Celebrating the Extra Hour

We celebrated the extra hour this morning by going out for a walk, first time for a while as it still gets hot in the afternoon, but it's dark until so late in the morning. We took Tinkerbelle, Pixie and Millie and did a circular walk, which was nice. Millie was quite good, just being carried for a bit of it, she takes a bit of coaxing but she did walk on the lead for quite a long way, which is something she generally doesn't do very well.

We've lost their bells so I will have to look for some new ones. They are quite expensive, as they are proper sheep bells (but for baby lambs), but they are so worth getting compared with little decorative bells. It helps us make sure that Millie is keeping up, but also helps her as she can here Pixie and get her bearings from her.

I'll probably look at adjusting Horace's harness for Pixie or Millie, as I don't think he will ever wear it. It's a major feat for him to go from one side of the room to the other, so I don't think he'll ever enjoy the big scary world outside. He's just started to make his way over to Ian's side of the room in the morning. This morning he made his way across in one go, which is quite unusual, as sometimes it takes a few goes for him to make it across. He loves nothing more than to snuggle under a duvet, so my plan is to make him a little duvet nest that he can snuggle in and which we can move around. The challenge, however, is to keep all the others out, as Horace currently has two little baskets, which there are often other dogs and cats in and we find him laying on the floor.

Tinkerbelle has finished going back to the vet. She's pretty much her normal self. She's not eating well, but I think she is probably eating like she always has done. She's never really been one for tucking into every meal. She is supposed to be eating a low phosphorus diet to help her anemia, but happily pasta is apparently low in phosphorus so I think we're doing OK there.

Still very dry. We did have a couple of days of rain, but it was more April showers than 'proper' rain. I guess it won't be too far away now though...

Ian wearing his birthday headphones

Tinkerbelle goes back to the vets, cheese feast (and still no rain)

Sounds familiar?

Tinkerbelle went back for a checkup and she's got tablets to take for another week, but I have a horrible feeling that now she is becoming fussy with her eating.

She's never been a big eater, always convinced that all the others are having better food than her, so by the time she's checked them all out, she's gone off her own.

The problem is that I know she is a senior dog now, and I also know that she has the start of chronic anemia, so I don't want to 'starve' her back to normal food. As I mentioned before, the only thing that she will eat is pasta and frankfurter - and she'll quite happily eat the pasta without the frankfurter. I guess that pasta isn't the end of the world, and I could add some veggies in there for vitamins, but I wish she would eat proper dog food so I can monitor what she's eating.

And this is causing problems with Pixie as well. I feed Tinkerbelle and Horace at the same time. Although I have Horace pretty much under control now with holding the food to his nose when he eats, he still manages to scatter food around if he can. And Tinkerbelle drops food when she is eating, so where I feed them is often librally scattered with Horace and Tinkerbelle's food. Pixie now comes in to hoover up, and then won't eat her own food! So it's difficult to keep an eye on her too - we'll need to come up with a better plan if this continues.

We've just finished Ian's birthday cheese feast! I must admit that when we go to the cheese shop and exchange a wad of money for a wedge of cheese, I always think 'we spent THAT much on cheese' - but it does last and last! This time it seemed to have lasted longer because one of the cheese kept growing. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

The pickle I made with our own produce and that of our scrumping trip I think was one of the best I made. Shame it is unrepeatable - as it's simply a case of chopping everything I have to hand into pieces and stewing it all up in vinegar and sugar! So it depends on our scrumping trip as to what this year's pickle contains!

And still no rain! It's the big Feria in Zafra this last weekend and this week - so they will be glad that there isn't any rain - but the weather's surely got to break soon...