snow

well the snow is taking its toll on Maddie - not that it's slowing her down at all, oh no! In fact it's sped her up, now she does wheelies ALL the time! But she does get snow balls on her legs; luckily Murphy helps lick them off as it takes ages and she doesn't take kindly to me yanking away at her fur!

yes!

I was right - almost. She just shot by with something wet and clothy in her mouth - my slipper!!!

So I've rescued it back and it's drying on a radiator - out of sight if you know who!

"whose woods these are..."

been another delay in posts... well the snow has now come upon us.. and the dogs are LOVING it! Took them to the park yesterday morning on the way back from dropping Richard off at work (only the dog-mobile works in the snow) and Murphy spent 10 minutes chasing Maddie round in circles, when normally he spend most of his time trying to ignore her! Then I threw a couple of tennis balls for them - the trick is to have Murphy end up with the old tatty one as he's going to eat it anyway (literally) and I want the new one for Maddie, who will actually chase it (although she takes her time giving it back)

More snow today and Maddie is celebrating by upping her wheelie level on walks. Have I mentioned she does wheelies? With an invisible bike, she doesn't need it! It's really very funny.

On the downside she nicked one of my slippers this morning as I had a lie in and I've not found it yet - I hope she hasn't taken it outside and left it there, I won't find it til the snow melts.

poor Maddie

or maybe poor me! I got the fright of my life when I got home at lunchtime, all set to walk the dogs (luckily having decided not to give blood after all, given the "substantially more than an hour" waiting time) and found Maddie with her face the size of a a melon! Needless to say I panicked totally, shoved Murphy back in the house and tore off with Maddie down to the vets, only to find she was away til 2, so I was directed to the nearest one with a vet and got there in double quick time. I thought Maddie's throat might swell up and she could die but once I got there they said it looked scary but that they weren't aware of that sort of thing ever ending in anaphylactic shock or similar.

So she got steroids and antihistamine jags and we have more pills for her and so far it's gone down quite a bit but not totally. I should say at this point that throughout this, while she was a bit subdued, on the whole she hasn't been massively affected by this.

I think Murphy must have realised something was wrong (he must have picked up on my panic at least) as I was going to work out what was for tea but ended up having a bit of a love-in with the dogs - I had Maddie on her bed and sat with her for a cuddle and Murphy wanted in so I played with him too - but when I wanted to get up he kept putting the paw up "don't go, don't go" so I just had to sit there and stroke him til Richard got home (and read a magazine to pass the time!)

PS I must also say that this picture (taken at the vets) is bad but the pictures don't show how bad it actually was. Poor Maddie.

a streaker!

murphy gave me a bit of a turn a couple of days ago. I was running along the railway line, which passes a golf course at one part - the first tee to be exact - and happened to look down as I passed it. I saw 2 guys who had just tee'd off and were looking down the fairway (luckily). Behind them I suddenly saw the silhouette of our Murphy, streaking across the tee! eek! SO fortunate that they'd already tee'd off as I doubt that would have stopped him on his way to the woods nearby!