Dog days . . .

Along with revision, this week has been dominated by dogs, both mine and the Dog’s Home’s.  Mine are Jack Russell terriers.  Normally fit, fighting fit, with emphasis on the fighting.  Both dogs, being small, suffer from SDS (Small Dog Syndrome) part of which is a psychotic belief that one is actually a bull-mastiff or a pit-bull.  Something that is big, anyway, and preferably threatening. This week my poor poppets have been unfit in so many ways.  Dog One, the smooth coat, is fourteen and is beginning to suffer aspects of senility.  He gets lost inside the house and just sits and barks until I appear and he can follow me.  It’s no good me calling as he is almost deaf.  But he is a vocal dog and is quite capable of letting me know when there is a problem, it’s just that the vocalising itself can be a problem . . . especially when one is trying so hard to revise a manuscript.

Dog Two (the rough coat) has had BAAAAAAAAD breath for months.  I mentioned it to the vet way back in March because it was as though she lived on a diet of crusty, rotten shellfish.  Vet said, ‘Oh, she’s fine!’  But this last week she has been off her food, sleeping a lot and finally whimpering when she picked up a toy.  I took her back to the vet, he said she had a tooth issue (I wanted to shout ‘Yeah, I told you that in March!’) and she was operated on yesterday.  She had four extractions and two abscesses drained and honestly, I could have thrown the rotten teeth back at the vet, I was so angry.  She cried all the way home in the car and you have to remember that this is feisty little JRT.  They never malinger.  Said dog is lacklustre today and on copious antibiotics.  Lying at my feet in her little padded green paddock rug as I write.

The Dogs Home this week was rife with kennel cough, obviously bought in by one of the many unwanted’s.  So there was little walking to be done.  Those that had a mere cold had short walks, those with kennel cough sat quietly in their runs or went out to the yards where they could lie in the sun.  Then we volunteers had to disinfect and clean before we went home to our own (vaccinated) dogs.

Our local paper ran a story on the home last week with photos of many of the dogs up for adoption and I am happy top say that  more than 3/4’s have found a home.  Just as well, as no doubt the next lot will fill up the quarters by the time I go back next week.  Most satisfying though was my little Piper, the star on the page, who has found a wonderful home with two youngish children to play with.

Meanwhile my own little tuffies need care. There’s the anti-senility drugs, a half  twice a day, and cream for a sore spot once a day for Dog One and two antibiotics, twice a day for Dog Two.

Then for me, because I am such a ‘caring owner’, there is one wine before dinner and one after, and then the obligatory chocolate to clinch the deal.