bunn

Bob has had his X ray. The good news is that there is no sign on the X ray of any functional problem or acute arthritis. He did his crawling thing a couple of times while he was there : they wondered if it was related to his poor eyesight, as he's less likely to bump into things when crawling. I think this is probably correct, and I also think Bob crawls when he's hoping not to have to go out for a wee last thing at night when it's cold.

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( Dunno but we'll do our best! (with photos!) ) 

Update 16th Dec:
Bob is fast asleep in the hall after morning walk: such a change from the active stressed dog of yesterday!  I have the door open, he could come into the livingroom, but he seems to have formed a passionate attachment to the hall radiator and will not leave it.   Went in just now to check he was still OK, barely opened his misty eyes.  He seems to like the hall : in the end I gave up on trying to get him to sleep with the other dogs, as he seemed so terrified of the stairs.

I think he is not used to being walked.  The idea seemed to come as something of a surprise to him, though he enjoyed it once he worked it out.  66 quid for flea treatment and wormers to make sure my other beasts are up to date!  Ouch.

Thinness : Checking the bottle of metacam that the kennels sent with him, he was 25Kg when he went to their vet.  Mollydog is 28Kg and is about right, and he is the same height as Molls and quite a bit broader in the beam.  So I reckon he needs to gain at least a couple of kilos.

I and the hounds went out to Minions (village next to the Hurlers on Bodmin moor) today, there to meet with Clazook, an internet friend of mine who was staying in the village, and her wobbly old dogs - Sis the Oldies sponsor dog, Guinness and Sky the saluki.   By a strange coincidence it turned out that the old friends she was staying with were actually people I'd met before as their dogs started training class at the same time as Duke.

They have a gorgeous but slightly reactive red collie called JD and an absolutely adorable puppy called Lola.   I was so pleased with Duke : he was good with all of the dogs, from 18 year old Sis to 16 week old pup Lola (already in her second  home - the first was a high rise flat.  A border collie puppy in a high rise, no wonder that didn't work out!).   Batty old labrador cross Guinness seemed particularly enamoured of Duke and kept sitting next to him and grinning!  His reaction gives me greater confidence that Duke will integrate easily with his new owners dogs when they arrive from Canada next year.    

The autumn light over the moors was fabulous today, one of those wonderful golden late autumn days under a blue sky.

( The new home )
( Corgipix )
( Susie, flies and loud noises.  )
And speaking of dogs behaving differently, I just had one of those odd moments with Az, when I wonder what he makes of his people and suspect it might be more than I generally give him credit for. 

I was looking for my wallet, which I'd once again put down somewhere, as you do. Az was standing near me, so I asked him where it was - not really expecting a reply.  He wagged at me.   philmophlegm then told me that he, philmophlegm, didn't know where my wallet was, and I told him that actually, I was asking Az, not him. 

philmophlegm then alleged that a) Az was less likely to know where I had put my wallet than him and that b) Az was also less likely to reply to a conversational question of this kind.

So then we (ie, me and philmophlegm) had a brief discussion about how handy it would be if I trained my dog to find things I had lost, such as my wallet, and how this would be an uncharacteristically useful thing for me to train my dog to do.... 

Az is standing there listening to all of this. And wagging. So, I said to him 'you could learn to find my wallet, couldn't you Az?'. At which point, he trotted over to my shopping bag, which I had hung from a hook, and prodded it in a decided manner. And he was right, that WAS where the missing wallet had got to! I've never even thought about teaching Az the word 'wallet'!

Good grief.

A while ago I posted that some breeds rarely seem to come into rescues, and that one I'd not seen at all was the flatcoated retriever.  After the Otterhound, frankly, I should have known better...

Oldies Club now have a flatcoated retriever on our waiting list, and another dog that sounds suspiciously like a second one.   Flatcoat 1 sadly has larangeal paralysis, so needs a calm home without too-long walks : breed rescue are on the case, but it seems that enthusiasts for this breed tend to like long walks and excited bouncy dogs - so she's not quite as easy to place as you'd think.

Suspected flatcoat2 belonged to a gentleman who has gone into care.  Sadly, the owner is very confused and his representative though a nice man, is someone that I think could probably recognise a labrador, but nothing more unusual.  But I can't think what other breed is about lab sized, with a long black silky coat but isn't a collie.  He might be a cross, of course, but apparently the owner said he was bought as a specific breed.  Not that that necessarily means anything!   Annoyingly, owner's representative has no email, so we can't get photos to find out more, will just have to wait and see what turns up!

Another rather unusual dog is coming in shortly: a long haired rottweiler. I didn't know rotties came in long haired flavours, so when I took the call I was rather assuming this was another mis-sold crossbreed, but it turns out that this is an unusual but known varient - and he certainly looks full rottie in the photos.

We're having a right old rush on dog surrenders at the moment, I think the record so far is 5 dogs added to the waiting list in a day!  They all sound like very genuine cases, though at this time of year there has to be a suspicion that some of them are actually people who have holidays booked and have decided that boarding the dog costs too much, or have left it too late to book.  Hum.

Oldies Club has been asked to take another old greyhound, who turns out to be another of Mollydog's half-siblings, Jack's Jewel.  I wonder if we'll get any more of her sibs...?

As you've probably noticed, I am miffed about Dara O'Briain's part ownership of a greyhound which he showed off on telly, but which was none the less killed as soon as it broke a hock, before the TV program was even screened.

Pursuing this miffedness, I polled the Oldies committee, and with their consent and full backing, have been pushing the issue via the social media I have at my command wearing my OC hat as well as my own.  Am impressed by the speed and size of response on Twitter.

( Old dog, new home )

( Another dog expands his wardrobe )

We still have snow, even though it's melted across practically all the rest of Cornwall, the Northfacing gloom of our village retains it like nobody's business.  Having had the ice experience at Christmas, the entire village has developed Snow Worries, and as soon as our 1cm fell, everyone charged out with brooms and spades and grit.  I managed to brush our steps and path myself but by the time I'd made it to the drive someone else had already done that!  

I was amused to notice that where some people had brushed the road, they had neatly done just their own section, creating a perfect snowy line across the road at the edge of 'their patch'.  I wonder if they do that by eye, or actually measure it...?

I've done sod-all this Christmas really, I've just pigged out, read a lot,  walked dogs and footled about.    I haven't even put up my exciting new Bat box or my new Owl box (though I have thought about where I might put them, at least) and I've done a tiny bit of carving, enough to create a tiny pile of chippings that wouldn't fill a pencil sharpener.  

There's a sign up on the local garage noticeboard advertising saxophone lessons.  I haven't played with my Gigantic Saxomophone for ages.  I wonder...?

( Photos )

( Her stuff )

For a dog that has lived the last 8 years as an only one, she's not doing too badly with the other dogs and the cats. The cats have almost all decided that she is inoffensive (Suma is still a little cautious) and the hounds are being pretty good with her, give or take Az having a grump at her when she snuffled him when he was asleep.

Or, at least, I don't *think* she's too bothered by the cats or dogs. She mostly ignores the cats and interacts politely enough with the dogs. That said, she is not a happy doggy. She's doing a lot of puffing and trotting about, she's very clingy, and there have been several little accidents. At the moment she seems to be too stressed to pee in the garden, she just loses it wherever she is when she can't hang on.

I am getting a DAP diffuser tomorrow, perhaps that will help, though no doubt mostly what is needed is time.

( Philmophlegm's Dog Review )

Things done
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Dog occurrances( Read more... )

Things undone ( Read more... )