This is the story of how I got Ace... It's gonna be loooonnnnggg and boring, hahaha... I decided to commemorate Ace cos' I'm afraid once I have my own baby, I'll forget all his escapades and wat a hard time I had initially.

Back in April 2007, Emperor, Jules and I had more or less settled into our then new home with the three Jack Russells. At that time, I was still working shifts in Starhub and every moment spent at home was especially precious. Jules and I caught a Taiwanese pet program which introduced labradors, and from there we learnt that labs come in 3 standard colours, black, yellow and chocolate. Although it has always been my dream to keep a black lab, I was abit turned off when the commentator mentioned that labs are heavy shedders and quite messy, as in "like to make themselves dirty" dogs.

I still remember saying to Jules: "Ewww... uh uh, no way can I live with dat!" Well, life has a way of making you eat your words...



It so happened that Jules ran out of dog food shortly after that, and she made a trip to Pet Lover's Centre at Holland Village. And, it so happened, they sold puppies there too. And it so happened, she went to take a peek out of curiosity. And, she saw the most darling choc lab puppy staring back at her from the window. She came back and told Emperor and me about it, and we rushed back to the shop to see the puppy too, but they had closed for the day.

Undaunted, I went with Lay Neo the next day as I was off from work. I still remember Emperor was on reservist, so he was back in camp. And when I saw the puppy, I fell in love. The sales assistant brought him out for a closer look, and this manipulative puppy just sat there, staring at me with his golden amber eyes with a befuddled expression on his face. How cute can that get huh? Yeah, I'm a sucker, always have been and always will be.

I immediately called Emperor and told him that he had to come see himself. Emperor came later in the evening and was pretty impressed. This puppy was one intelligent rascal. We din buy him straight away though cos' we thought the asking price was too steep, they wanted SGD1900.00 for him. So, we decided to think it over first, and sound things out to see if we were really prepared for this huge bundle of commitment. Emperor thought the puppy would do me good, as he was going away on a business trip to London for 2 weeks. I too, thought it would be a great maturing and nurturing process.

By the next day, we were sure, sure as hell we wanted to buy the puppy, and Jules managed to negotiate the price with the sales assistants down to SGD1780.00. She even went down during lunch to put the deposit for me cos' I was at work and Emperor was in camp. *Touched*

And the deed was done. We had done the unimaginable to others: To house 3 small dogs, 1 large dog, and 3 humans under one roof. Hahaha...

By the time I went to pick him up the next day, I still hadn't thought of a name for him. I still remember the excitement just like it was yesterday. I flew down to Holland in a taxi after work, met Jules, Timothy and Lay Neo there. Bought the basic must-haves like food and water bowls, chew toys, and treats while waiting for the shop to get him ready for us to take him home. And finally, we took my baby home.

My poor puppy came home with me, sick and bewildered. Sick cos' he had kennel cough, which is infectious and by the way, he sounds exactly like a human when he coughs! Irresponsible pet shop should not have let me collect him, but that's besides the point and water under the bridge liao.



I set up the enclosure for my baby in the kitchen cos' due to the tons of research I had done on the internet, I felt it would be best to allow him access to areas of the house slowly. Little did I know, this would be the beginning of all my horrors... Hah! I'll get to that in another post, to be continued... tatas!