This is the third day I’ve been strimming in the orchard. Since I don’t do very much at a time (just one fuel load) it takes ages.
Today, tired and with the ‘crawling ant’ feeling in my hands that comes from the vibration, I wasn’t amused when one of the Wellington boots I’d been wearing went missing.
The culprit, of course, was Kepler. I thought it would be too heavy for him, but I could now envisage him taking it all the way to the neighbour. My mind was just going over the possibility of doing a trade (my boot for your mother-in-law’s 5 shoes) when Kepler appeared with it in his mouth.
Bugloss saved from the strimming
I was even less amused when, later on, all 3 dogs raced by and trampled not only the little island of bugloss which I’d saved from the strimming, but also me, as I took photographs of it. The bugloss would almost certainly survive but I might not.
This tick was taken off the dogs and was still alive when the photo was taken (here very much enlarged).
We do treat the dogs (they’re due for treatment tomorrow) which is probably why it hadn’t attached by the time I found it.
I believe there used to be sheep in the field where they pick them up, and ticks can survive a long time without a host.
The second photo (of a different tick) is less clear but next to an appropriate word on the sheet of paper. They run quite fast so it’s difficult to ‘organise’ them!
The metal-brilliant-studded shoes brought to me by Kepler
Cinderella has lost both her slippers.
The culprit, as usual, is Kepler, who has a definite shoe fetish and steals them from the neighbour.
I saw him playing with the first one and managed to get it off him. Jokingly I said: “Bring me the other one, Kepler.”
And blow me, he did! A bit later on I opened the front door and there it was, laid just outside like an offering.
How could you ever be cross with a dog that brings you a gift of slippers encrusted with brilliants?
Taylor looking fine the day before yesterday
I had a bit of a scare this evening. Taylor was lying down (crouching, not flopped out on his side) and breathing very strangely.
The noise was so loud and so unlike him that it took me a while to track it down. Then he lay down completely and his eyes glazed over and started to close.
I grabbed the phone and rang our local vet. He doesn’t have a surgery but makes housecalls instead, which can be very handy. I said I thought it could be serious and he asked me if Taylor was lying down. I said yes and he said in that case he would rush over. He arrived 25 minutes later.
What he didn’t tell me till afterwards was that he’d wondered whether Taylor might have been bitten by a viper, as it’s very much the season for them.
Anyway, he put his stethoscope to Taylor’s chest, took his temperature (he had a fever), and asked me a few questions. The diagnosis was bronchitis that might have developed into pneumonia, and the treatment – antibiotics.
I was relieved because, despite not having thought of snakebite, I’d imagined a lot worse.
Categories: Our pets
Tags: antibiotics, bronchitis, Dog, fever, housecall, pneumonia, snakebite, stethoscope, surgery, vet, viper
Neutering, castration, sterilization – I don’t know which is the uglier word. But it’s what happened to Kepler today.
Joules and Taylor have both been ‘done’ so there was no choice in the matter.
I sat with Kepler in the vet’s operating room till about 10.00, when the anaesthetic took effect, and by 11.45 he was ready to leave, groggy but strong.
He tried to run away up the drive when we got home, and it was only because he stopped to pee that I caught up with him. After that he slept for a couple of hours in front of the stove, twitching in continuous spasms. Now he’s sleeping peacefully under my desk, complete with Elizabethan collar.
Kepler before the op, exhausted from his gadding about
I hope his protracted visits to the neighbour’s dogs had a large hormonal element and that we shall now see a little more of him.
Although there’s a little less of him to see, poor little chap.
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