Mad Dogs

There has been much hilarity in this house over the last few weeks, mostly caused by the dogs, Henry and Badger being the main suspects.

Firstly though we had yet another episode of the toe, I took Badger for his one year check up and innoculations and we discovered two lumps in between two toes on both front feet. Not good. Still, I felt optomistic, surely the vet could just remove them and although the prospect of driving back and forth to the vet with a sore poorly dog for a couple of weeks wasn't a great thought at least it would get it sorted. The trouble was it turned out not to be quite that easy, Badger went in for a couple of X-rays and it turned out there were five or six little lumps in both front paws and this might mean having more toes amputated and it dosen't take a rocket scientist to work out that a dog can only have so many toes removed and then it would have to be a leg removed and if that's going on in both front feet then removing both front legs just wasn't an option, I'm sure you can work out what that option would be.

So we got referred to a specialist way up in Fife, to cut a long story short the fantastic lovely amazing specialist vet said that the lumps were something that happen in puppies and once they are past 12 months they should cease to form or grow and everything in Badgers feet had most probably stabilised. However they did find an absess in his foot where his toe was removed in the summer so they sorted that out, gave me some anti biotics and sent us on our way. I could have cried with relief, I honestly wondered if I was going to be bringing him home.

Since our visit to Fife Bdger has become the most happy, friendly and affectionate wee pup. He had turned into a grumpy, growly, bad tempered dog who no longer wanted to go in the car, had stopped us stroking him, would completely freak if we tried to touch his toes or legs and it was beyond me what to do with him. I think I'd describe him as smiley now!

On to the hilarity, since Badgers trip up north he has become more mischievous and has joined forces with Henry to create as much havoc in the house as possible. In order to keep this contained I've dug out lots of toys from Ferg and Bons days and Molly, Henry and Badge are like little children in a toy shop with them.

The first toy was a ball which you put treats into and it has a recordable switch where you can put your own voice and talk to the dog every time it moves the ball to get the treats out. Molly had played with this a couple of years ago but I took it away when we got Henry in case they fought over it. Amazingly she remembered what to do with it straight away, never underestimate the power of a greyhounds brain! When Molly stopped playing with it I turned the sound bit on and Henry really freaked, it was a recording from my ex and Henry never liked him much and so he pounced on the ball, it flew up in the air and the recording bit flew out accross the room and hit the wall. you couldn't have made it up in a film, you could say we won't be hearing from my ex again hahaha!

The next side splitting event came from Badger, he has a football which was an outdoor toy but has made it's way inside and Badge has slowly chewed a massive hole in it. He drags this ball around all over the place, putting it on your lap when youre wearing nice clothes, bringing it upstairs and placing it gently on your pillow and waits patiently for you to play fetch the moment you wake up and are faced with a slimey big thing right in front of you. Last night he discovered that the hole is now big enough for him to madly shake the ball and have it slap all around his head. How he does this and stays standing up or even concious I've no idea but once he'd done it the first time he kept on doing it, adding wee extras like slapping it against your legs or climbing up on the back of the sofa while youre watching tv and suddenly shaking it against your head to make you jump.

The ball got revenge though as mid shake it went right over his head and suddenly we had a football headed dog running about the house, attempting to look as though he really meant to have it on his head while trying to work out how to get it off before bumping into anything. It was so funny that we couldn't help as we were laughing too much which is probably a bit bad but it was so funny that even the though of it while I'm typing this is making me laugh.

So that's the madness for now, will be back soon with more...