update - better news

things are definitely on the mend. After 5 days of house arrest, during which I thought poor Murfs was becoming clinically depressed (turns out he was just bunged up due to having eaten a sock or two), the Paw is now good enough to allow him out without having to sit patiently holding his paw out for a sock - a plastic bag - another, bigger, plastic bag - another sock - all held on individually by the PO's best red rubber bands ... Hurray!

And Maddie managed to take out one of her stitches by herself but (on a double-barrelled visit to the vet) the vet took out the rest, so (apart from now having to rub nappy-rash cream on the site every now and again) she is free as a bird! - and I mean that literally, I heard her bark-bark-barking in the garden yesterday and assumed she was, as is her wont, running up and down trying to jump onto the garden wall after the cat. But no - she was actually perched on the wall barking at the poor cat, who was (judging from Maddie's hasty shuffles back every now and again), in the neighbours hedge fighting back with a well-aimed paw. Sigh.

Add to that the fact that Jimmy the rabbit (complete with festive red bow) was introduced to the other zoo-inhabitants on Christmas Day (Maddie appears to have been frightened of him, Murphy uninterested) and Gizzy has now formed a strange and worrying lurking habit outside Emily's bedroom door and you will see that matters have now stepped up to their usual mayhem.

So, New Year's Resolutions for 2011 - (1) deliver Jimmy back home in one piece as soon as possible. (2) build a searchlight and barbed wire facility round the back garden. (3) try not to finish off the Christmas champagne whilst making the Christmas peppermint creams (they're useless without peppermint flavouring).....

Happy Hogmanay!

it just keeps getting better...

so we've had our visits to the vet today and it's not good news - Murphy's paw has been getting wet depite our best efforts so isn't healing. So the bandage is off to help it dry out and it's 5 days' r & r - ie he's housebound. sigh. Poor Murphy is NOT happy.

Maddie on the other hand is super dooper! Well, she thinks she is - I caught her leaping over the wall in the garden yesterday - double eek! So she's on enforced confinement too! The surgery site is looking good though (apart from she's allergic to the sticky tape we used for the fourth wound-cover yesterday).

It's all go....stop...go...stop..stop...!

and then there were two..

We've been having an exciting time - Murphy is getting used to his paw, Maddie seems to have stopped trying to bite it - but then there are reasons for that! We had to put them in kennels just after Murphy's accident and of course he worked out that he could reach his paw because the lampshade wasn't long enough. He chewed and ate as much of the bandage as he could so the kennels, after a discussion with our vets and a visit to their own for more bandages, trussed up the paw again and we duly picked him up the next day and headed back to the vet for more re-dressing.

Meanwhile, the next day, Maddie was all booked in to be speyed and I duly took her in, cried when I handed her over (they must hire receptionists purely for their sympathetic and tactful natures) then got stuck in the carpark. No, it wasn't the dogmobile finally letting me down, it was another girl's car getting stuck in an ice-hole and blocking me in. So we duly dug and huffed and puffed and eventually a couple of blokes came and helped push and voila! Thanks guys!

But I digress.... so now we have two patients and two lampshades (sigh). And one of them can't go outside without a plastic bag and a sock (and two rubber bands and a fight to get them on) and the other isn't supposed to be straining her stitches.... well she's been upstairs about 8 times and I caught her today leaping up over the wall in the garden and back down again (aaargh! It must be about 4 feet from below). So clearly she's not feeling any ill-effects from her surgery! Not sure how pleased the vet will be when I take her in for her check tomorrow (about 6 hours after Murphy goes in for his re-dressing - I tell you I live at that place!) but what can you do? I'm doing my best.

And we also have another furry friend staying - Emily, it turns out, bought herself a house-rabbit and now doesn't know what to do with it as they're having viewings at the flat. So poor wee Jimmy (10 weeks old) now lives in a cage on a table in Emily's room. I live in mortal fear of his presence becoming known to any of the other 4-legged inhabitants of the house. I'm sure it can't be good for him, being left all by himself all day and night. So far we've remembered to feed him (well, Richard's remembered to remind me). Fingers crossed... (I'm told we'll only have him til Emily moves back to her mother's in February...)

Merry Christmas everyone!

a woman's strength...

oh dear, here we go again! Poor Murphy - and poor me! My female abilities to multitask tried to the limit! My two tasks today were to meet Tracy at 10 to get the research papers, meet Veronica for a coffee after and be at home for 3pm for a phone interview for a job. (meanwhile getting the dogs walked).

The meeting was cancelled so I went swimming (and took so long to get orgnised that I only managed half my usual amount), met Veronica for lunch then headed off to take the dogs out. Then things started getting a bit complicated... took the dogs out for their walk and to cut a long story short, realised Murphy had hurt his paw. So got them home, washed the offending paw and discovered it was worse than I thought - he was leaving blood all over the carpet/kitchen floor; so I had no choice - with 15 minutes to go before the interview I headed down the road, abandoned Murphy at the vets (he wusnae happy at being put in a cage while they waited for the vet to be free) and headed back.

So I had my interview (while daring Maddie to make a noise and half way through having to fetch her pink squeaky bone from under the sofa before she started barking at it), finiahes and shot back down to the vets to pick up the wounded warrier. It turns out he had a cut in his paw from ice! Small but deep - so we're back to the bandaged paw, the lampshade and the poor dog feeling very sorry for himself .. not to mention the fight we're going to have three times a day trying to keep his bandage dry on walks!!!

On the down side, Maddie is taking a while to accustom herself to the monster with the lampshade on his head... she's so far done nothing but bark and growl at him! C'est la vie....

pandemonium in the park

Well! Took the dogs to the park after dropping Richard off at work (as the snow's too much for his car so we need the dogmobile) and we were doing not too badly, apart from losing two tennis balls in the snow (Maddie's rubbish, she can never find them and by the time she's run round in circles using her nose as a dredger we've no chance of finding it!).

We met a boxer - Murphy thought about bullying him but he just looked at him so that was fine. Then we met them (Barney the boxer and owner) again as we headed for the entrance - Barney had found a large stick which he was clearly very pleased with... up stepped Murphy the "King of the Sticks" (in his own mind), who wanted the stick...

But Barney was having none of it! Murphy had a bit of a tug of war with him and they started growling at each other so I took the stick off Murphy (bribed him with a treat) but made the mistake of giving it back to Barney so the two of them went back at it, complete with growling and wrestling. Great! So Barney and owner (once they'd stopped after being yelled at) vamoosed one way and I took the stick off Murphy and put the lead on him. Then realised Maddie was bouncing round us bark-bark-barking... "shut up, Maddie!"

So I dragged Murphy off by the lead (he had it in his mouth so it was another tug of war - looked very professional, I'm sure!) and we made it back to the car...

I have to say we met another couple of dogs on the way who were lovely and we all got on well so it's not always so hectic!