Horace Goes Back to the Vet's

We went back to the vet yesterday for another review meeting with Horace. Poor little chap, they were picking up his legs to see if he fell over. They did say they had seen a tiny improvement in him, but I must admit that I've never noticed a problem with his walking anyway. Apparently he forgets what to do with his back left leg when he walks and only makes half a step, but I just can't see it - but Ian did point out that they probably know more about what to look for than I do!

They did say how patient we are, but they probably don't realize what a crazy house we live in anyway. What with Bobbins getting stuck on the arm of Ian's chair (every time we go out, we come back to find her balanced on the arm of his chair, unable to get off), Charlie and her imaginary sheep (she spends so much time running round, she has worn her claws right down), Larry letting us know how much he loves/hates a piece of lettuce - Horace and he quirks seem relatively normal!

The biggest challenge is making sure he drinks. It's a two sided challenge - making sure he drinks and making sure that all the other animals don't finish his water bowl. Because obviously Horace's water bowl (an old frying pan) is so much more exciting than their proper water bowl - and we fill it up, only for it to be emptied by various dogs and cats!

Ian has been working on a couple of websites which is keeping him quiet! A lady in Vermont who I have become friendly with and I help her occasionally with her website, has a very good friend who is a website developer. And her friend wants to take a change in business direction and was looking for someone to do the website development side of her business while she moved into doing more strategic work. Julie put her friend in touch with us (I think Julie thinks I am more adept at web work than I am), and we had a Skype call with her and that resulted in Ian doing a couple of sites for her. This may well turn into regular work - how it will work is she will go out and offer websites as part of her service and then Ian will do them and they will split the fees - and this works out very well. So we'll see. The one he's just finished was for a voiceover artist.

I noticed we have two pomegranates growing in the back yard. We didn't have any last year so it's a step in the right direction. The grapes are coming on in leaps and bounds too. I also noticed we had some olives starting, however I haven't seem them recently so I wonder if they've been eaten.

Snakes and Paper Wasps

I trod on a snake in the bedroom last week. Which was a bit of a surprise. It was quite big and slithered off under the bed. Ian found it eventually and said it was 'quite lively' and difficult to catch. He had to kill it as it had markings that meant it might have been an adder and if it had got lose in the house, with all our blind cats and dogs, it wouldn't have been good.

But where did it come from?

When Ian was researching snakes, he also discovered that the wasps we have hanging around the waterbowls are called paper wasps. Because of the way they make their nests.  Apparently they are nice wasps.

Nasty Vet

Having speculated whether vets are taught to express certain conditions in kinder ways, the answer is apparently not. The vet yesterday referred to Horace as being an 'idiot', and she said the other dogs won't play with him because he is an idiot and they won't get reactions they recognise from him. Ian said he thought she was using 'idiot' in a medical way. We had seen the vet who speaks quite good English and Ian thought that perhaps she translated a word into English incorrectly or didn't know a better word.

She explained the clinical signs they had seen in him (but I haven't), and the things to watch for. He's continuing to take his tablets for a little while longer but at a half dose.

She was asking us if Horace was aggressive and whether he'd ever bitten us. Aggression can happen in dogs like Horace as they don't understand what is happening, However, we're so lucky with Horace as he is very sweet natured. When we were trying to squirt his medicine into his mouth for a few days he did start to get a bit bitey when we were doing that, which is why we wanted to stop, so he didn't get to fear us. But other than that, he's just very, very sweet - and different.

Every summer when it starts to get warm, the lovebirds take to having a bath. They do this in their tiny water bowl thing, but they seem to enjoy it. So I thought I'd treat them by putting in a bigger bath, so they could really splash around. They've steadfastly ignored their new bath - pointedly ignoring it by going round their cage the long way, rather than accidentally showing an interest in it. Birds can be so contrary!

I put a bath in for Larry too, and he did use his and enjoyed it. He stands in his and splashes water around. He used to do that when he first arrived and he was above Ian's head. Ian would regularly get showered by Larry in his first summer with us!

Larry fell of his perch at the weekend (he's OK, it wasn't a monty python type falling off of the perch). We just heard a frenzied flapping and he was on the bottom of his cage shaking. He used to fall off his perch quite a lot at night, but I think he sleeps on the floor of his cage now. He's not that good at holding on when he is asleep!

All the other animals are well. I am sure they must feel a bit jealous with all the blog posts that get written about Horace!

Horace the Water Scatterer

It may look like Horace had been stood in a very localised rain shower. However, he seems unable to have a drink without scooping a load of water out. He must be very particular about the water level.

Well, I don't know what they put in Horace's medicine

I don't know what drugs we have for Horace, however he has really started tucking into his food (relatively speaking). So much so that he's gone from being a little scrap of a puppy into a little stocky pup. Admittedly, I don't know for certain it's the drugs. We also changed his food at the same time and also I hold him when he is eating so he can't get distracted or skip through his food and that focusses him on eating. I also just give him a few biscuits to start, so that sort of builds up his excitement, and then add the rest. And another change is that I hold the bowl to his head, so he doesn't have to put his head down.  He will only drink from his water if the bowl is full, so I wonder if he has problems looking down, or if that makes his head feel funny. When we go back to the vet on Monday I wonder if they will notice he's a bit chunkier!

We've been investigating how to make DIY puppy training pads, as we know now that Horace will probably not go outside. We're very lucky that he likes to go on his training pads. We've learned that dogs with Horace's condition are almost always impossible to train. However Horace is excellent at going on the training pads. I wonder if that's what he used when he was in the rescue place so that is all he's ever known. While the cost of Horaces pills is just pennies, we've realized that the cost of the training pads is starting to add up. So we're thinking about lower cost alternatives. Something the others won't think is a big game.

I'd seen a figure on a vet's training website that said that most dogs like Horace don't live past 2 years old (when I was researching Horace's condition I was looking at university websites with training material for vets as it was about as reliable as it was going to be - but likewise, it wasn't dressed up as nicely as it could be. It describes pups like Horace as being retarded - which I guess he is, but 'eternal puppy' sounds so much better! I hope that the trainee vets learn to dress it up a bit when they are talking with clients). Anyway, I've been thinking about this and what I don't know is the % that die because their condition worsens and the % that are put to sleep because their owners can't cope.  Horace is great as an 'eternal puppy' and his little quirks are funny and fun to watch. However, I really don't think it would be the same if he was a bigger dog, and even as he is, I am not sure everyone would want to or be able to cope with him.

He's shown no signs of deteriorating since he's come to us, and I think a lot of the poorly puppies do show real signs of deterioration quickly which is why they die so early, but Horace was born the way he is, so hopefully he'll have many long and happy years being a little bit of a special Horace.

We had our first tea outside last night this year. Not sure if that's earlier or later than previous years, but nice all the same. Feels like summer is here!