Polar RS300X

Polar RS300X comes with a trademark Wearlink+ heart rate monitoring technology chest strap, a transmitter, and a watch that receives and records the data from the transmitter. As I discovered later, while RS300X monitors  the heart beat constantly, it does not log all the raw data, but only aggregated data. What it means I would not be able to plot out how my heart rate fluctuates throughout my run, although I can tell my maximum and average heart rate, and the heart rate zone I am in during the run. It is not a big deal for me, at least for now, but for serious runner, I think a Polar RS400 or higher model range might be more suitable.

My first run with a heart rate monitoring device was revealing, and shockingly as well. My heart rate was at one point pumping at 180 beats-per-minute(above 90%), and average at 173. Running has become more scientific indeed (as when I was younger, I would just run and run). I noted that I was running at an unhealthy heart rate zone. Not only I am running close to my maximum heart rate (which is 185 beats-per-minute), it’s in a maximal or red line zone where I won’t benefit much as far as fat-burning is concerned.

By now (29th December 2011), I have completed 18.53km, over 8 runs. I knew the distance is nothing to shout about, particular to regular runners. But for someone who had not run for the last 10 years (or maybe even more), this is an amazing start, at least for me.

Ops .. zero heart beat.

Running gear

On day 10, I decided to time my run. By then, I already could feel the improvements in my breathing control and I would require fewer stops to complete the course. But the runs were getting  monotonous, so perhaps timing could help to motivate further. I ended using “Runkeeper” Android app to time my run, while at the same time listen to music using my 5 years old Motorola S9 bluetooth headset. My first official timing? 2.17km in 14:54 mins, or average pace of 6.53min/km. Obviously a far cry from my official personal best record (8:05 mins for 2.4km), but compared to my maiden run ten days ago, this is a big leap.

Since I left as a civilian, I had not been maintaining my fitness level so  it plunged and crashed. At one point, I did spend a couple of months reshaping my fitness, but got seriously injured along the way. And the rest is history.

Fast forward to today, I could not walked briskly for 100m without huffing and puffing, let along complete a 2.4km run.  My fitness level was at the valley, while my weight was unthinkable. I seemed to fall sick easily too. As I approached the 40 years old mark, I told myself my lifestyle needs a makeover. For the last 18 months, we have been walking regularly as we would bring our Corgi furkid for a daily neighborhood walk or a weekend walk at the park . Then came the resolution recently that I need to pick up my running again.

So I dropped by Adidas store to get myself a pair of running shoes (I’m a sucker for the 3 stripes, tbh). I told myself I need to run at least once a week. But lo and behold, it turned out to be more than that.

On 15th December 2011, I started my maiden run since 2000. It was around 11pm, as I wanted to make sure the weather is cool and air is fresh.  Despite that, the run was a torture one. It took me more than 18 minutes (did not time, so no exact timing) just to complete a 2.2km. I had to stop my run multiple times during the course, just to catch my breathe and recover the fatigue. By the time I completed my session, I felt like as if I had done a marathon. That was how pathetic I was. Strangely, it did not demotivate me, and instead propelled me to increase the frequency of the run (strangely as well!).  And this is just the beginning …

When I was young, I would have signed up for any art competition I came across, whether it was through my school, community center, or from newspaper. I remembered there was once I actually made my own way to the competition venue (and I was just 8-9 years old), on a Sunday morning.

When I was young, I had never attended any formal art classes, at least not that I could remember. So I cannot comprehend how I could apply different techniques of drawing and painting on my work. I found out that I was best in drawing landscape, and figured out my own ways of how to have vibrant colors on my work using crayons (and that’s by overlaying the different tones and colors of the crayons on the subjects)

A Caricature work of my class in varsity

When I was young, I knew I could draw a tad better than my peers. I remembered when I was in kindergarten (that was when I was just 5 or 6 years old), my teacher asked the class if anyone knew how Merlion looked like. Many of my friends went up to the drawing board, but their drawing just has little resemblance to the Singapore icon. I clearly remembered that all of them had drawn the tail of the Merlion flipping out!  After all the commotions, I slowly but calmly walked up to the board, and drew up a very perfect Merlion picture (including its proper tail )

That was when I was young …

Note: Trying to create a series of “When I was young”. So this is just the first of many series I hope to blog in future

I don’t like to move those huge files to a local mail folder for a couple of reasons. So I came up with a method of manually save and delete the attachments, before inserting the links of the attachments into the original email. It worked well, but it is very manual. Outlook 2010 does help to simplify some of these steps, but the ‘solution’ was still very manual. I had always wanted to do a quick macro programming to simplify these steps, but too lazy to move my butt.

A message with the option to archive the attachments

Earlier, I was again spending my Saturday afternoon clearing up my mailbox. I thought enough is enough so I went to google some samples, and existing solutions so that I can get this problem nailed once and for all. (Power of internet!)

There isn’t one solution that fits my need entirely, but suffice to say, I have enough information from the net to build a version 1.0 of what I need within minutes. Here’s a quick re-collection of what I have done;

1. First of all, I need to enable macro in my Microsoft Outlook. Customize Quick Access Toolbar > Customize Ribbon > Enable “Developer” tab under “Main Tabs”
2. At the Developer Tab (in the main application screen), Create a new macro by navigating to Macros > Enter a new name > Create
3. In the macro program, I create a subroutine that will loop through the the attachments in the email, archive each of them by exporting and deleting, and finally insert the exported attachment links into the message body of the original email. The code, which is leveraged from the net with some modification, can be found at the end of this blog post.
4. Then I add the macro shortcut to the message window’s “Ribbon Bar”, so that I can “run” it immediately any time while reading an email.
1. Open the message window by clicking on any of the emails.
2. Go to Customize Quick Access Toolbar > Customize Ribbon
3. Under “Choose commands from”, select Macros. The newly created macro should be in the list
4. Under “Customize Ribbon”, Select Main Tabs.
5. Create a new tab, and under the new tab that I have just created, create a new group. The new macro command has to be added under this new group. Rename the tab and the group where appropriate. I name them as “My Tab” and “Quick Stuff” respectively.
6. Select the newly created macro and add it to the new group. I named the macro “Save & Link Attachment”
5. Once I have done all the above, I can now open any email with an attachment, Click on “My Tab” and then “Save & Link Attachment” (or whatever you named it earlier in 4(vi)), the attachment will be saved, deleted and subsequently linked in the email automatically!

How a message looks like after the macro processing

Sub SaveAttachment()

Dim objOL As Outlook.Application
Dim objMsg As Outlook.MailItem 'Object
Dim objAttachments As Outlook.Attachments
Dim objSelection As Outlook.Selection
Dim i As Long
Dim lngCount As Long
Dim strFile As String
Dim strFolderpath As Variant
Dim strDeletedFiles As String

    ' Get the path to your My Documents folder
    'strFolderpath = CreateObject("WScript.Shell").SpecialFolders(16)
    'On Error Resume Next
    ' Instantiate an Outlook Application object.
    Set objOL = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
    ' Get the collection of selected objects.
    Set objSelection = objOL.ActiveExplorer.Selection
    ' Set the Attachment folder.
    'strFolderpath = strFolderpath & "\OLAttachments\"
    'Use the MsgBox command to troubleshoot. Remove it from the final code.

    strFolderpath = "C:\"  

    Dim MyPath As Variant
    MyPath = BrowseForFolder(strFolderpath)
    If VarType(MyPath) = 11 Then
      If Not MyPath Then
        GoTo ExitSub
      End If
    End If
    strFolderpath = MyPath

    ' Check each selected item for attachments. If attachments exist,
    ' save them to the Temp folder and strip them from the item.
    For Each objMsg In objSelection
    ' This code only strips attachments from mail items.
    ' If objMsg.class=olMail Then
    ' Get the Attachments collection of the item.
     Set objAttachments = objMsg.Attachments
     lngCount = objAttachments.Count
    'Use the MsgBox command to troubleshoot. Remove it from the final code.
    'MsgBox objAttachments.Count
     If lngCount > 0 Then
    ' We need to use a count down loop for removing items
    ' from a collection. Otherwise, the loop counter gets
    ' confused and only every other item is removed.
        For i = lngCount To 1 Step -1
        ' Save attachment before deleting from item.
        ' Get the file name.
        strFile = objAttachments.Item(i).FileName
        ' Combine with the path to the Temp folder.
        strFile = strFolderpath & "\" & strFile

        'MsgBox strFile

        ' Save the attachment as a file.
        objAttachments.Item(i).SaveAsFile strFile
        ' Delete the attachment.
        objAttachments.Item(i).Delete
        'write the save as path to a string to add to the message
        'check for html and use html tags in link
        If objMsg.BodyFormat <> olFormatHTML Then
            strDeletedFiles = strDeletedFiles & vbCrLf & "<file:>"
            Else
            strDeletedFiles = strDeletedFiles & "<br>" & "<a href='file://" & _
            strFile & "'>" & strFile & "</a>"
        End If
        'Use the MsgBox command to troubleshoot. Remove it from the final code.
        'MsgBox strDeletedFiles
        Next i
    End If
    ' Adds the filename string to the message body and save it
    ' Check for HTML body
    If objMsg.BodyFormat <> olFormatHTML Then
        objMsg.Body = "The file(s) were saved to " & strDeletedFiles & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & objMsg.Body
    Else
        objMsg.HTMLBody = "<p><p>The file(s) were saved to " & strDeletedFiles & "</p></p>" & objMsg.HTMLBody
    End If
       objMsg.Save
    'End If
    Next
ExitSub:
Set objAttachments = Nothing
Set objMsg = Nothing
Set objSelection = Nothing
Set objOL = Nothing

End Sub

I also added a function to select the folder where I want the attachment(s) to be saved in and referenced from (the message)

Function BrowseForFolder(Optional OpenAt As Variant) As Variant
     'Function purpose:  To Browser for a user selected folder.
     'If the "OpenAt" path is provided, open the browser at that directory
     'NOTE:  If invalid, it will open at the Desktop level

    Dim ShellApp As Object

    'Create a file browser window at the default folder
    Set ShellApp = CreateObject("Shell.Application"). _
    BrowseForFolder(0, "Please choose a folder to save the attachment(s)", 0, OpenAt)

     'Set the folder to that selected.  (On error in case cancelled)
    On Error Resume Next
    BrowseForFolder = ShellApp.self.Path
    On Error GoTo 0

     'Destroy the Shell Application
    Set ShellApp = Nothing

     'Check for invalid or non-entries and send to the Invalid error
     'handler if found
     'Valid selections can begin L: (where L is a letter) or
     '\\ (as in \\servername\sharename.  All others are invalid
    Select Case Mid(BrowseForFolder, 2, 1)
    Case Is = ":"
        If Left(BrowseForFolder, 1) = ":" Then GoTo Invalid
    Case Is = "\"
        If Not Left(BrowseForFolder, 1) = "\" Then GoTo Invalid
    Case Else
        GoTo Invalid
    End Select

    Exit Function

Invalid:
     'If it was determined that the selection was invalid, set to False
    BrowseForFolder = False

End Function

WebOS-powered TouchPad

I am a big fan of Palm products. Those days it was cool to carry a Palm PDA, and if my memory did not fail me, my first Palm product was a Palm Pilot series. Palm gave me the impression of building nifty products but not a world shaker one. However when the webOS was first unveiled in 2009, I thought it is the mobile platform to go, with Windows and Linux both dominating the desktop market. The thoughts of web connected device, taking advantage of the Web 2.0 technologies, was just salivating.

Since then, a handful of Palm devices were launched sporting WebOS. I love the simple interface but the form factor never grew on me. With the products mostly focused in the US market, strangely if I may add, I never got to own one until now.  Then HP acquired Palm, and it got me lighted up. A PC giant (or a ex PDA big player in Jornado and iPAQ), and an promising next generation mobile OS maker, perfect marriage or a disastrous divorce in making?

Unboxing TouchPad

Fast forward to last month, the first webOS tablet with HP DNA was launched. As I was in the market for a tablet, it didn’t take me too much of deliberation before I placed a pre-order. I didn’t even have the chance to test run the product even though a demo unit was available during the pre-order event. I admit I was a tad disappointed by the form factor (again!) once I caught a quick glance on the demo unit. But I thought I will be wowed over by the implanted webOS, or at least I was looking forward to that.

The TouchPad was finally delivered to me yesterday. As I un-boxed the unit enthusiastically, I realized I was no longer bothered by its form factor, despite it being thicker and heavier than the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10 and iPad 2. Perhaps the nagging concern of form factor had worn off. The 9.7inch gorilla glass is tightly fitted and enclosed with a piano finish housing, defusing a sense of refine touch and quality feel. The clean design blends well with  two slim, chrome-looking buttons (power and volume). The microphone, headphone socket and the home button are so discreet, it will not be surprise if anyone were to hold the tablet upside down. The clean line design however is interrupted by the speakers’ positions, as the Beat-by-Dre speakers sit too deep into the tablet. Unfortunately, the “not flushed with the housing” design make the unit looks like a manufacturing defect.

Highly Polished & Piano Finish Housing

Power on the Touchpad, I was greeted by the HP logo. It took awhile before the first setup wizard screen appeared, but since this was just one time, I had no complains. The setup process required me to connect to a WIFI hotspot so this requirement needs to be taken note of to potential buyers. (This is afterall a Web gadget). Otherwise the whole setup process was simple and a breeze, another tell tale sign that HP wants to keep the whole experience simple. The 1024×768 screen resolution looks a bit low on the otherwise decent display. The display looked gorgeous until I placed it side by side against my favorite Samsung Galaxy S2. The color appeared marginally pale and lack of “punch”.  On the other hand, the touch sensitivity is great and while I like the ripple effect I suspect it is designed with a reason behind. More on that later.

Holding TouchPad with one hand can be challenging

On the webOS, I love the concept and the implementation of the application cards. It is not new but I think in webOS 3.02 it is more polished now, perhaps with the help of bigger screen estate. I like the idea of glancing all the active applications like a deck of cards, and ability to stack them up or side by side. To close the application, a swipe up gesture is good enough. No worries of whether the application has exited or not, or which button or menu to press to quit the application. Simple and consistent gesture.

The JustType proves to be very useful for me as it not only provides context search, but also brings all the possible search to you in one place. A keyword search will give me a comprehensive list of available search options. I can trigger a google search, or I can search against the application catalog or wiki. I can even post a status about the keyword(s) in Facebook.  Google and Apple should take note of this (and the simple card style launcher), but I suspect they would be too proud to acknowledge such conveniences.

Multi-tasking is another selling point although I have to say it looks like webOS 3.0 might have fallen into the same “speed trap” as Android during its Eclair and Froyo days. The tablet seems to show signs of lagging when I opened many applications. So I do make a point to swipe out applications I do not need (in case you still have not internalize this, it means I quit the app). Perhaps a reminder from HP that human being can only do so much of multi-tasking.

Apart from the cards concept, the system UI layout is clean with just a status bar at the top, displaying active notifications and system status. The home button will lit up in a subtle blinking mode whenever there is new notification,which is functionally and aesthetically pleasing. For a content intensive application, the content could be organised in multiple pages which can be swiped and layered neatly within the application window, or opened up as a new card. Again, simple and consistent navigation experience.

TouchPad is slim and sexy if you compare them against a Desktop

Life is never perfect, so are electronic gadgets. There are some petty annoyances such as dummy Wifi status icon that does not show the wireless strength. The main gripes I have with TouchPad is the occasional lags, and the lack of applications. I should be forgiven if I have mistaken that the ripple effect (which animates for every screen touch) is designed to assure user that there is nothing wrong with the touch accuracy and sensitivity. The lag should and needs to be fixed in the next release of software update. It can be frustrating when the tablet takes a few seconds to wake up (which I suspect happens when there’s a new notification in the background while the tablet is in deep sleep) , or the application takes its time to load up.

As for the meager application catalog, I believe it is a matter of time developers will jump onto the bandwagon, so long HP doubles up its release of webOS devices and appliances to the market. This will in turn build more demands for the developers. After all, if Rovio, the Angrybird “farmer”, chose to release its game at the same time as the TouchPad’s launch, it does say something about how keen the developers in general are to join in the fun. (The last I remembered Rovio took a while before they release the Windows Phone version of their birds and pigs game). It is a chicken and egg situation (with no pun intended)  but the ball (or is it the egg?) is apparently in HP’s court.

Regardless, there are some applications which I think should be part of the default application offering. For example, there is no application for YouTube, one which is so synonymous to Web that excluding it from a Web-oriented device is like taking a steering wheel away from a car. It may well be a case of HP wanting to prove a point that they have Flash support, as the workaround (of a missing YouTube app) is to playback the videos from YouTube’s desktop version site directly. Even a Youtube video search from JustType fires up the YouTube web page directly. I have to say though, the playback is as good as what you would experience from a desktop, buttery smooth without stuttering.

As a matter of fact, for every of the web sites I surfed, the web browser will always open the site in desktop format (not mobile) automatically, and you won’t feel any dysfunctional or crippled navigation as you would experienced sometimes from a smartphone. Perhaps, there is an underlying message HP wants to send out here. That Touchpad is a desktop in a tablet form, and a simple one too. Now, my TouchPad is starting to look more sleek and slim, oh yeah!

Ministry of National Development had recently set up an online survey, to collate public feedback on pet ownership and stray management policies. If you have not already done so ( in giving your feedback), it’s high time you do so, whether you are a pet lovers or not. At least, the authority would be able to tweak their policies so to protect the innocent animals while making sure all the ‘troublesome’ human-beings happy (Note: I am referring to both pet and non-pet lovers, as I think human beings are always the problematic one, not the animals themselves)

For me, I think the stray issues need to be dealt with a multi-pronged approach;

1. Pet Homing policies to curb the overcrowding situation in the animal shelters.

The HDB policy on pet ownership should be revisited, so that it would be more supportive in homing of medium dogs. In helping to re-home the stray animals which a significant number of them do not meet HDB guidelines, whether it’s an “all inclusive” or “by exception” policy, it will go a long way to address or mitigate the overcrowding challenge that the animal shelters are facing today. This will also give some hope to the poor homeless, abandoned animals as they deserve better than what they are receiving today.

2. AVA policies to protect the puppies who are helplessly mishandled by the unethical pet commercial entities

OK, not all pet shops or farms are unethical. But that does not mean there is none in this “dark” industry as they disregard the welfare of the baby animals. We do not expect any pet commercial entities to run like an animal welfare association. But at minimum they should and must be pet lovers. A pet lover would not have done what some of us had encountered ourselves, which I had recently blogged in a true revelation of a pet warehouse and the feedbacks I had gathered from the like-minded pet lovers.

The authority could do more to keep such irresponsible entities in check. Do not believe on what some of the companies would say in their “PR-tically” right statements, as some of them are just wolf wearing the skin of a sheep. They might project themselves to be animal lovers, but in reality they are just taking the poor animals as a mere commodity.

We need AVA help to weed out such socially irresponsible dog breeders/sellers, so we do not have a situation of animal ill treatment.  We would also be able to minimize the number of stray dogs. Many of these dogs were abandoned partly due to these scrupulous commercial entities. They will hard-sell their “commodities” to potential pet owners who are not ready yet for pets.The end result? Abandoned animals.

3. Educate potential pet owners about the responsibility of being one

The saying goes, it takes two hands to clap, and the stray situation is no different. If all potential pet owners were to do their homework, on what their duties are in owning a pet, then we would know the pet will be in the goods hand of a responsible owner. The unfortunate truth is a lot of potential pet owners do not. They would therefore be easily swayed by the sweet-talk of the sales people, and the cute-innocent look of the puppies. By the time they bring their “toy” back home, they will realize that the life of a pet owner is not as easy as one have made it out to be. Issues of strays and/or mistreatment by pet owners are brewed as a result.

4. Execute, and execute wisely and properly.

With all the policies in place, it’ll be useless if they are not governed or executed well. A case in point is a recent incident involving a restaurant suspected of selling dog meat. The officers made a first trip to the restaurant for preliminary check, and then subsequently made a second trip to the restaurant again to obtain meat samples. Perhaps they were just following the protocols, but for heaven sake, exercise some common sense because what they had done was just plain meaningless. The restaurant could have gotten sufficient lead time to cover up their bad deeds, if they were indeed guilty. Do more mystery or surprise audit check on these commercial entities where there’s suspect of cruelty treatment of animals, I am sure one will see a different story, and one that matches the reality.

And it is not just with the authorities that should get their acts together, the society needs to play its part as well. As pet owners, we need to do what is necessary to keep our pets clean and happy, but not forgetting to stay in harmony with our fellow neighbors and friends who may not necessary a pet lover. For non pet lovers, let’s exercise some graciousness, for I am sure there are other things you like to do which others may not. But more importantly, if we all exercise our capability as human being in doing what we can to protect the innocent animals, we would not have seen the proliferation of the “pet warehouse” in the recent years.

So let’s take the first step. Let’s give our feedback to MND

A few days ago, I blogged about my experience with what I called a “Pet Warehouse”, on how they carried out the sales, and equally if not more importantly, how my Corgi puppy had seemingly traumatized by the short stay at the “warehouse” (but thankfully he had since recovered)

I received a few responses, and was shocked by how other had experienced the same with the said “Pet Warehouse”, with some even worst. I thought I would share some of these responses, so you can see the severity of the issue we are facing today.

last mth i went to pasir ris dog farm and walk into EPW and saw this beautiful boxer.. and ask them how much is the price… they told me he is cost 9.5k.. so i back off once they try to force selling the puppy.. and just walk away… that very same day i went to nex PS, they too have a boxer and cost cheaper to half price of the price at EPW.. i was so shock… and one of my friend GT just died after bring him home 5 days from EPW… but cos he did not pay the so called insurance thing.. so he get nothing back but a word of so sorry to hear that…

- Maureen

We got our corgi from there too!!!

The standing guy with dyed hair sold him to us. His change in attitude was equally horrifying when he realized that we only bought a few of the food he STRONGLY suggested. I can’t remember how much we got our corgi but it was around 3k plus. (My brother settled the payment.) We brought him home immediately and when he arrived home, he slurped 4bowls of water nonstop! Gosh, he was so thirsty!

After that, he came down with demodex but thankfully he recovered after medication. Now we feed the best vitamins we can for him to boost him immune system.

One of the reasons we got him because he looked pretty quiet and lonely in the cubicle.. But he was never once like this since we bought him home. He is extremely playful and active. Hmm.

- Eunice

Oh dear.. I heard of alot of bad rumours about them but this is the furst time I read about a 1st hand experience! Luckily cody is with you guys.. If not some weak minded individual might have gotten hom on impulse!

My Estee was from Ericsson by her previous owner too.. When I adopted her over, She contracted Lymphoma at the age of 3 and it is an extremely rare case.

From what I read from the web, lymphoma is a genetic diseases so maybe her parents were not of good health but made to breed and breed.

- Lynn

thanks for sharing the article… Lucky you got Cody home in time and taken good care.. My 1st dog from the ”Warehouse” was not so lucky.. I can share a few pics with you of my 1st dog that i bought home then at nite got very sick and died the next morning..

The vet said was amoeba virus, then i brought her back to EPW the next morning, she died there after EPW’s vet came over to look.

Alot of us strongly believed she was put to sleep…
Hence why i strongly urge people in here not to buy from them because I do not want anyone to suffer what i had been through while getting my 1st dog… My tears even flow now when i type this coz this is the worst 1st experience anyone can get when getting a dog and bring home dead the next day…

Hmm, was abit surprised to see this topic here. I agree that EPW is a horrible place to get pets, the living conditions there before how they currently look like now was really bad. And there have been many sick cases from the puppies and often leave the owners very helpless.

i do advice my friends who want to get pets, not to go there though – all along! But the dogs and cats there are really poor thing..sigh

- Felicia

This has been going on for long times. I had the same experience with Jeffery and that was 16 years ago. It just happened every now and than but their business still grow strong. The poor little corgi puppy stayed one nite in my hse and 7 days in hospital than passed away. Till now did’t know what was the cause but I later found out the same batch of puppies( all other breeds) that came together , many died too. i always remember that puppy, he was so smart and obedient. He can do sit stay and wait without lease, the only day happy memory we spend together enough for me to reminisc for life.

- Amy

 i got koji from EPW too… he cost close to 4k… n like described, about insurance, pedigree cert n all, i was faced with the same thing!

- Alicia

We din go back to them regards to Miko’s demodex Mites. But there was once, we happened to passby there for the dog run , Miko stayed very still in my arms , could feel her trembling, she looked ard in fear and she tot we were returning her back to the horrible place of her life …

- Val

It has been more than a year since we have gotten Cody from a “pet farm” located somewhere in Singapore. I figured I should shared our story (about our dealings with the farm) so that more people will be more aware about the dark side of the pet industry. I first blogged about our experience privately, sharing with a small group of pet owners. The responses can be categorized into two camps. One camp was shocked by the experience, although most if not all had heard similar unethical practices, just that they did not hear it from somebody who had experienced it first hand. The other camp could relate to our experience because they had undergone similar trauma with the same said farm! There was no doubters, and the responses propelled me to publicize our story, for greater exposure of such unscrupulous practices.

Firstly, I shall name the farm “E” Pet Warehouse, or EPW. E is just an alphabet chosen arbitrarily as the name of the pet farm in question, for easier reference and for anonymity sake. As for the term “Warehouse” I thought it is a more suitable descriptor than the word “Farm”, just purely based on my encounter with them. The remaining part of this post is a mere re-production of the original blog entry from here. (sorry it’s still protected!)

By chance and by fate, we met Cody on a Saturday afternoon at EPW. We didn’t go to EPW shopping for a pet. But we saw Cody, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, lying quietly in his own ‘window cubicle’, self entertaining. He was not trying to catch anybody attention, unlike other puppies in EPW. We were instantly attracted to him, not just because of his adorable look, but also by his personality, and equally curious by his breed. To be honest, we had initially thought he was a mutated breed, a mix of German Sherperd and Terrier? But I had digressed.

We were told about his breed by the sales manager, and while he shared with us more about the breed, in retrospective, I cannot recalled any of what he had said drew any parallel to what I had learnt from the internet so far. The sales manager was repeatedly trying to convince us in “buying” Cody, despite the oath that was printed on almost every of their office pillars. I can’t exactly remember the details of the oath, but it was about how pet is for life and not a commodity.

We were very close on getting Cody, but the logical side of me told us we need “cooling off period” and not purchase on emotional impulse. It was ironical that EPW had the oath printed everywhere but yet they were quite hard selling (although they concealed the “hard-selling” very well, under the name of the oath) . Eventually we decided to walk off, not just to cool off for a more sensible decision, but also we thought we need to know more about the breed itself, before committing ourselves to this new relationship, one which we had never experienced before.

We drove back to my parents place, which is just a stone’s throw away.  Thanks to Google, we learnt more about Corgis in general, and the difference between Cardigan and Pembroke. We learnt about Corgis temperament in general, specifically their intelligence and stubbornness and that they are herding dogs by nature.  We also educated ourselves with their general health, their history, etc. We absorbed a lot of knowledge about Corgis, than what the sales manager had tried to brain-washed us. Regardless, we liked what we had discovered. We also consulted a friend of us, who works in the Pet Industry, about the general dealing practice with such pet shops, including the “general valuation” of Corgis. (We were told it is between $2K to $3K)

We decided to go back to EPW after a few hours to see if we would still see Cody. There he was still lying quietly in his cubicle, but this time round playing with his fellow tri-coloured Corgi buddy/sibling.  The sales manager upon seeing us, pounced on us like an eagle preying his target. He knew we were keen on bring him home, so he wasted no time in quoting a rocket sky price to us.

Sales Manager (EPW): Corgis are more expensive than others, because they are “premium” and they (pointing to Cody and his buddy/sibling) are pedigrees.

US: Ok, if we can afford him, we will like to bring him home

EPW: $5500

US: *hesitating* Oh, sorry I don’t think we can afford him. But it’s okay, we don’t want to bargain. I hope he will have better fate with the next potential owner.

EPW: Don’t worry! You can apply for 12 months free interest payment …

US: Oh, like we said …

EPW: *intercepting us*  Ok, let me offer you $5000

US: But …

EPW: *taking out his calculator* I tell you what, I can give you discount, final price $4000

US: It is still beyond our budgt …

EPW: I tell you what, $3500 without GST, and you have to pay the GST.

US: I tell you what instead, I really hope him (Cody) can find a better owner who can afford him and give him a good life

EPW: Why don’t you tell me what’s your budget?

US: *Hesitating* (Even I know about the “General Market Valuation” of Corgis, I don’t want to tell him the lowest of the bracket I know, as I am not into bargaining)  eh… looking not more than $3000

EPW: *Tap Tap on his calculator again* Okay, I can quote you $3000, but you really have to pay GST.

US: No, like I say, we can’t ….

EPW: Ok, lets do a deal now. $3000. You okay?

At this point, we had let our guards down totally, and our minds were already on how we are going to forge a life long relationship with Cody. We promptly accepted the offer. We asked if we could let Cody stayed with them for a few nights, while we tried to get the necessary logistic ready to welcome Cody home. (Another big mistake of ours!). We paid up, completed the necessary paper documents, and left EPW.

We decided to call our friend for further advise. He advised us to bring Cody home as soon as possible but he didn’t elaborate on why. That very night, we googled EPW. We read horror stories about the EPW, how some of the puppies ended up with poor health, etc. We were freaked out, so we made up our mind to go back to EPW the next day, to bring Cody home.

We approached the same friend of ours for assistance, since we were so new to all these procedures, and we wanted to be sure we would not continue to be taken for a ride. It is always good to have somebody experience to guide you along. And boy, were we glad we did.

Our friend followed us with his own mobile dog carriage. The sales manager was quite surprised to see us that very day. We told him about our intention, and he immediately retorted back, claiming that there’s a regulation from AVA where Cody was mandated to stay with them for at least 4 days before he could leave with us. For the record, according to the quarantine paper documents, Cody arrived at EPW on 6th,  and we were trying to collect him on the 9th (a day after we paid up). Regardless, we were not convinced by the so-called AVA policy, and insisted that Cody to be taken out. There was a bit of argument there, and eventually the sales manager relented to our request unwillingly. I thought it was more because of his mind being preoccupied with trying to close other sales (it was a busy Sunday afternoon!).

Then came another astonishing question.

EPW: Do you want to pay this additional $200 *pointing to a document with some terms & conditions*. This is to protect you in case of anything happen to the dog, he died or has problem you don’t like, we will replace him with a dog with similar value.

US: Eh…

EPW: If you don’t want to pay $200, then at least pay $50 (I can’t remember, but it’s significantly lesser) so if you bring him to see Vet in the first 7 days for unforseen circumstances, we will reimburse you for the medical fee.

US: No we decided not to have it. It doesn’t sound right (even if we could see this as an insurance)

EPW: Okay, nevermind, I will get my man to advise you what food or accessories you should buy for your (Cody).

My friend whispered to me. He told us we should not commit ourselves with those recommendation, especially given what he and us had seen. The assigned sales person walked us through their food and accessories shelves. He would stopped at certain brands, and would tell us how Cody had been eating them, and how we should continue the same diet for his own good. The key point here is most of the recommended items are not cheap, ranging from $50 to $300 (for the supplements). We respectfully rejected all his advises, although we decided to play nice by buying one packet of Eagles kibbles. (which wasn’t the original recommendation from the sales person). We were doing some mental calculation, that it would probably cost us more than $1000 if we had acceded to every recommendation the sales person gave.

When the sales person took the empty basket over from us (with just that one packet of Eagles kibbles) to the sales counter, he had a short chat with the sales manager. Immediately we saw a black face transformed instantly like a Chinese Sichuan opera face performer doing a face-changing act. From that moment onwards, it looked as if our transaction had fallen to the lowest priority of the queue. It took them much longer to process the sales transaction (of that one packet of kibbles), than they did a day ago on Cody’s transaction. Enough said!

Then my friend reminded me about the pedigree certificate. We asked, and again it took us a while before we could catch hold of the sales manager’s attention. He was rather impatient by then, and without any hesitation quoted us $1000 for the certificate. We were taken by surprised, including my friend who has never heard about a pedigree certificate had to be paid separately, and for such a exorbitant amount. Seeing that the argument was not going any where, we decided to cut short the conversation, and left EPW hastily. That was the last time we step in their shop, and we don’t think we are going back again based on the kind of experience we had undergone.

What’s your experience with this said warehouse?