Hamish

Here is Hamish outside. He has come on in absolute leaps and bounds over the last couple of days and is now walking almost all the time, and is very happy to snuggle up with the other dogs.

We have clipped him with the clippers and almost all of his matts have gone.

He gets a little nervous when he gets 'lost' in the house and is cautious of doors.

You will see he is wearing a collar - green with flowers on it. Lucky Hamish!!

Hoppy Christmas

I came out of Ian's office after feeding Hamish and heard footsteps behind me. I turned round by the gate and found that Hamish had followed me. Hopping.

Since then he has been up and down like a little jack in the box, this is the first time he has got up for pleasure. He doesn't go far, just hops around the room and then back - he definitely sees Ian's office as being his 'safe' area.

Today he has started to play. As the vet said he is less than a year old we shouldn't be surprised that he is playing like a puppy.

We are so pleased - just wish he would put his leg down - or that we could get a clue as to what is wrong with it - but he is now strong enough for an x-ray if necessary. I finished trimming his rear end today and his tail sits at right angles pointing to the right. Don't know if this was the accident or if it has always been like that. it is only a short stumpy tail so some of it got lost at some time before.

Anyway - father christmas calls....

Another Update

OK - this isn't a great picture, however we were trying to show the size of Hamish compared to Bob.

Did I mention we have named him Hamish...? We thought we ought to start calling him something and we both agreed on Hamish with remarkably little debate.

Today he scratched his ear with his left leg. This is the first time he has done this so shows that things are getting easier, although he still will not put his right leg down.

Update

We went to the vets today, and he commented that the dog seemed a lot better, which was good as we feel reassured that we were not imagining it. The vet manipulated his legs and prodded his tummy and did get a couple of growls, but really very little.

The vet wasn't at all worried about dog not pooing, as long as he is weeing properly (sorry for detail). He has suggested we give him olive oil to 'get things moving' and if nothing has happened in three or four days we should go back again. He felt that because dog had gone from near starvation to a veritable feast, it would take his system a bit of time to get used to things. If he hadn't been weeing then that might have suggested more severe problems, also he is not straining or bloated.

We're a bit slow off the mark, however a massive solar power farm is being built outside Llerena. More about it here.

Sit

Here is a pic of Dog sitting up. This was a first. Interestingly it is his left side that appears to be at an angle in the pic, but I think that was just the way he is sat.

He sat like this after coming back from spending a penny. He previously just crumpled, but this time he sat before laying down.

He is still spending 99% of his time laid down, however he is moving from side to side and gets onto his haunches. He also puts his head up and appears to enjoy the company of the cats - I don't think it will be long before we find at least one snuggled up with him.

We get huge waggy tails too. He's got a stumpy tail, it is still very matted so I can't quite work out what is going on there, I think he must have lost part of it. You can see from the pic that he is very matted still at his front, I can't get to that so I´ve just cut into the bigger matts so he is at least comfortable. He has been making a fuss about his injections so we are taking that as a good sign too.

The new problem we have to address is that he hasn't pooed for three days. We'll see what happens today...

Update

Pics are of Davy and Guncs - and of Basil allowing the little ones to snuggle into him.

Well, anyone hoping that the advent of Dog meant more interesting blogs than the latest olive cleaning building news will be sadly disappointed. Today's update is about the olive building that appears to be in full swing. I came back from a walk with Bob, turned the corner by where they have been doing the building and nearly fainted. The heady mix of the smell of freshly pressed olives, combined with containers of wine and the noise of a good half of the village hit me. Either today was the first day, or every olive cleaning day is a party. It all seemed to entail a lot of milling around (hence the wine), but there were some pretty intricate systems that took the olives through the different stages of the process. There were tractors, cars with trailers and small lorries parked up the road, waiting to get their olives cleaned. I wonder if the next stage will be to build a mill...?

Not much to report on Dog, other than we think he wagged his tail this morning (we thought that it might be broken as he seems not to be able to use it, however I think that it is getting better). He is also sitting up right on all haunches. However he also got very distressed earlier when the blanket he is on got moved by no more than an inch or so and it must have moved his leg slightly. He howled for quite a long time, and it was very distressing for all of us. I think there is still a long way to go - however a waggy tail suggests that the steps are going in the right direction.

Update - No News (hopefully) is Good News

Here is Dog sharing his bed with Dookems. He is laying on his right side which is the side that he can't walk on - but it obviously isn't a problem for him to lay on. The little pile of hair in the top left corner is the remains of the larger dog we bought home. After shearing away layer after layer we are left with a dog that is smaller than Bob, probably Henry sized. There was a huge amount of matted hair on the poor thing - nearly three inches in thickness. I do wonder if this might have helped protect him.

He has met most of the cats now who are un-fazed, he has also met Bob and Tinkerbelle, however he is a lot less interesting than a grain of rice that fell behind the chair and demanded their urgent attention.

Ian has been sleeping with Dog (as if the poor thing hasn't had enough to contend with) on a camping mat in his office, however we might let it spend the night on its own - we are close so we can hear if there are any problems.

We've started to think about names. I have told Ian that categorically we cannot call it Antonio after our vet. He thinks we are mad enough anyway, calling stray beasts after him I don't think will help his perception of us!

One interesting thought - I was musing names and thinking of Xmas related ones (this is when we thought it was a girl), and I briefly thought about 'Mary'. However I thought - no - that would be wrong and disrespectful to the people here - a brief passing thought. Now, if I thought that, living in mainland Europe where we are not particularly known for our fundamentalism, how mad and naive would a primary teacher be to call a teddy bear..............

Dog with Haircut

This is dog with haircut. Ian went on an emergency mission for chicken earlier, as he was turning his nose up to sausages (and as for dog food......).

He is unable to walk however on his back leg, so while he is looking brighter there are still big problems to overcome.

Stray

This is a sad story and I don't know how it will end, but here's where we are so far. We found this little dog curled up by the side of the road on Friday. I´d actually seen it on Thursday walking along the side of the road by the way to Llerena on Thursday. I´d tried to get him back, but I had Bob and Petal with me and he kept running away, so worried that I was going to make the situation worse, I went back to the house to get Ian. Ian drove up there and had a look but couldn't see him. We'd assumed that it had head off back into the country or the village. Probably between me going back and Ian arriving the little dog had been hit by a car.

On Friday when we were going out, I was keeping a look out, and saw it curled up by the side of the road in a ditch, hidden in undergrowth. It was only a complete chance that I saw it, in fact to start off with I only thought I had and we had to go back and check. I wasn't sure if it was dead, so we went to check and it was alive. When Ian went to pick it up and it sunk its teeth into Ian's hand we realised it was definitely alive although very badly injured.

We took her the vet (who truly thinks we are mad), however the dog was so shocked and distressed he could not really look at it, but did think his hip might be broken. He didn't xray him and gave us anti inflammatory drugs. I don't think he thought that he would survive (in case you are wondering about my swinging between genders, we thought that it was a she, however unless she has a terrible growth in her nether regions, she is in fact an unneutured he, but we are still used to calling it a her).

Anyway, we bought him home and put him in the barn, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. In the morning he had left her cozy spot and was in front of the door, shaking. We bought him into Ian's office and gave him some water with sugar in it, and some sausages, that he gulped down. Since then he has been making extremely small improvements - however has turned into an extremely friendly and affectionate dog. He put his right rear foot down today, but only for a few steps. His injured side is his right back, however he does lay on this side, which suggests that her hip might not be splintered. There is a tiny bit of blood in his poo, and the pee is clear.

We've just come back from the vet who was reluctant to x-ray. This entails a general anesthetic and as he doesn't want to put him through that unless it is really necessary. So we will see how things go for the next day or two.

I thought that he was about 2 years old, however the vet said probably less than a year. Judging by the huge matts on his coat the poor thing has been stray for quite a long time. Potentially it could have been stray since puppyhood. However judging by the way it tucks into sausages and lifts up his arms to be tickled he has been looked after somewhere - just not anyway near here.

We´re not going to think about what our plans will be as it the moment the poor thing is too injured to make plans. We´re not naming it, other than calling it perro which is 'dog' which is what the vet called him.

Peacock

We were interested to see this peacock obviously living in harmony with his doggy neighbour.

Things

Well for once I have a few things to talk about!

Yesterday was a holiday for Constitution day and we went to the bar where they were all watching a programme about the last 30 years since the constitution was signed. The lady in the bar was telling us that she remembered planed dropping leaflets over the village encouraging people to vote.

This weekend there is a big music festival here. It was the first one last year and this is a bit bigger. There are a bout 20 or so bands playing. It is for the youngsters so we (I!) won´t be going. It starts at 7 tonight and our local band comes on at 2 in the morning so I think festivities will be going on way into the small hours.

Anyway here´s the strange thing - there is camping. Under canvas in December. Amazing! Seeing that Ian can stun a bar into silence by taking off his jacket and revealing a short sleeved t-shirt and most Spanish are dressed up as though they are on an artic expedition, we´d have thought that camping would be the last thing on their mind. I asked why they were doing this in December. Because it is too hot in the summer was the reply.

Our friend is running a Churros store over night to cater for the hungry hoards. He is starting to serve at 1 and will keep going to breakfast. And he was running his bar today. Although they play hard here, they also work hard too. The thought of spending a night making churros after a day working makes me feel tired. He´ll sleep on Monday he says!

The olive cleaning building is coming on well - still not entirely sure how it works. We saw some in action earlier and it seems to shake the leaves and things free of the olives. This is being built by builders outside the village as local builders have work lined up for months to come.

We went to Berlanga today for a bit of an afternoon out. We had a good time, walking around the nature reserve and taking pics. We saw the cutest little wild boar baby. Ian said 'no' I even had chance to ask him whether we could have one - the old misery-guts.

Health Cards

We went to get our health cards yesterday. It is one of the last pieces of paperwork that we had to complete. Ian pays into the social system so it makes sense to have cards so we don't have to use our E11 (or what ever the update is). Social security is actually very expensive - about 260 euros a month, which I guess, is part of the reason why health care is so good.

Anticipating a long wait, we were pleasantly surprised to be in and out in just a few minutes with no confusion. Well, other than the fact we were trying to pay the poor man when in fact the cards were free.

The two storks that I saw last week have disappeared. So I don´t know whether they've gone to check out some other nests.

The weather is still lovely, although it is much warmer outside than in! Still no proper rain, although there was a shower last weekend.

We´ve moved onto housey things in our Spanish classes, this week it is the dining table including plates and cutlery. I guess it will be useful.