a visitor

Murphy had a visitor yesterday, a lovely, laid back black lab called Robbie. Apparently when he came round Murphy realised he had backup and started barking at Gizzy!

I took Murphy for a run and offered to take Robbie too - but his owner ( a friend of Andy's) said he thought it would probably kill him - he's not as fit as Murphy! And right enough, he is a wee bit rotunder, but a such a lovely soft dog!

Meanwhile Murphy's ears are slowly improving - to the stage where they're good enough start putting ear drops in. We're still on the antibiotics and painkillers as well so a wee bit to go.

in the wars again

Poor old murphs - he started shaking his head last week so after a couple of days of it not going away we decided to reuse the eardrops that were left over from December..but 4 days in it seemed to be getting worse and worse so we stopped and got him into the vets pronto - turns out we were probably making it worse as the drops were out of date (they only last a month once opened - take note any users of left-over medicine out there!).

So our hero is now on antibiotics and painkillers.... at least we don't have to put anything else in his ears, the whimpering would break your heart!

(meanwhile Gizzy is her usual manic self, she was doing her mad dashes round the house yesterday and literally ran slap bang into the dog! I dont' know who was more suprised, but it didn't stop her for long)

reminded...

Took Murphy for a long run tonight - trying to work off the chocolate lunch I had (never go to M & S when you're hungry), and I was reminded of an occasion from about 3 years ago, when I was training for the half marathon - there's a house which is above the railway line on your left with the garden fence at the top of the bank (not very far from where you walk along). Murphy had taken a detour off the line and through their garden as he did every now and then. He leapt over the fence to get back onto the line (I guess it's lower on the other side) - all well and good except for the poor girl who was walking towards me and got the fright of her life when a huge hairy bundle of teeth came raining out of the sky, heading straight at her!

quiet

as you'll have guessed things have been quiet on the Murphy front recently... well, quiet metaphorically speaking - someone rang the doorbell tonight just as he started into his dinner. What's a dog to do? Our hero managed an acceptable compromise, though - he barked WHILE scoffing his dinner! A bit muffled, granted, but I'm sure the visitor was suitably scared! Well done our Murfs!

(well, he had to make up for me having discovered yet another empty chocolate wrapper in the garden!!!)

pavlov response

poor richard - or poor Murphy? because richard is Mr Taxi to Emily and comes and goes when she phones for lifts, usually he's taking/picking her up from the stables so richard's got into the habit of taking the dog with him for a quick walk...

result?

...every time the phone rings Murphy thinks he's getting a walk!

spring?

how weird, now all the snow's gone suddenly it's, like, gone up 15 degrees! It was 12C today, Richard's baring his forearms (settle down girls!)

And I've decided it's now the time to go running in the evenings again, as I have too much other stuff to do in the mornings at the moment. Just about light enough and a particularly good time for chasing deer, as Murphy pointed out tonight (by dint of haring off at top speed after one through a field and not coming back for ages).

Spring is in the air... so I'd better get me diet going again before I have to go down to just 2 layers, eek!

another weekend

well that's another one over. Murphy had a bit of a change, he went with Emily and had a sleepover at her mum's house with Charlie the hyperactive brown lab (who was his partner in crime on our last disastrous outing when he made me kill that poor rabbit). Quite good timing really as we were out for a posh dinner for St Valentine's Day. Apparently he was very well behaved and poor Smokey (their cat at their mum's, quite old) wasn't TOO put out. Mind you that was partly because Ems forgot to take with her the small dog's jumper she bought for him. Fern followed Gizzy round the house with it yesterday but Gizzy was determined she wasn't putting it on... funny that!