakes in which the message of revolution on the 15th of the 8th moon is hidden. The people rose together on the designated day to overthrow the Yuan, and since that time mooncakes have become an integral part of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

As the human mooncakes are too sweet for us, Mummy and Geraldine Yi Yi decide to make some home made mooncakes for us. Instead of using lotus paste as filling, they are using sweet potatoes. And they uses Manukan Honey to replace some of the icing sugar for sweetness.

Here are some photos taken by Mummy and Geraldine Yi Yi.

Sweet potatoes filling

Snowskin dough

Finished mooncakes

Dog snowskin mooncake

Overall, they are happy with their first attempt. However there are still room for improvment. Mummy hope to try baked mooncake next time. I'm looking forward to more yummies :)

Newapaper Article

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:20:00 +0000

Pawrents were very shocked at one of the news in the papers today.

There was an unfortunate incident about a man who slam his poor dog on the floor for 10 mins till the poor dog died of head trauma.

Mummy attached the article below.

There is an online petition appealing for maximum penalty for the man responsible.
http://www.petitiononline.com/20082010/petition.html

Sad to say, I overheard pawrents saying that the man might walk away free if he can prove that he is mentally unsound. Mummy was also very angry with those people who witness the incident and do not come forward to stop the man. Where are your compassion?

We hope this incident will have some good out of it by making more people to step forward against animal abuse.

RIP, poor Pomeranian.

All about my people

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 07:29:00 +0000

My blog pal Oskar had come up with a great idea. It's All About Your People Day where we furries give credit to our people for doing a wonderful job in upkeeping us :) You can read all about Oskar's people and support his great idea by clicking the image below.

So this weekend, I shall blog about my ~~slaves~~ pawrents a.k.a humans.

My pawrents and I live in the sunny island of Singapore in the northern heartland of Yishun town. Singapore is a small country, scarce land and highly populated.

My daddy works in the IT industry and due to his work nature he needs to travel quite a lot. He loves to go off-roading, and sometimes I get to come along too. But unfortunately there is no much places in Singapore available for him to go off-roading so he goes to the neighbouring country Malaysia for this activity and I couldn't tag along any more. Daddy never had a dog before. I'm his first dog :)

My Mummy is working as an engineer. Her hobbies is travelling and cooking. She loves to cook but hate the washing after cooking so most of the washing is done by Daddy. Mummy loves dogs and had a pomeranian once for 6 months when she was young. Her family gave up the pomeranian when they move house and had to bunk in with their relatives as their new house was not yet ready then. Ever since, Mummy hope to get a dog when she get married.

So when Mummy and Daddy got their love nest in 2004, Mummy had been pestering Daddy to get her a dog. But her previous job requires her to travel to China quite often so the plan was shelved for some years till she changed to this present job. So in 2008, Mummy saw an adoption ad in the internet and "tricked" Daddy to go down to view the dog. So they went down with the intention to view the dog, but after looking at the handsome me, the rest are history :)

Birthday Surprise!!

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 03:42:00 +0000

Yesterday was Mummy's birthday. Daddy was planning a surprise for Mummy and he roped me in to help him :)

As usual, Daddy brought me down for my morning walk while Mummy prepared my breakfast. When we finish our walk, Daddy tied Mummy's birthday present to my collar at the lift lobby to our house and instructed me to go find Mummy once we reached home.

At first Mummy didn't see the present until she tried to take off my collar. She was very surprise and pleased that she gave me a bigger portion for my breakfast ^^

Hee hee, Daddy wouldn't be able to surprise Mummy without my help. See how important I am .

I'm the very important present bearer :)

Close up of Mummy's birthday present from Daddy.

After giving Mummy's her birthday present, Daddy showed her something from the newspapers. It's a birthday announcement from Daddy and us ^^ Happy Birthday Mummy!

P.S Mummy would like to thank all her friends for all the well wishes ^^

Casper the friendly "MS"

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 02:19:00 +0000

Pawrents has been busy.....why?

Cos there is a guest in the house.....he's Casper. He's a 12 week old salt n pepper puppy. They are helping a friend to look after the little fellow for the time being.

I don't quite like him cos he's whinny and likes to snatch my toys and my treats. He likes to seek pawrents attention every time. He also has a lot of energy cos he would play non stop like the energizer rabbit.

Here is Casper doing the shutter run

Here a video of him vs Mr. Crabby

Mr. Crabby is now badly injured and Mummy is trying to mend him. Get well soon Mr. Crabby.

Visit to the Vet

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:24:00 +0000

As most of you know that I recently had 2 bouts of seizure. Pawrents being the typical "Kiasu" (meaning cannot lose out mentality in dialect Hokkien) Singaporean, decided to bring me to another vet for a second opinion.

We went to Dr Tham from Jireh Veterinary Clinic as recommended by my pawpal Baubles and his Mummy. My first appointment with Dr Tham was on 22nd May. Dr Tham is a very patient vet and he listen to Daddy describing all the details regarding my seizure episodes.

After listening to Daddy, Dr Tham proceeds to explain some of the possible causes of seizure, e.g. liver shunt, pancreatic cancer, epilepsy, etc and some of the test which he would like to conduct to look at the possible cause of my seizure. Some of the tests that he would like to conduct include CBC, blood glucose, X-ray, etc. Then he proceed to do a physical examination on me. During which he found that I have a slower heart rate than normal and an ECG was to be performed to confirm this.

My ECG results shows that I might be having Bradycardia, which could be caused by sinus blockage or congential. While the rest of my test results yield normal reading, my T4 level was low. A low T4 reading could be due to hypothyroidism in which the thyroid gland is not producing enough hormones. And hypothyroidism can also cause the heart rate to be slowed.

Dr Tham feels that we should address the hypothyroidism as in extreme cases can cause seizure. Thus I was given thyroidxine and in the next review, his colleague Dr Poh (as Dr Tham is out of town) would review my T4 level and another round of ECG would be done. An ultrasound would also be done when Dr Tham is back from his trip to rule out liver shunt and sinus blockage.

The following week, we went back for the review with Dr Poh. Yippeee, my T4 level when up and my heart rate also increase from 60 per min to 70 plus per min. Things are looking good.

When Dr Tham was back, an ultrasound was conducted and luckily there is no liver shunt and sinus blockage. But, my heart wall was thicker than normal and there is an extra space in my heart. On the whole, Dr Tham feels that my condition is manageable and he hopes to increase my heartbeat to 90 per min.

Here are my X-ray done on my first appointment:

Can you see the heart?

Here you can see the liver and pancreas

My next review with Dr Tham is on early July. Hope to have more positive results :)

Appointment to the Vet

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:32:00 +0000

Tomorrow I'm going to the Vet again. Yup, for my seizure problem.

I will be doing an ultrasound tomorrow, thus pawrents have to fast me from 12 midnight today. Hope everything turns out well for me tomorrow. Please pray for me.

Happy Vesak Day and Versatile Blogger Award

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Fri, 28 May 2010 08:30:00 +0000

Today is Vesak Day, a day which the buddhists commemorate the birth, enlightenment and nirvana of Buddha.

Here wishing all buddhists a Happy Vesak Day. May the light of wisdom and the teaching of Buddha guide you to greater happiness and peace.

Woohoo.......I was also given an award, the Versatile Blogger Award, from Sugar the Golden Retriever.

The rules for accepting this award are:

1) Thank the blogger who gave you the award

Thank you, Sugar. You are indeed a versatile blogger with all the meaningful and informative post, I always enjoy going to your blog :)

2) I have to share 7 things about me

I love playing with balls. Small, big, rubber, plastic, I love them all :) But I don't fetch them for you.

While most of my pawpals hate brushing, I love it. I will happily follow Mummy when she take out the slicker brush

I love to mark my territory outside, thus I love to go for my walks.

I love to be pat but hate to be carried. I will nudge your hands for pats but will growl if you try to carry me.

I hate vacuum cleaner and mop. I will hide under the dinning table every time when I see them.

I hate to swim. I prefer to stay at the shoreline to watch the bikini girls with Daddy.

I love my food. Raw, home cooked or dehydrated, I love them all :)

3) Lastly, I have to pass this award to 15 blog pawpals

DoMo - DoDo & MoMo

Ody & Zeady - Double Trouble

Ebi & Emma - Ebi & Emma's Wagging Tails

Toby & Tamy - Toby & Tamy ~*~ My Precious Duo

JD & Max - Schnauzer and Schnauzer

Calvert & Nellie - Schnauzer-tude!

Fatty & Ally - The Schnauzer Blog.

Scottie - Nottie Scottie

Santa - I am Santa, a Miniature Schnauzer

Cody, Roy, Zena & Lady - The Musketeers

Maggie & Lulu - Schnauzer Sisterhood

Sasha - pup-alicious

Oskar - The Daily Oskar

Kaiser - Go SchnauzerA Miniature Schnauzer Blog

Vodka - Vodka

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:36:00 +0000

(Photo courtsey of Pony's Mummy)

I'm a sunshine boy. Look at my smile :D

I promise pawrents that I will get well soon!!

Sick!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Fri, 21 May 2010 23:33:00 +0000

Sorry for not posting recently. Mummy's been busy with her work and Daddy's been "flying" around. And I been busy making pawrents worry for me :(

Well, I'm sick lately. In fact, I was having loose stools for the 2 weeks. On top of having loose stools, I had 2 bout of seizures. Seizure is a very scary thing, I would just suddenly loss all my motor controls and cramp up. During the seizure, I would also "scream". During the seizure, pawrents would cuddle me and comfort me to ensure that I will not hurt myself.

We've been to the vet but she was unable to pin point what was the actual cause of my seizure. Seizure can be caused reactively by other organs problems, but my blood test rules that out. Thus the vet suggest that we do a CT scan to determine if there is any tumors or lesions in the brain that is causing the seizure. This is secondary seizure. If there is no tumors or lesions, then I will be treated as having idiopathic epilepsy i.e the cause of seizure is unknown.

To determine what is wrong with me, pawrents will be bringing me to seek a second opinion before we decide the next course of action.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying all the yummy home cooked food prepared by Mummy and all the attention that they are showering on me :)

Here are some links on canine seizure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy_in_animals
http://dogs.about.com/od/caninediseases/p/seizures.htm
http://www.essortment.com/all/seizuresdogsca_rfmm.htm
http://www.purelypets.com/articles/epilepsyarticle.htm

Reunion Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:53:00 +0000

On the eve of the Lunar New Year, it is a tradition for the whole family to get together to have reunion dinner together.

This year we had the reunion dinner at Grandpawrent's place. The humans had something called "steamboat" which doesn't look like a boat to me =.="

Mummy: Steamboat is actually hot pot and is traditionally eaten by the people from the northern china during winter.

Anyway, while the humans enjoyed their "steamboat", Baby Clover and I got a special treat from Geraldine Yi Yi (Mummy's sister).

Here are some photos of our reunion dinner

Steam Salmon with cauliflower, broccoli and carrots. Yummy!!

Waiting for our dinner

Baby Clover: Smells good. Can I eat now?

Time to tuck in!

I love salmon :)

Baby Clover saving some salmon for supper

We enjoyed our reunion dinner very much and finished it in record time. The humans also had a great time catching up with each other. How I wish I can have reunion dinner everyday. Woof!

It's the Tiger Year!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:26:00 +0000

Happy Lunar New Year to all.

According to the chinese zodiac, this year is the year of the Tiger. Pawrents and I hereby wishing all a blessed and prosperous Tiger Year !!!

Post Christmas and New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:16:00 +0000

Hi pals, sorry for not updating my blog for some time. Mummy have been quite busy with her work after her trip back from Hong Kong.

Dec 2009 was a great month. Although Daddy was not in town to celebrate the X'mas, we still managed to enjoy the season holidays with all the partying. Both pawrents and me had also receive many presents and gifts from my doggy pals and their pawrents.

Here are some photos that pawrents took

Look at all the present under the X'mas tree

Me and all the presents and gifts

All mine?

Besides the wonderful presents and gifts from my doggy pals, I've also received 2 parcels from overseas. One is from UK while the other is from US. They are from my dearest blog pals JD & Max and Nellie & Calvert. I was so excited about the parcels that I can't wait to open them.

What's this?

Is there food inside?

Woohoo!!!! A bag of goodies

Toys, Bone and a lovely X'mas Card from Nellie & Calvert

Advert Calendar from JD & Max. Yummy!!

I'm so touched and grateful to have such wonderful pals both in this sunny island and worldwide. Thank you to all my pals for all the presents and gifts.

Lonely New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 13:59:00 +0000

Guess what......after spending Christmas without Daddy, now I have to spend New Year alone as Mummy is going away for a short trip too :(

But Mummy promises to buy me presents. So I guess I will forgive her this time. While she is away, I will be going for stay over at Baby Clover's place.

I will update all the recent happenings after New Year.

Happy New Year to all my dear friends and have a great 2010 ahead!!

All I want for Christmas is......

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:39:00 +0000

.....Daddy!

Daddy's leaving for business trip today. Sob......he will not be able to spend the holidays with us :(

While Daddy is packing for his trip. I quietly put my head on his lap and ask for a pat. I will miss him so much.

I hope he comes home soon.

Circle of Pawfriends Award

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:56:00 +0000

Woohoo.....I have got an award!!

It's The Circle of Pawfriends Award from DoMo

The rules for this award are:
1. Publish it on your blog, referring the friend who passed it on to you.
2. Share 5 things you like to do.
3. Pass it along to keep the circle growing.

The 5 things that I like to do:

1) Eat.....I love to eat and would do anything for food :) One of my favourite past time is to sit in front of the fridge!!

2) Walks.......nothing beats a nice long walk with pawrents. I love meeting all my doggy pals and to sniff their butts :P

3) Play ball......I love playing ball with my pawrents. It's great fun to chase after the ball and make them run after me

4) Mark.......I love marking. It's a great way to let my doggy pals know where I had been :P

5) Lick.....I love to lick at my pawrents to wake them up in the morning. I'm more efficient than the alarm clock. Woof!!

I would like to pass this award on to the following pawfriends:
Toby & Tamy
Ebi & Emma
Ody & Zaedy
Julius & Sniper
Ozzy, Tessie and Rocky
JD & Max
Calvert & Nellie
Lulu & Maggie
Sugar The GR
Vodka
Sasha
The Musketeers

JD & Max's Bootie-licious competition

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:47:00 +0000

JD & Max's Bootie-licious competition is up for voting.

Mummy has entered my bootie photo. I'm in the Nifty Nubbins and Bottoms up category. There are so many other nice entries too. Voting will be tough, I'm sure.

Dear pals, do drop by JD & Max's blog to cast your votes :)

Archie the Miniature Schnauzer

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:12:00 +0000

Daddy came back from his business trip and I found a stowaway in his luggage.

Introducing Archie. Archie doesn't play and bark, I was hoping that he will. He also has a long tail just like some of my pals.

Here are some photos of Archie

Meeting Archie for the first time

Archie the Salt and Pepper Minature Schnauzer

Archie and Me

Archie and Me again

Finally....it's done!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:35:00 +0000

Yipee......it's finally done. Mummy finally frame up my paw imprint with a nice photo taken by Sushi's Daddy.

Here is the final table-top frame.

Frame on TV console

Mummy like this photo very much. She says I looked very happy :)

My paw imprint with my name

Paw imprint frame

Close up of the Table Top Frame

Dear friends, Mummy will be holding a spree for Pearhead pet products. For more details of Pearhead pet products, please refer to this website

http://pearhead.com/petproducts.html

If you are interested or any enquires, do drop a doggy mail to Mummy at schnauzercobi@yahoo.com.sg

Fun Time with Mummy

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:19:00 +0000

Daddy is out of town again. While he is away, Mummy decided to do something interesting with me.

She just got a Pearhead Table Top Frame. What is so special about this frame? Well, it's a frame that not only allows Mummy frame up my beautiful photo but also a paw imprint of me. The clay used is a non-toxic material thus there is no worries about me licking my paw after our handiwork.

Here are some of the photos of the process to get my paw imprint :)

Pearhead Table Top Frame

The clay and the tools

Aluminium foil use to prevent the clay from sticking on the surface and to keep it clean

Knead the clay till it's soft. Gotta make sure that those hands are clean ;)

Place the soft clay on the foil

Time to roll flat the clay

Rollin' good times

Now the clay is nice and flat

Time for me to 'sign' my autograph

Perfect imprint

Time to trim off the unwanted edges

Voila!!

Time to let the clay dry

It was fun doing handiwork with Mummy :)

The final outcome is still not ready yet as the clay takes about 2-3days to dry. I will post the photo of the final outcome once it's ready. Do watch out for it.

MacRitchie Reservoir Park Walk

noreply@blogger.com (Cobi) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:38:00 +0000

It was a bright and sunny day on the 20th Sep for a walk in the MacRitchie Reservoir Park. We met up with our doggy pals for a nice morning walk.

As MacRitchie Reservoir Park is a nature reserve, there are certain area which we furries are not allowed :(

Never the less, we all had a great walk and a great time sniffing each other out.

Here are some photos taken

7 furries on a beach: From Left to Right
Me, Shadow, Tessie, Ozzy, Rocky, Emma and Ebi

Look at our long tongues :P

Me

Rocky, Ebi and Me!!

Happy Me :)

Ebi

Emma

Shadow

Rocky

Tessie

Group Photos, from Youngest to Oldest

Shadow, Rocky, Emma, Me, Ebi, Tessie and Ozzy

After the walk, we went to K9 cafe for our lunch. Mummy got me a meat loaf from USDB and I shared it with Shadow as I had already taken my breakfast. It was sure a fun day out with all my doggy pals.

Here are some photos taken @ K9 cafe

Happy Rocky

Lovely Shadow

Ebi

Emma

Offroad Bistro

noreply@blogger.com (Iceman@SG) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:57:00 +0000

Pawrents brought me to the Offroad Bistro & Bar on the 13th Sep. The dog friendly bistro is located in Pasir Ris Park, just beside the Gallop Stables. It's a great place to chill out after a walk in the park.

Uncle Lionel, the owner of the bistro and Daddy's offroad buddy, also has a miniature schnauzer name Pepper. I met Pepper a few times during Daddy's offroad events. He's a great looking miniature schnauzer.

Here are some photos taken

Offroad Bistro & Bar

Welcome Note from Offroad Bistro & Bar

Me with a MT

Gaint Doggies??

I'm back!!

noreply@blogger.com (Iceman@SG) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:41:00 +0000

Yipee.....Mummy finally managed to come up with a new skin for my blog. There are still some touching up. But Mummy being a com idiot, I think she will need some time to figure it out. In the meantime please bear with us for the moment.

Since I have not update my blog for such a long time, I will update some past events over the next few posts.

On the 30th Aug, Baby Clover and I were invited to attend 2 paw pals, Pony's and Teddy's barkday celebration. The celebration was held in a newly opened doggy cafe Give A Dog A Bone. Although the place was a bit small but we all had a great time. Here are some photos taken on that day. Enjoy :)

Give A Dog A Bone Cafe

Nice deco

Our delicious Happy Bark Meal

The Barkday cake for Doggies

Barkday Cupcake for Hoomans

Cake cutting time

Here are some of the guests at the celebration

Update in progress!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Iceman@SG) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:19:00 +0000

Howdy to all my paw pals.....in case you guys were wondering why I have not been updating my blog.....Mummy will be revamping my blog design……do watch out for it!!!

Spa Time

noreply@blogger.com (Iceman@SG) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:50:00 +0000

Last Sat, my pawrents brought me to Pet Emporium. Another party?

Nope.....this time I'm there for a Dead Sea Mud Bath treatment.

Dead Sea mud is actually mud from the Dead Sea and is rich in minerals. As the mud is of fine grains, applying the mud actually helps to exfoliates the skin and to remove toxins and impurities from the skin. It’s also help to improve the blood circulation.

Having read the benefits of Dead Sea mud, pawrents decided to let me have a go at it.

Here are some photos taken by Samantha Jie Jie

After shower, time for brushing

All done....time for window shopping

Should I get this or that?

Pawrents notice that my flaky skin improves right after the treatment. They also notice that my coat is now more shiny and darker. I also enjoyed the whole process very much. Great services from Sheryl and Samantha Jie Jie. I'm looking forward to the next visit to Pet Emporium.