AngularFire (AngularJS) voting app cant iterate over firebase data - angularjs

Question

I am using ng-repeat to print array data from Firebase. As seen below; foreeach quote I want to count all the votes assosiated with it but any attempt to iterate results in undefined
my Markup
<div ng-repeat="q in quotes" ng-init="total_votes(q)">
{{q.name}}
</div>
my controller
app.controller('account', function ($scope, $timeout, $rootScope, $location, $firebaseObject, $firebaseArray) {
//======== Get Quotes ========//
var ref = firebase.database().ref().child('quotes');
$scope.quotes_obj = $firebaseObject(ref);
$rootScope.quotes = $firebaseArray(ref);
//======== item totals ========//
$scope.total_votes = function(itm) {
// attempt ONE
var itm_votes = $scope.quotes_obj[itm.$id].votes;
console.log(itm_votes); // returns "{-KzFkQYHWKwbAPjIekWz: "sad", -KzLT76T14doKgYbjRc1: "wow"}"
console.log(itm_votes.length); // returns "undefined"
// attempt TWO
console.log(itm.votes) // returns "{-KzFkQYHWKwbAPjIekWz: "sad", -KzLT76T14doKgYbjRc1: "wow"}"
console.log(itm.votes[0]) // returns "undefined"
console.log(itm.votes.length) // returns "undefined"
// count votes
var counts = {};
for (var i = 0; i < itm_votes.length; i++) {
counts[itm_votes[i]] = 1 + (counts[itm_votes[i]] || 0);
if(i == itm_votes.length){
console.log('done');
}
}
return counts;
};
});
Here is a picture of a single quote on my firebase database
Does anyone know why the index is undefined for the data? I am open to new ways to count all the like votes if you see something wrong with this approach
anything helps. Thanks!

Answer 1

I had to $.map to convert the obj to array.
$scope.total_votes = function(itm) {
var itm_votes = $.map($scope.quotes_obj[itm.$id].votes, function(value, index) {
return [value];
});
console.log(itm_votes.length);
var counts = {};
for (var i = 0; i < itm_votes.length; i++) {
counts[itm_votes[i]] = 1 + (counts[itm_votes[i]] || 0);
if(i == itm_votes.length-1){
console.log('done');
console.log(counts);
}
}
return counts;
};