PINK – they only had pink!

My new bandage is PINK – and real Barbie pink at that.  How will I ever be able to hold my head up in front of the dog pack?  How can pink be the only colour they had?   Vet says if I get the bandage wet my foot will get yukky and it will have to be changed more often.  Thinks – maybe if I get it really wet I can have another colour???

Vet was pleased with my progress but confirms it takes at least four weeks to mend a broken bone.  So no beach yet.  I hope it will still be there when I’m fit.  It might disappear!  It was so misty tonight as my mum drove me past that she couldn’t see the sea. What will we do if it goes away and doesn’t come back?

We went for a walk when we got home but I was raring to go and got rid of the plastic bag in seconds.  That got me a right earwigging from my mum and because I was charging ahead she kept it up all the time until we got back saying if I dragged her over there would be two of us with broken bones and no walks at all.  Best hide and go to sleep ….

Pester power

Had to pester something rotten to get my mum off the sofa and out this morning.  She kept saying things like ‘later, I’m watching Saturday Kitchen’, ‘phworrr, James Martin’ and ‘look at those daft old testosterone filled Italian chefs’ despite me conjuring up my best doleful puppy look and pawing her.  Eventually it worked and we had a gorgeous trip to the park where there a still a few daffodils which appreciate a bit of watering.

Met a rather lovely flat coated retriever on the way back and gave her the once over.  When we got home the dog pack was in the back yard so I made sure they’d not scoffed the breakfast I refused to eat and put them to rights with a few choice grumps and grizzles. At lunchtime I was allowed to share my mum’s smoked salmon (cos she’d put far too much on her plate…)  Altogether a good start to the weekend.  I’m hoping the vet on Monday will be so pleased with me that I’ll be allowed more freedom cos I’m going stir crazy on this light duties regime.

Made a nuisance of myself in the pub

My mum made an excuse of the heavy rain not to take me on any more walks when she could see I was recovering rapidly and up for it.  So, thank heavens it’s sunny today and I got to go round the block again – and was actually let off the lead to gambol about!  She hopes it will take the edge of my pent-up energy, of course, and I have to say I made a bit of a nuisance of myself in the pub last night to show how frustrated I was becoming.

I love going to the pub cos I get loads of attention from customers, can have a bit of a chin wag with other sociable dogs and am fed a third of any crisps which are going though I hate it when they buy the chilli variety which stings my delicate taste buds.  Unfortunately last night I took an immediate dislike to a fellow canine and was tugged unceremoniously under the table when I wanted to put him in his place.

Someone on the next table made a fuss of me and said she wanted a dog just like me but her husband says no.  My mum spoilt any chance she might have had by saying I’d been a nightmare as a puppy.  How could she say that when I studiously avoided chewing any of her shoes and concentrated on unimportant things like the kitchen wall, plants and pork steaks?

 

I got to go for a walk

I got to go for a walk – yes, a real walk, outside, on the lead.  Must be making progress if my mum lets me go beyond the doorstep.  It was the ‘light duties’ route down the street and through the park, not let off the lead to have a romp but it was great to get outdoors properly and sniff who had been doing what while I’ve been incarcerated.  Can’t believe it’s only the sixth day since I was bandaged up – six weeks will be an eternity.  Though it was just a short outing, I’m banjaxed.  Think I’ll go to sleep and dream of the beach…

 

Adding insult to injury

Not only am I suffering with my broken toe – no beach, no rough play, no being let upstairs for an early morning cuddle – now my mum tells me I am on a diet cos it’s going to be four-six weeks before I am fit.  Cutting my food intake – what troubles a dog has to endure.  There doesn’t seem to be too much less in my bowl but the treats have diminished.  Course, I used to run it off easily but now I’m not getting further than the back gate.  I don’t think barking uses many calories.  Maybe she’ll give me fruit instead.  I know I’ve turned my nose up in the past but my tum has to be filled with something.  Apples! Carrots! Plums!  Mmm, maybe not plums.  Don’t they make you ‘go’?  I go enough already.

Heard her on the phone this evening making an appointment with the (whisper) vet for next week.  They said I had to get a check after a week or ten days.  Maybe I’ll be allowed to have the bandage off, or maybe changed for a different colour.  Red, orange, green?  Must ponder on that.

 

Lots of attention

We’ve been visiting today and I got to play with new toys (abandoned by the resident cat who sat on the stairs and looked at me with an expression like she’d sucked a lemon), christen Di’s outdoor facilities and try out the cat flap – good for seeing who’s at the door, catflaps – just the right size for my muzzle.  Wish my mum had one but she says she’s not going to spoil an original Victorian door just so THE CAT can come and go as she pleases, bringing in her mates at all hours.  Mind, I don’t know that Sherry has any friends – most feline visitors get the bum’s rush and she once chased a Labrador puppy who had the temerity to speak to her, down the street.  Poor thing was terrified.  Like me, if I’m honest.

At home there’s a new ball which my mum is hiding biscuits in and I have to get them out.  The first one was a doddle but I’ve still not got the next one out.  Time enough later.  Need a snooze now after a busy day.  But my paw isn’t so bothersome as the last two days.  Should not have leapt that gate…

Been a bad boy…

I’m in the most awful trouble.  Mum took me to the front door and I thought ‘freedom, yea’, all my senses left me and I belted down the path, launched into the air…and wheeeeeeeeee, over the front gate.  OUCH!!!  She called me names I can’t repeat on here, especially when I continued gambolling, on three legs, across to the bushes to sniff who had been down the street since my last inspection.  Well, I got hauled inside pretty quick, I tell you, barely had time to water the ivy.  She says I’m not allowed out the front again until the limp has gone.  Oh, woe is me!

Today, to keep my mind occupied, we played the biscuit game – she gets three beakers then hides a biscuit under one of them and shuffles them around.  Didn’t I just get the biscuit every time.  I’m such an intelligent dog.

Tomorrow we are going in the car to see our friend Di and I’ll enjoy that.  If only it would be sunny and we can have the roof down so I can sit on the front seat, strapped in of course, and let the wind blow my ears back – the Grace Kelly look, without the headscarf.

I am recovering

Had loads of cuddles today – mum let me on the sofa with her – and little games with the ball and my other toys.  This being injured is very tiring!

I’m being very good, not chewing my bandage, which the vet says will help the bone knit together without me having surgery to pin it back together.  Apparently if I was a £25,000 racing greyhound they would do that at the start.  These greyhounds must be a special type cos I see a few on the beach but they don’t look as if they are worth more than a bag of biscuits.  They may go faster than me but they don’t have my stamina.

 

Oh, toe is me!

      

What a day.  Up early, taken to the vets’ surgery and left there – thought when I got in the car I was going to the beach!   The vets and staff at Strachan Veterinary Group (Newcastle and Tynemouth) are the top dollar – remembered my name, gave me loads of attention and, after a pleasant sleep, I woke up with my left leg covered in plastic up to the shoulder.  I had no trouble getting that off, toot sweet as they say!

Drat, told I had to have some sort of support as I’ve broken a toe in a Y-shape.  Mr Strachan says he usually only sees that kind of fracture in racing greyhounds, and must have landed hard, toes down.  Don’t remember anything out of the ordinary on yesterday’s trip to the beach because it was only after we got home that it started to bother me.  Just thinking – dog racing – maybe I can have a new career after I’m recovered!

So I came home in a fetching purple bandage which my mum, overcome with the excitement of picking me up, mistook for a sock.  Obviously doesn’t know that socks are for tug of war.  I’m not to get the bandage wet so they tied a poo bag (the indignity of it!) round when I went to get in the car and my mum has done the same every time I’ve gone in the yard.  Being indoors all day, and sedated, WOW was I glad to have a peruse around the facilities back home.  Fortunately they couldn’t find anything wrong with my bones in the leg which caused my first limp – soft tissue damage which will come right if I take it easy.

The Irish aunt and sprog have been to visit – that roused me sharpish and I had no trouble delivering my best noisy greeting for them.  Sprog has been cooking cookies at school    and they brought a sample.  I was allowed a bit and it was YUMMY.  Very nice after tuna in my dinner as a treat for being such a good boy.

My mum has been whispering I’m not very bright for still wanting to play and jump around with a bandaged foot and in the other leg.  She’s only human, doesn’t understand a dog’s psyche at all.

Oh, woe is me!

Vet again!  Last night I was limping quite badly and although I was desperate to get in the dog wagon this morning and get to the sand, the outing left me with a worse limp than ever – and a very sore paw on the other leg!  It’s not as if I’ve been hurtling along cos they haven’t been using the ball thrower which takes the ball hundreds of yards. I got all chirpy and excited when my mum put me in the boot of the car this afternoon, thinking we were headed for another splash – the beach takes my mind off everything – but the destination was the vet practice again.

This time she lifted me on the bench – me, at 23 kilos, her not much more (the vet, not my mum!) – and gave the front limbs a thorough going-over.  My mum held me and I was very brave, didn’t squeak although she shaved some hair off my left paw, said it was very swollen and I might have broken a toe bone.  And I thought bones were just for eating!  Then the right leg, all the way up to the shoulder.  The vet gave me a painkilling and anti-inflammatory injection which is supposed to last 24 hours.  When does it kick in is what I want to know?

Outcome is I’m destined for x-rays in the morning: no food after 6pm tonight, no water after midnight as apparently they will sedate me.  I expect dinner will be something special as I’m so under the weather. and that I will get lots of cuddles.  That will put THE CAT’s nose out of joint.  I’ll just put my feet up for the rest of the day.

Suppose there’s not going to be any beach tomorrow…