In the nick of time

Murphy used up one of his lives the other day. We were up at the local shop for a few messages. I don't put Murphy on the lead as he would chew through it - he's very good at standing at the door waiting for me (although it's an automatic entry door so if he stands in the wrong place it ends up opening and closing constantly til I get back)


Anyway, he was mooching about across the waste ground over the road from the shop and I was waiting for him to cross over so I could settle him before going into the shop. There's a zebra crossing and I was standing at one end of it. As he approached from the other side the delivery lorry came round the corner and started along the road. Of course Murphy didn't see it and they didn't see Murphy. I was yelling at him to stop but he's pretty deaf now and kept going.


Luckily they were crawling at about 5 mph, as he only stopped when the lorry was literally at his shoulder. He'd just about started to cross the crossing, so kept going once he realised it was stopped.


Their faces were pretty bemused - why is there a dog using the zebra crossing?!!


(PS. I don't cross the road now until he's with me - I don't know if a dog has as many lives as a cat but I'm not testing it!)

Horses for Courses

Have I eve mentioned what a superb meeter & greeter Murphy is?

Richard's brought him to the train station a few times when he's meeting me off a train. And Murphy is the best ever - he's bright and interested and looking out for you, this big doggie grin on his face. When he sees you (usually before you've seen him) he is desperate to get to you, pulling at the lead until he's let go, when he races towards you and almost knocks you down, so delighted is he to say hello!

Recently I was in Aberdeen and suggested to Richard he bring Maddie to meet me upon my return to Inverness, given her recent troubles (see previous post). So there I was, high-tailing it up the platform, looking forward to a rumbunctious welcome - cos Maddie's always more high-energy than Murphy.

I should have known better.

I saw Richard first and looking down, realised Miss Welcome hadn't even noticed I had arrived (I was 4 feet away), being much more interested in a mark on the floor she was straining towards in the hope it might be edible. Upon my calling her name she looked up briefly, almost nodded then went back to her nasal exploration of the floor. As we left the station she was pulling on her lead to get out. I was just another hand on the lead holding her back. Welcome home, Mummy!

Huh! Note to self, always choose Murphy! It's just not Maddie's forte.

Maddie's woes

Poor Maddie has been in the wars the last couple of weeks.

I noticed she had a substantial lump behind her top front teeth and got it looked at by the vet. She was then taken in the next morning for an operation to have it removed. The evening before the surgery she managed to tear a dew claw.

So when we got her back on the Wednesday she had  bright pink bandage round her front paw and was missing the lump (a tumour) and one tooth (which they had to remove in order to get the tumour out).

Although she was clearly feeling sorry for herself the first thing she did upon getting home was nip into her crate and start pulling the cotton wool out of her bandage! So she spent the next 4 days with one of my socks over it, which seemed to stop her. Of course, the day before she was due back for a follow-up she got the whole thing off, so I had to dig out the first aid kit, my first aid knowledge and the doggy "no chew" bandages we still have from Murphy's previous paw incidents. I was pretty impressed with the result, myself!

(Of course, she shot into the garden the morning of the follow-up and got it wet on the grass, so we got told off by the vet and the bandage was removed, with her getting a "buster collar" (cone of shame/lampshade) instead. She was very patient with it but it wouldn't go in the crate and Richard let her sleep on the spare bed instead. Didn't stop her stealing our shoes as normal and I had a hilarious 10 minutes watching her desperately trying to get herself, the lampshade and my shoe into the crate!

She's been on soft food since, and has only recently been allowed to walk off the lead. Murphy's very jealous of the food, he'd love to get rice and boiled chicken, or mashed potato and tuna for his dinner!

So - the biopsis on the tumour came back from the lab and it turns out it was a low-grade sarcoma. They're pretty sure it won't metastisise (move to other parts of the body) but we have to decide what to do next. The vet says she didn't manage to get the root of it and it could come back. We could leave it and see what happens, or we could have further surgery done to try to remove all of it (probably necessitating the removal of more teeth and some bone). This would need to be done at one of the vet schools (Edinburgh or Glasgow) so we've nominated Glasgow and she's emailed them for advice.

Once she hears back we'll have to sit down with the vet and have a talk about it, I guess. In the meantime she's back to being as full of beans and mischief as usual. Thank goodness!

PS

I made a pasta dish tonight; I made twice as much in order to freeze half. So there were the two tubs with the leftover pasta, sitting on the counter top cooling.

You know what happened, don't you? You're right. Richard came through and asked how many tubs there were? - cos there was only one now!

So on top of three pieces of pizza, she also had a tub of pasta today.

She's a bad dog! (as she looks up at you with those big eyes and the tail slowly wagging)

PPS - it occurs to me that this may actually be my fault (apart from the obvious, of leaving the tub too near the edge) - I've been cutting her food back a bit so she's probably a bit hungrier than normal - and with Maddie, that means she goes looking herself!

Proof

I'm sure nobody questions Maddie's ability to track down and remove various items of footwear (I'm sure I've talked previously of her growling at a shoebox of mine and removing one of my purple suede boots from it) but thought I'd just put some evidence up here....

...if I can get the damn video to upload!!

The Incorrigibles

So on today's walk (I had to go up to the shops just past the play park) Maddie went into the Co-op on the way past (there and back!) - this is quite common for her, it's a motion-activated sliding door and when a door opens as you go past, what's a dog to do? (Luckily it's the fruit and veg that greet you as you go in, otherwise I think we'd have paid a fortune for half eaten rolls and cakes by now).

Then I attempted to avoid the school carpark on the way back and crossed some waste ground next to it, taking a short cut back to the play park. I should have known better. While I was concentrated on Murphy, who didn't see us going that way and couldn't find us, Maddie found a treasure of her own - a pizza box. And not empty! I've never seen 3 pieces of pizza eaten so fast. She knew fine she shouldn't have been eating it and ran away behind a whin bush (gorse) till she was done. Grrr/...

Murphy then stopped by the doughnut-thing in the play park to investigate the possibility of there being further cat-treat-containing bags (see picture) and all in all, the walk was longer than anticipated - which was a bit of a problem as I was supposed to be picking Richard up from the airport. Luckily the plane was late and it took me half the time to get there I thought it would, so all was well.

Welcome home, Richard!

(The return of the Prodigal Son!)

Favouritism

It's not that I take offence, but I'm a wee bit put out that Murphy is so blatantly pro-Richard. Richard was away overnight last night and Murphy spent most of the evening lying in the hall, obviously waiting for him, till he eventually gave up and came and begrudgingly spent some time next to me before retiring to his bed!

Life is never dull

We had an interesting time today on our pre-dinner daunder. Took the dogs on a wee trip up past the primary school playing fields, round the playpark and back. And it was supposed to be that simple; only Murphy decided to step up his career in social embarrassment and general thievery.

There were a couple of girls at the playpark - we ignored them and they ignored us. However, as I wandered round the edge, I realised Murphy was stravaiging across the middle - with a purpose in mind. As I stopped to call him he reached some kind of big doughnut-shaped thing on legs (play equipment, not an obese child) and went for something in the middle of it. Much to my horror, I saw it was a leather satchel (pale pink so obviously one of the girls') - and he was rummaging around inside it!

Needless to say I made a beeline at speed but by the time I got there he had a bag of cat-treats clenched in his jaws. Cue a wrestling contest and some wheedlery with a dog biscuit under his nose (he ignored it). All I can say is thank the lord humans have opposable thumbs which can be used as leverage!!

I was able to get it off him before he got into it and, having attracted the attention of said owner (who must've been about ten), ascertained that she was luckily quite blasé about the whole thing. I wiped the bag free of dog-slaver and handed it over, she said it was OK, her cat did that all the time, and off we went, Murphy quite oblivious to any of the comments on his character I directed at him.

Half way home, (the dogs now safely on leads, being no respecters - or even recognisers - of the front garden boundaries in these new fenceless estates) we turned a corner and saw not one, but two cats! One was on top of a fence and one was on the pavement directly beneath it. And the latter looked a lot like Gizzy. Upon closer viewing it turned out to actually be Gizzy as well - clearly taking advantage of the milder weather to start exploring the neighbourhood and make new friends.

I carried on and Gizzy decided this looked promising on the food front and trotted calmly ahead of us. Maddie wasn't impressed by this lack of fear but there was little she could do with me hanging onto the other end of the lead like grim death! We passed the fearless feline (who had paused at a reasonable distance from the line we were taking along the road) near home and she followed us instead; the girl from two houses along (one of my erstwhile Brownies, as it happens) who came out her front door in time to see this was intrigued enough to follow us round the corner to watch.

Luckily I maintained a firm grip on the leads and any further late afternoon excitement was averted, with the dogs' attention turning to more easily-available food sources, like their bowls! Gizzy kept a discrete distance until the dogs were eating and then trotted past them in the kitchen. Home for tea.

Could've been worse!

Still daundering on

Murphy's birthday is 2 weeks today - he'll be 13. A good age. We obviously hope he'll have another couple of years with us but you never know. I make an effort to treasure all my interactions with him now.

He's certainly slowed down, and is starting to become a bit "feil" (as they say in Aberdeen). It kind of means otherworldly and on occasion he does seem that way. He's more easily confused, forgets what he's doing etc. He's also getting very deaf and will happily trot on ahead, not hearing your yells to alert him to the fact you're going another way. Eventually you get his attention and he turns to look and instantly speeds up back. Mind you, he's always had a touch of selective deafness! As the dog walker says, you have to keep him close!

He is more needy, comes for bosies when he never used to and gets upset sometimes when Richard leaves the house. He's even started barging into the bathroom on me, or barking outside the door! That's just in the mornings before their walk.

He eats a LOT slower; I'm considering not using the "Go Slow" food bowl any more as he goes slow enough anyway! On occasions he doesn't finish and of course Maddie is waiting to polish off any leftovers! It's a lesson on how to eat properly watching him - where before he (and still Maddie) would inhale the food as fast as possible, now he eats a bit, looks around, eats another bit, looks around some more... you get the picture.

However he still loves his walks and is not averse to a bit of growling at other dogs (if they start it) - particularly where there's a fence in the way! He'll still want a ball thrown into the sea to fetch a few times, before wandering off and refusing to give it back. He keeps a watch over the house and if we've been out, is always found, upon our return, standing at the doorway into the conservatory, barking madly! (the sound of the car obviously comes clearer through the conservatory windows and he thinks that's where we're coming from).

He has Jake and Duke to contend with - young whippersnappers, bouncy and desperate to play. As he's always done, including with Maddie, he ignores them as much as possible and they've got the message now and leave him pretty much alone. I think I've described here before how he would get up and walk over to them and growl at them if they were mucking about together and making too much noise!

So all in all our Murphy is in the twilight of a long and (hopefully happy) life and is aging fairly gracefully. He has some skin tags and a couple of fatty lumps, is very white around the muzzle and head and spends a lot of time snoozing in the living room (more often on the floor than before - does he find it harder to get on the sofa?).

But we love him dearly and he's daundering on...