The Missus’ Contest Winning Photo

Sometime last year, the Missus submitted one of her 'Africa Blog' photos to a local photography competition.

Woo hoo! She managed to get an ‘Honourable Mention’ from the judges. Not only that, her photograph was then included in an exhibition held at Singapore’s Botanical Gardens.

Here’s the exhibition photographs.

Can you guess which one is hers?

It’s the Cheetah Cub! Isn’t it booti-ful?

The Missus was so proud to have her photograph exhibited. She couldn’t wait to have us all ‘in the picture’.

'Curious Cub'

OK Missus, that’s enough of your show-boating on my blog!

Sending all my love to everyone! Woof!

Homer

Easter 2013

Wow time really flies. I can’t believe it’s Easter again.

I know what that means – dressing up time. Fortunately, the Missus has been very busy and hasn’t had time to create a new Easter costume. Woohoo! Unfortunately, she just decided to ‘recycle’ one of my previous outfits.

Remember the Easter Bunny from my time in Holland? Well, here is the much more mature Easter Rabbit…

You can see I wasn’t very happy posing in the big floppy ears.

Isn’t Easter finished yet?

Realising that I wasn’t going to get out of this until I gave the Missus one of my winning smiles, I finally decided to play ball.

Ta-da! Here is the happy, smiling Easter Rabbit.

Happy Easter everyone!

All About Mast Cell Tumours

When they first received the bad news that I have Mast Cell Tumour, my humans’ hearts sank. They didn’t know what to do. They have since spent hours trawling the Internet for information and have so far taken me to five different vets looking for the best advice on treatments.

Unfortunately, there are no animal oncologists in Singapore and the opinions given by the general veterinarians have been conflicting. Their advice has pretty much narrowed down to two options:

1. Surgery (you need to cut away 2 to 3 centimetres of skin around each tumour in order to ensure ‘clean’ margins).

2. Chemotherapy (the drugs available in Singapore are 'Palladia' and 'Masivet').

A third option, radiotherapy, is often used in the US and elsewhere. Unfortunately, this treatment is not available here in Singapore.

Surgery is usually recommended as the optimal solution. However, to remove the tumour next to my front left paw pad would require the vet to cut away most of ‘my poor little foot’. As this is not an option that my humans want to consider at present, they have decided to proceed with a course of Palladia. I started taking the tablets last Monday on a low dosage (i.e. 50mg every alternate day). So far I’ve been doing OK, with no side effects at all. The Missus has also been pumping me full of Omega 3, 6 and 9 and has modified my diet to avoid carbohydrates.

My Omegas.

As I said, despite the medicine, I’m feeling just fine and dandy…

Here I am looking smug due to all of the additional love, sympathy and attention I’ve been receiving. I must admit, I’ve been shamelessly milking the affection of my humans! Heheheheh.

Thanks again for all of the wonderful support and kind words you have been leaving on my blog. We all really appreciate it!

Update and Thank You

Woof! Woof!

Sorry I haven’t been blogging much lately. As the Missus mentioned in my previous posting, we have been dealing with a couple of ‘crises’. Unfortunately, I have been diagnosed as having Mast Cell Tumours.

Over the past few weeks, I have received a huge outpouring of supportive emails and messages on my blog and on my Facebook from you guys. I am very touched and would like to bark a big thanks to all of you for extending such wonderful friendship during this difficult time.

Despite my health condition, I’m actually doing fine! Dad has commented that I still behave like a crazy puppy: demanding lots of attention, long walkies and plenty of treats! I don’t feel ‘sick’ at all and my appetite remains ‘ravenous’!

So far, the Missus has found three Mast Cell Tumours on my body. The first one was found on my hind leg and the vet has operated to cut it away. I have one on my right shoulder blade and another right next to my paw pad.

In order for my humans to be absolutely sure that they had found all of the potential tumours, they had to shave my booti-ful locks off.

I feel so naked!

This is the site of the first tumour we found on my hind leg. You can see the scar tissue where the vet has operated.

This is a small tumour on my right shoulder blade.

And this is the third tumour near to my left front paw pad. The vets tell me that this is the ‘trickiest’ part to treat.

Here’s a picture showing where each of the tumours are in less detail.

OK. Now I shall leave you with a cute picture of me.

‘Bald’ is the new ‘Sexy’!

I’ll tell you a little about my treatment in my next blog.

Bye for now.

Bad News

A couple of unfortunate events have taken place over the past few weeks.

First of all, my mother was diagnosed with Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, which is a very rare and aggressive type of cancer.

As I began to come to terms with my mother’s illness, I received another piece of devastating news. Homer has been diagnosed as having Mast Cell Tumors on his skin.

Boy, it feels like my world has begun to crumble.

So, please excuse me if I haven’t been visiting your blogs. I’m sure you will understand.

Regards,

The Missus

Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day!

I know I'm a day late but I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day!

Sending all my love and smoochie kisses to you,

Homer

Homer's Happy New Year Hangover

First of all, a Happy New Year to everyone!

Happy New Year!

I hope you are all feeling grrreat! I can’t say the same for myself. I rung in the New Year with loads of yummy food; howled Auld Lang Syne and ended the night with lots of bubbly. Too much bubbly.

Now I’m suffering the consequences. I have a terrible hangover.

Groan…Never again!

Once again, Happy New Year to all my friends. I wish everyone a fantastic 2013!

Woof,
Homer

Homer's Happy Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your day was fantastic.

I was so excited when I awoke, knowing that I would get lots of presents and yummy goodies! Yay!

Here’s me checking out my pressies. Much to my disappointment, I didn’t get what I wished for…

…“Where’s the iPhone 5 that you promised me?”

Oh well, all was not lost. I got some yummy treats and a pink flamingo cuddly toy...

…which I played with for the entire afternoon.

Here’s me sleeping with my new toy.

The best was yet to come – the mouth-watering FOOD!

By the way, something sneaked into my kitchen last night. Can you guess what it was?

Woo hoo, it was the ‘Turkey God’!

As you know, I always worship the Turkey God whenever It comes to town.

I stared in awe for a while, before beginning to pray…

Unfortunately, It refused to budge from the bench!

There it was, the Turkey God in all its glory, weighing in at 11kg/24 pounds. It lay on the kitchen bench, dressed in exotic herbs and spices.

Man I was drooling!

Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, the Turkey God emerged from the kitchen, fully cooked.

At last, the Missus prepared my portion, complete with all the trimmings.

Got to go now, there’s food to be eaten.

Wishing all of my friends a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cards 2012

During the last couple of weeks, I have been receiving Christmas cards from my four-legged friends around the world.

Thank you for thinking of me during the festive season!

Check out the doggie faces on my cards. They are simply so adorable and precious!

The Missus has placed the cards in a great place – next to my food bowl. I can now admire the booti-ful cards whilst partaking in my favourite pastime – eating! Clever eh?

Thanks again to everyone who sent me a card. For all of those who haven’t received a card from me, this one is especially for you…

Merry Christmas to everyone! I woof you.

Crazy Christmas Tree Capers

Woof everyone!

I hope your weekend was fantastic! Mine wasn’t. You see, Christmas is around the corner which meant that it was time to put up the darn tree…

“This is so complicated!” I didn’t know where the heck to start.

I spent the next 30 minutes staring at the different parts and racking my brains as to how they were supposed to fit together.

It all got too much for me. I thought I’d better take a ‘power nap’ – hoping that my mind would be refreshed and I could work out the damned instructions. Whilst asleep, I dreamt of pixies, elves, gnomes, fairies and goblins, all helping me to put up the tree…

…miraculously, by the time I woke from my deep slumber, the tree was up! Hooray!

Blimely! Dreams really can come true!

Unfortunately, my job for the day wasn’t yet complete…

…I still had to sort out the lights. Bah! I always seem to get myself tangled up!

“…The lights! Ahhh!”

Luckily, I don’t have any such problems with the booti-ful decorations.

After hours of tribulations, I had finally completed my Christmas decorations.

Ta-da! See. I am an expert!

So, if you need any advice on putting up your tree, drop me a note and I will try my best to offer you some excellent tips!

Good luck.

The Serengeti: Our Last Day, February 2012

I had enjoyed my time ‘chilling’ with the lions on the first day of our visit to the Serengeti. However, these were by no means the only predators we got to see during our stay.

It was a particular hope of mine that we would get to catch at least a glimpse of a cheetah. I was not to be disappointed.

Our first encounter was with a lone cheetah weaving through the tall dry grass of the savannah.

On our final day, we were lucky enough to witness two fantastic cheetah sightings. Firstly, we spotted a mother with four beautiful young cubs. They could have been no more than a few weeks old.

We also came across a coalition of three cheetah brothers prowling across the plain.

In addition to the cheetah sightings, during one particular game drive, we experienced a real treat. Unexpectedly, we came upon one of Africa’s more elusive creatures – the Striped Hyena. These are nocturnal animals and it is rare to spot them. Not only did we find an adult female in broad daylight, but we were thrilled to discover that she had a sole cub with her.

We spent at least an hour with these intriguing animals before moving to explore some other wonders of the wilderness.

The beautiful savannah.

It was all too soon time for us to leave the Serengeti and return to ‘reality’.

Over the past few weeks, I have posted a number of blogs chronicling my experiences in Botswana and Tanzania. I would like to dedicate all of these journals to the many great men and women who work tirelessly to preserve these wonderful environments and to protect their magnificent inhabitants.

I publish this posting having just returned from my latest ‘pilgrimage’ to Africa. More on this to follow…

The Missus.

With our Masaai guide, Nboi.