A Little Break –

The time has come for a break from my blog and creative writing.  My son will soon receive the completed story of mine and his life, ‘R’s Roots’, and at 100,000 words it has satisfied my writing itch for a bit.

I will concentrate on the health of my little pal Laika, who appears to have a chronic stomach condition that may require a special diet for the rest of her life.  This will mean close supervision, as labrador owners know all about the scavenger gene.

I’ll be back, but not sure when.  In the meantime, thank you for the support.  Laika will continue to feature on my Facebook page for those who miss her antics.

See you in a while!

Ouch –

In the past my favourite holiday was backpacking in the Dolomites.  I regularly had a sore knee, which was thankfully totally supported by strong and expensive Italian knee braces. I still sometimes use them when I have a niggle.

This time, it is not a niggle. I have a full blown debilitating ache in one knee that keeps me awake at night, forces me to bandage on top of the brace to keep my knee rigid, and obviously walks with Laika are virtually impossible. She is not yet able to walk consistently to heel, and if she sees another dog or tasty looking person, or perhaps a bird or a blowing leaf, she yanks me in their direction while I howl in agony.

We have been doing lots of fun training in our small garden, played fetch with me sitting in a chair, tried to teach her to take treats without gnawing my fingers, trained ‘Leave’ my backpack and her day-care bag, both of which she treats viciously, and my neighbour’s dog-loving adult son has offered to take her out for a walk whenever. Can I ask anyone to do that? – she is not really your well behaved walking companion just yet…

Here’s hoping that my knee gets better by itself. What would I do with Laika if I had to have a knee replacement?

Cheers, Laika.

Two days after Laika finished her antibiotics, the scoots were back, and a poorly Laika woke me up at 4 am to get out.

More medication prolongs the hyper-activity. In the waiting room at the vets she barked excitedly, jumped as if on springs and made a bit of a nuisance of herself. One boy of about 8, of the ‘I-am-a-spoiled-brat-who-knows-everything’-variety, loudly declared to the waiting room that if that was their dog, his mum would give her a good skelp.

My mouth acted in advance of my brain and I informed him that if she did that, I would be delighted to return the favour and whack her harder and longer to make her see how much good it did. The mother did not appear to find her son’s remark out of line, and she did not enter into the exchange. Judging by her son’s loud and unpleasant comments about everyone in the waiting room she has a – relaxed? – approach to discipline.

Could dog training sessions become compulsory for such families, since behaviour tends to be the same across a household? Or take it further: introduce an obligatory test and basic training for everyone who owns/wants a pet. Short term, fewer strays would find a home, but long term such commitment might reduce thoughtless momentary fascination with dogs and thus make puppy farming unprofitable. However, from the government down (or should that be up), ‘long term’ does not feature.

The world is approaching the equivalent of the fall of the Roman Empire. We reached a pinnacle of riches; debauchery and crime have flourished and we have lost sight of what is important. Does every old person feel like that? My father frequently stated that he was glad he would not be around for too much longer in a world that was becoming dissolute. That’s how I feel.   Caring for a creature with simple needs and no material greed is keeping me sane. Cheers, Laika!

Fame and Games, a Weekend in Laika’s Life.

Here’s a good game:  I bury the ball, you dig it up again.
– What do you mean, bad for your nails?  You don’t hear me complaining
about my manicure, and I do the hard part.  Get your priorities sorted…

Have I got stage presence?

Would I make a good subject for a monument?

Silly Mummy

I am on to you, Mum! Those juicy bits of chicken you have uncharacteristically been tossing me while preparing my food contain PILLS. I don’t like pills. I don’t care that the vet says I need them since my tummy is bad for the third time in as many weeks. I don’t care that you have been boasting about me taking my medicines really easily since nothing touches the sides. Well, now it does. Now I have discovered your duplicity and cruel attempts to make me eat things that do not taste nice. This is not like you, and I am disappointed in you.

So, from now on every bit of chicken will be sniffed, carefully chewed, spat out if it contains anything solid and I will look at you with terrible reproach in my little face. How could you try to con me? – I thought we had a good, honest relationship, and here you go and treat me like an idiot.

You are meant to feed me nothing but chicken, rice and scrambled egg until my stomach improves. I heard you mentioning that sardines are good for hiding tablets and have an enticing smell, but no use to you just now, are they…

I forgive quickly and readily, but make no mistake: I do not forget quite as easily. Tomorrow morning you will have even more difficulty getting the tablets into me, the morning after that yet more, and so on. So, what are you going to do about it? You have ten days’ worth of antibiotics and my monthly worming tablets ready to go – all I can say is good luck!

In retaliation, I am off to decimate your Bay trees a little more. I am leaving just enough to make you think they may recover when I grow out of my fascination, but you have to admit, they are beginning to look a little tatty.

Not so bushy and healthy looking now, are they?

Helping the Family Economy

You said we are needing new tyres – I found one!

Laika: Guard Dog or Butterfly

My decision to get a dog was heavily influenced by an unpleasant experience with a workman. When I announced I was getting a labrador, most people laughed and said a pet butterfly might give me better protection.

Although Laika would drench you with doggy kisses and invite you to play were you to ignore her bark, she is a deterrent. Her growly bark sounds threatening and a dark stripe along her spine hints of Rhodesian Ridgeback, a breed renowned for protective instincts. She barks when people come through the gate, when anyone parks in the street or walks past on the way to the beach, when she wants attention – we are working to eliminate that one – when she invites me to come and clear up her poop, and really when there is nothing else to do. We are working on that one as well.

Displaying my stripe and Labrador Zip in my forehead.

We were at the vet again yesterday after the explosive tummy returned. She drags me into the building and barks excitedly at the delightful staff. But she is becoming reluctant to enter the consulting room, now that it rarely leads to nice things. Another antibiotic injection, another rectal temperature, another weigh-in (nearly 16 kilos) and mum leaving with a supply of disgusting tasting tablets to be pushed down her throat for the next five days. If that does not clear it up, we will need to consider food allergies.

We will be back at the vet if not before, certainly towards the end of September for her big op. But possibly not just spaying: her fangs are emerging inside the milk teeth and are not pushing those out, so she has a double set. One milk tooth came out by itself, the others seem determined to stay. Baby teeth need to go, under anaesthetic if necessary, and if they have not fallen out by themselves they will be whipped out while she is under anyway.

Oh, the trials of growing up!

And Another New Harness –

Laika finally gets time off the lead. Now that she reacts to ‘Leave’, even when shouted from a distance, she is much safer on the beach in spite of it being littered with jellyfish. I have rarely seen so many of the slightly creepy creatures since the perpetually sunny summers of my childhood. – Well, they seemed that way! Some are the size of juggernaut tyres, some little saucers of sliminess, all of them causing me faint nausea. Laika found them fascinating, but now she appears to ignore them.

We have, after trying five different makes, found a harness that does not slide around her body or allow her to back out of it if she disagrees with my direction. I met a man with two wild but friendly staffies, who were both wearing a kind of harness I had not seen before. I ordered one, not cheap, but it works perfectly. Not only that, it also somehow gives the impression that she may be in training, so that fewer people try to get her attention when I want to keep it on me.

My new harness

I meet an elderly (that means older than me) couple most mornings, walking their equally elderly golden retrievers. The dogs are not the slightest interested in Laika’s offers of play, but the couple are delightful. They pet Laika, but only if she has four feet on the ground, and there has never been a hint of ‘Oh, I don’t mind her jumping’. I do, very much, and it is a pleasure to meet people who agree with me and thus assist me in her training.

We have started to lengthen the walks a little, and it is fascinating to observe Laika’s frantic sniffing out of her new surroundings. She is so very curious about the world, and I believe, perhaps erroneously? that she is grateful to me for taking her to new places. Certainly, when I try to skip some of the more smell-full places on our regular walks she stops in her tracks and looks at me, clearly saying: Hey, I NEED to see if anything smells differently from yesterday!

That she determinedly eats her way up my two bay trees by the door is a matter of slight contention. She does this when I have the cheek to need a few minutes to myself and let her roam the garden, and since I refuse to go the punishment route, she is not really getting the message… I need to ask my trainer how to sort this one in a positive manner, and in the meantime I hope Son and Daughter-in-law forgive us if their gift from four years ago does not survive Laika’s dogged determination.

Eyes half shut…

Mummy Knows Best –

Laika is nearly back to normal, bar the 5 pounds of weight she shed in as many days through expulsion of everything in her tummy. I am slowly adding her usual dry food into the chicken and rice – I don’t want to feed her luxuries forever.

After 2.5 nights on the couch with very little sleep I moved her back into her crate and me back in my much missed bed. She had not vomited for a day, so I reckoned correctly that the worst was over. I really am not ready to share my sleeping quarters on a permanent basis.  That may come, but not just yet.

Laika is only 4 months, and we had one pee-accident in the house while she was sick, breaking her four weeks’ record of being clean in the house. I believe most pups have full bladder control at about 5 months, so we will re-visit the cuddly closeness of sleeping paw in hand in a little while.  No doubt the illness confused her, but I cannot imagine how I would remain calm if she peed in my bed!

One excellent outcome of the incident: she now reacts instantly and willingly when I ask her to Leave.  Perhaps somewhere in the little canine brain she realises she might have been too enthusiastic about eating everything in sight, and Mummy really DOES knows best.

Aren’t you lucky, Mum – now I can play with you again!

Warning: Not Meal-Time Reading –

The other morning Laika stopped, as she is wont, as far away from a disposal container as possible to do her poop. The bag was ready in my pocket, but I had not expected her to produce what can only be described as soft stools that were nearly impossible to clean up.
By lunchtime she had developed the most spectacular diarrhoea I have seen or heard, leaving extensive slurry puddles all over the patio and looking utterly miserable. I phoned the vet and was told to just give her water and get back in touch if she got worse.

From then on, every 2-3 hours she deposited increasingly large lakes of the awful substance. At bedtime she was more than happy to go into her crate. A few hours later she was moving restlessly, so I took her outside just in time for the next volcanic explosion. This repeated after one hour, after which I dragged my duvet into the livingroom near the front door, and the two of us snuggled up on the couch.

The next excursion saw explosions both ends. This was now 2 o’clock in the morning, and I was becoming frantic. Her little body was heaving painfully, and I could do nothing to help her. I phoned the night vet, grateful that I had opted for a veterinarian who does their own out of hours duty, and told to bring her in first thing in the morning and not worry in the meantime. Not worry? – guess who got no sleep!

It is now 12 hours since she got a jag without a whimper, medicine for three days and advice to keep her quiet. She is bouncing back  – every two hours or so we play for fifteen minutes before she collapses on her duvet for another restorative rest. She is thoroughly enjoying her digestion-friendly chicken and rice meals, small as they are – luxury at last!

We know that labs eat everything. The grass on the green was cut a few days ago, and the prolific mushrooms were chopped under the blades so that they are not easy to spot. Chances are she ate some, so I am grateful that she is getting better. It could have been much worse.

Poor me…