Spring?

The start of spring seems to have hailed a downturn in the weather. While two weeks ago we were wearing t-shirts, this last few days we've been huddling under blankets and lighting the fire again at night. Poor little Horace timed his hair cut badly as he has lost his insulation and he snuggles up under the blanket too.

I bought Horace some more puppy training pads from Amazon as we have found them very successful. Admittedly there's a problem that the others either want to sit on it, chew it or carry it around the house, but when they ignore it, it works well. I thought we might have a problem with house training Horace, but he seems to be in the routine now of going on the training pads. Trouble is, he doesn't recognize the difference between a puppy training pad and something else soft, and I believe he may have spent a penny in my slipper, which is something to watch! He gets in and out the back door now, so there's no reason why he should not become house trained.

Charlie's leg doesn't seem to be slowing her down, but the vet said to keep her quiet for another two weeks, before she starts to do exercise. Which is easier said than done. I've noticed her leg twists when she walks, which I hope is where the muscles are week. In a couple of weeks we'll start taking her for walks to help to build her muscle up again. I think she'll be OK going for walks as she seems to be friendly and inquisitive, whereas Queenie finds it all a bit scary.

And Pirata seems OK now. He is no longer wearing his lampshade collar which I am sure he must have hated, and now has a bit of a curly ear. I'm not sure if that will remain, but he won't know any different. He's having to get used to going onto the cat tree again for his food - Ian was feeding him by hand as it was difficult for him to eat with the lampshade, Pirata quite liked that and appears to be under the impression that he would like to continue to be hand fed!

When we were at the vet with him last time, we saw the lady who originally rescued him. It was the first time she'd seem him since he came to us - but unfortunately, Pirata was grumpy because he was at the vet, and refused to look at her. She came in to us with the vet so she could see him then and it was nice for her to see him looking so well (as well as he could do with stitches in his ear!).

Hoping that the weather will brighten up a little so we can get out and pick some asparagus. The countryside must be bursting with it after all this rain :)

Tiny horace

I was expecting Horace to look smaller after he had his hair cut, but he is tiny! He is shorter than Pixie and his body is a similar size, with a pointy face, less round than Pixie. They had to sedate him as could.not control him. He is now shivering under a duvet,.Poor.little chap

After

before

Horace goes to The hairdresser

Visit to the Doctor's

Unusually for us, this week featured a visit to the human doctor, not the animal doctor. I hurt my back on Sunday (standing up - believe it or not), and it was very painful so Ian helped me down to the Doctor's on Monday.

Again, we marvelled at the excellent health service we have here. Only recently, another of my adult students was saying that a disadvantage of living in a village is that you can't see a doctor until the next day if you are ill in the afternoon, where is if you live in a town you can see a doctor morning or afternoon (I quite often here this, so it would appear to be a local concern). I can't help thinking that there'd be a lot of people who would be very happy to wait till the next day to see a doctor.

They also moan about prescription charges, which I believe have only recently been introduced, however, again, at 70 centimos per subscription, still seems pretty reasonable.

However, I guess if someone has never had to wait a few days to see a doctor, having to wait until the next day if you fall ill after three in the afternoon probably does sound like a bad thing!

It's the same doctor we've seen before and he is very friendly and helpful. He makes sure we understand everything - which typically we do with medical type things as many of the words are the same or similar.  He remembered the lump that Ian had under his chin and asked about that, even though it was several years ago now.

The only downside of the health system is that everyone is inclined to know everyone else's business. The doctor's waiting room turns into a bit of a social gathering. This time everyone was well behaved, however in the past, the nurse kept having to come out and shush them up from talking too loud!

Tomorrow we head off to the vet to get Charlie's pins out - but I don't know if that means she will be lampshadeless or not. I think she will find it odd when she no longer has her lampshade as her head will be so much smaller! She has been wearing it for quite a large % of her life so it will be feeling quite normal to her now. It will be a proper operation, so she can't have breakfast tomorrow morning - don't think she will be happy about that!

I think her leg has taken longer than they expected to heal. Not least because she is still very bouncy. It was very difficult keeping a four month old collie calm. Pirata has had a small op on his ear too - so hopefully his collar will be removed tomorrow. He reputured something in his ear and it was swollen, the vet had to mend the ear so he didn't end up with a cauliflower ear. Poor little chap. However, as always he takes it all in his stride.

Charlie must be near enough full grown now, perhaps just filling out a bit. She's going to be a small collie. She's between Sam and Queenie in size. We've seen other collies at the vet and they appear quite small to us too, so I don't know if Spanish collies are small, or if I have a distorted memory of them.

Horace remains skippy. I've made him a little bed in the bedroom which is actually a small table which has a bottom shelf that he sleeps on and I've put a blanket around it to keep him snug. He can get in and out as I don't like shutting the blind ones in a cage, but this way I can be sure he doesn't wander and get into trouble at night. But often I will wake up and hear him skipping around the room. I think he plays with imaginary friends as he skips around just as he would if there was another dog with him. His eating is definitely better since he's been eating with the others. But he is still slooooooow, interspersing eating with a bit of skipping, which disperses food around the floor. I sometimes worry about Horace, however Ian says Horace is a very happy little dog, but very 'special'.

Last week the weather was glorious and we had a lovely time picking asparagus, but the last few days have been cold and miserable, but the sun is out today and the weather is starting to look good again....