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November 2010
Everyone’s been asking
why they haven’t heard for me for a long time. Fact is, I’ve been too
low to do much except sit on the settee and think about what might have
been.
I was absolutely
certain that Sandy would come and live with me, especially after her
lovely letter. Then Daff sat me down one day and broke it to me that
she’d taken up the offer of a new home in Louth. I couldn’t believe it
at first – I knew it wouldn’t have been her decision, she made that
plain at Sutton Carnival. But grown -ups can’t be relied on so I
expect this was some sort of collusion between Auntie Sandra and Sandy’s
new mum and dad; whatever it was, it was nothing she or I could do
anything about.
She promised to write,
but she never did. Every morning for weeks I met the postman to see if
there was anything from her, until he stopped leaving post altogether
(Daff thinks he must have a dog phobia) and it started off a war between
Daff and Royal Mail about poor deliveries (Daff won, as usual). By the
time things had been sorted, I knew there’d be no more chance of a
letter from Sandy, so I settled back down into the sort of humdrum life
a poor crippled chap like me can only expect.
I’ve been especially
neglected this last month or two, cos while I’ve managed to keep away
from the vet, all the others have never been off the doorstep. The fit
and healthy always have to take a back seat, while the weak and fragile
invariably get all the fuss and attention, but I suppose that’s just got
to be my lot in life.
It started the week
after the Dog Show when Somebody in the family (not me, of course!) got
Reserve Best in the Fun Classes. John and Daff had booked a few days
away in the caravan at Wicken, near Ely, so we could be near Dick White
Referrals when Bluebell had her cancer check-up. The idea was that
Madam would have a quick scan, then the rest of the week we could all
explore Wicken Fen. Well, we all thought she was OK, because she was
back to being in your face and she’d put on so much weight that she
looked like a basking seal. So even her consultant was surprised to
see another tumour, larger than the one before, further along her small
intestine, so she had another operation and another three nights in
hospital.
Of course, this put a
damper on the rest of the week and nobody enjoyed walking very much.
Then the night before we were to go home, Mr Paddidog, who has this
thing about violent tail-wagging, managed to get it caught in the car
door – lord, you should have seen the blood! All over the caravan
walls, all over the seats, no wonder he’s a registered blood donor; he
donated it all to the caravan that evening.
He got an emergency
bandage at Dick White’s next day, then we picked up the invalid
Bluebell, and Daff decided to go home a day early so he could see his
own vet. Well, to cut a long story short, his tail end started to die
over that weekend (poo, you should have smelt it, it was worse than a
dustbin!) and he had about six inches amputated the following Monday.
For the next fortnight he was walking around with a toilet roll tube
stuck to the end – how we laughed! I told him he looked absolutely
ridiculous, but there’s no accounting for tastes, as during that time
our Cousin Leia Alsatian came to stay at the Patch in her new caravan
with her dad and mum, and sometime during the week Mr P and Leia fell in
love. I think with Mr P it was because Flo Morgan hadn’t been to see
him for a long time and he wasn’t prepared to wait indefinitely, and
with Leia it was only because she was allowed to wander unsupervised all
over the Patch – and you know what that sort of thing can lead to – but
he never left her side except when she went in for the night and he even
let her sit in his triangle by the gate with him. She didn’t seem to
think there was anything at all silly about the toilet roll tube, so
maybe that’s what turns GSDs on?
The same day Leia went
home Sally got pushed into a tree and opened up all her shoulder. I
don’t know who pushed her – it certainly wasn’t me – and Sally tried to
cover it up cos she knew what would happen if Daff and John saw it, but
they did, of course, so she was whisked off to the vet’s, spent the
night in hospital, and came home bristling with stitches. So she got
all the fuss then; that left only me and Discit without fuss, and Discit
gets permanent fuss because of her thyroid problem. I tried limping
when I was out on a walk; someone said, “Do you know your dog’s lame?”
Daff said, “Oh, he’s not lame, it’s only his silly foot,” and that was
the end of that.
Everything’s settled
down now – for the time being, at any rate. Bluebell’s huge bare patch
is re-growing (just in time for her next scan in the December – I
suggested she asked Daff to shave her all over – permanently – so she
wouldn’t look such an odd-ball, but she tried to bite me, so I left
it). Mr P has dispensed with his toilet roll tube and has a bunch of
white stitches at the end of his tail which he hopes won’t ever come out
as he lost his white tip in the amputation and he thinks an all-black
tail just doesn’t look smart. Sally’s had her stitches out; Mr P
picked all the scabs off yesterday morning after breakfast – lovely!
Discit’s got an appointment for another blood test, and me – well, I
did have one small adventure recently, but I’ll tell you about that next
time.
In the meantime, I’m
just hoping Sandy might go to the Christmas Party. You never
know……………
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