Dogster

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If it moves, pounce on it!

We're back!

Poppy & I have been away a long time, but now we hope to be back on sometimes, as things are beginning to settle down here. We've had a lot of changes, and Daddy now lives in a care home not far from here. At Christmas Mummy was very sick, and the doctor said she'd nearly gone to the Rainbow Bridge to join Emily, and that she couldn't care for Daddy for much longer. It took a lot of time for a nice care home to be found, where Daddy was happy and Mummy & Alex were sure he would be well looked after, but he is there now and likes it so much that he doesn't always want to come home and visit us! Mummy still gets very tired, but the doctor says it will take at least a year before she is back to her old bouncy self (not OLD in years bol!)
Mummy has had to re-organise a lot of the house, and the pond has been filled in - no more fishing with paws for me, worse luck - and is now a raised flower bed. It is meant to be a raised flower bed covered with decorative bark, but Poppy keeps jumping up on it and throwing large pieces down for me to eat, and of course she eats it too, so Mummy says it will be a bald flower bed before long! She gets very cross with both of us, but it's delicious.
Poppy was very ill for a few days, because she'd eaten something - not the bark - that she shouldn't have done and it caused a big blockage. She had to go away and stay at the vet's, where they took lots of x-rays & gave her special treatments to try and help her. As she won't ever do her 'business' anywhere but at home, she wasn't very co-operative, but she notched up what Mummy called a 'socking great bill' and Mummy did point out, rather unkindly, that Poppy herself didn't cost that much, bol!
I can't see much at all any more and I'm going rather deaf, although no one knows why, but I'm full of bouncy happiness and coping fine. I get a bit anxious when I have a drink, as Poppy likes to jump on me when I can't turn my head, so now Mummy has to stand guard and keep Poppy away. She says training lions would be easier than controlling Poppy!
So, we have really missed all our Dogster friends, but there wasn't much we could do as we can't type and Mummy doesn't use the computer much yet as it gives her a headache - or so she claims!
We send lots and lots of wags, licks and kisses to all our Dogster friends, and are VERY happy to be back online, even though it might not be very often just yet.
Hope you are all keeping well, and having a nice summer.
Be back soon!

In which I visit an eye specialist with my anterior uveitis

Today Mummy took me to see an eye specialist, because I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my eyes over the past few months. We had to go by taxi, and it was quite a long journey. I twittered for a while, and then lay down and waited for the walk that never came!

My eyes keep becoming very inflamed, so that I look like a Bloodhound, which gives me terrible pain. Our Nice Vet here needed a second opinion so that he knew he was giving me the right treatment. The specialist was very nice too, and said he had never seen a dog wag its tail as much as I do mine. That was actually because I hadn’t been allowed any breakfast, and I was hoping he was going to give me some!

He put lots of different drops in my eyes, shone lights into them, took x-rays (Mummy had to hold me still but I was very good) and in between various tests Mummy did take me out for a short walk because we had to wait thirty minutes before one kind of drops took effect. I liked the walk, but twittered a lot in the waiting room, until two dogs got into a fight and that silenced me!

I was there for an hour in all, and at the end the specialist told Mummy that I have clearly had cataracts since birth, and the person who bred from me shouldn’t have done that as they are hereditary. She probably didn’t have my eyes checked. The cataracts are huge now, in both eyes, and he said I am ‘severely visually impaired’. That made Mummy laugh. She said it sounded very politically correct, because what he was really saying was that I’m as blind as a bat, bol! I can see a little bit, but not much, and probably scarcely at all out of my left eye.

I have been having steroid drops, but he has changed them to anti-inflammatory drops, to see if they can control the condition, and then Mummy can use the steroid drops for flare-ups. If they don’t work, then it’s back to steroid drops every day. I will need drops of some kind or other for the rest of my life. She has to monitor my problem every single day, as eventually I will have to have my left eye removed, because of the pain caused by the anterior uveitis, as my condition is called, which, in my case, is lens induced as proteins leak out from the lens into the eye fluid due to the cataracts. As both my eyes are affected, one day I may well have to have the right eye removed too, but at the moment Mummy is thinking positively and just trying to keep my left eye going for as long as she can. The specialist wanted me to have the cataracts removed, but I’m not insured and the cost is enormous, thousands and thousands of pounds (and dollars too of course) and Mummy sadly had to say she couldn’t afford it. I don’t mind. Even when I lose my left eye I won’t notice much difference from what I can see at the moment.

When we came home, Mummy and I were both exhausted. Mummy had been awake since 6 worrying about me – we thought I would be losing my eye within the next few weeks but now it seems that I might keep it at least for the summer – and she is very pleased it’s all over. It’s not nice, and if anyone else has a pup with this problem she’d love to hear from them, but it could be much worse. Even without my eyes, I would be able to find my way around with my sense of smell and my hearing, or so the specialist said. I would just need some re-training about a few things.

Mummy wonders how it is that I can still wander around on the pond wall and spot a woodmouse in the border from the other side of the garden if I can’t see properly, but the specialist said it was different for dogs. It certainly is, Mummy can’t see a woodmouse from 100 paces. She doesn’t use her other senses very well, but I’m too kind to tell her!

That was my day out then, and now I’m going to have a long doze on Mummy’s lap. Poppy missed me and we’re very happy to be back together again. On Friday I have to see our vet, and so does Poppy (for boosters) and he will discuss it all with Mummy then. After that, we will take each day as it comes. As long as I can enjoy my food and be with my family, I’m not worried. I just wish Poppy didn’t always beat me to any scrap of food that gets dropped on the floor!

In which Mummy thinks I'm psychic

This morning, Daddy came home from a week’s respite. When he leaves for respite, I always watch him go by standing on the padded stool by the window, and I twitter a little. After that, I don’t look for him or wait for him, because I know that when he goes off with a case he will be gone for a week.

Anyway, after Mummy had fed us this morning and eaten her breakfast, she noticed that I was standing on the stool waiting for Daddy. I also twittered a lot, and ran up and down the stairs to his bedroom. Mummy was absolutely amazed. She said ‘you must be psychic, Amber. How do you know Daddy is coming home today?’ I just looked at her, in my most mysterious manner and said nothing.

Time passed, I kept jumping on the stool, and eventually – as I’d known – Daddy arrived back. A man carried the case in for him, and I ran around fetching Daddy toys, although he didn’t play with any of them. He was pleased to see us, and Mummy told him that I’d known from the moment we had breakfast that he was coming home. He was as surprised as Mummy, and said I must have ESP, whatever that is.

Of course, Poppy rather spoilt the homecoming, because she jumped up at Daddy and her claw caught his skin, which is very thin due to his drugs. He bled and bled, and Mummy had to put antiseptic on it, and then dress it with a special dressing and micropore tape, so that the dressing didn’t tear it more. She said ‘Poppy, you’re a klutz,’ which didn’t sound nearly as interesting as having ESP.

Everyone has settled down now, although Daddy – who notices things like this whereas Mummy fortunately doesn’t – spotted that Poppy and I had torn out some new fencing between us and our neighbours, because we trapped a hedgehog the other night. Mummy said ‘I can’t be bothered worrying about it,’ which was reassuring, as it takes Poppy and me quite a lot of time and effort to do it.

The funniest thing is that Mummy is still sure I’m psychic. Of course I’m not psychic, and I wish I could explain to her that the only reason I know when Daddy is coming home is because that’s the only day of the respite break that she tears around the house like someone demented, trying to tidy up all the mess that’s accumulated during his time away! I’m not psychic, I’m a fraudulent medium, who is good at reading human signs and signals. I should charge for my skills, bol!