Saturday 11 December 2010

New Bed(s)

Today I nipped out and bought Henry yet another new bed. This is the fourth new bed in two months that I've invested in. I say invested because the last time I bought dog beds was 1994, a very sound investment indeed as they lasted until 2010, right up until Henry decided to embark on his dog bed chewing phase at the age of about three or possibly four. The first one was chewed not long after we lost Badger, I put that one down to poor Henry missing his friend. The second one went not long after, I put that down to the same problem.

Then we had a lull, no chewing, nothing. Then he started chewing his cage - yes poor Henry in a cage, in a rented house we had no option. So the cage has somebent bits on it, but he does seem to have stopped that now after we realised the cage was right next to the cupboard containing the dog food......not sure how we didn't spot that sooner.

So, we needed new dog beds, off to Pets At Home we went and promply fell on the floor at the price of dog beds. Thinking back, I spent about £45 on the 1994 dog beds so in reality they have stabilised in price still being on average £45, the trouble is that £45 back then was considerably less to me than it is now. Then other half had a brain wave. The dog bed covers were less than £20 each, why didn't we buy two of those (less than the price of one dog bed) and then trip over to Asda and buy two Smart Price duvets to fill them with. Total price £50 for two spanking new very country life type dog beds. Henry and Molly love them, they hardly gave other half the time to make them up before they were laying upside down on them. Good dog bed investment.

So, the new dog beds weren't going to go in Henrys cage, no way. So I bought a dog cage pad type of bed, total £18. He loved it, he snuggle in it, laid on it,Molly went in the cage and laid on it, refusing to get out, it matched the carpet so lessening the impact of a giant dog cage in the living room, it was great.

Five days on he chewed it.

Two months on from that I have bought a new one, I dog bed watched for a couple of weeks and there has been no chewing at all, lets hope this time Henry's cage stays nice and smart from now on.

Next I suppose we should get new coats for them, the current ones also survive from 1994...

Monday 6 December 2010

I've Missed This

Hello Everyone,
I've missed blogging so much. Having said that I only realised after the blogs I follow and have negelcted over the last few months and felt how great it was to follow the lives of other people who I don't know but love to see on the web. Gosh that sounds a bit stalky dosen't it? I mean it in the nicest possible way though.

So, what has happened since I last blogged? Quite allot. After almost recovering from dislocating my knee I found myself moving house to a fab pad halfway up a mountain, the reasons for the move weren't very nice and I'll not go into it here but I found myself in absolutely lovely house, super modern and open plan - all things I thought I hated but after three weeks I loved it, super modern is super easy to clean. The dogs loved it, we were right on the doorstep to the most amazing walks at high altitude and I was out with them every night after work. Our routine had changed considerably, from being self employed for 7 years I was suddenly working for someone else - scary but quite cool, no supplies needed just turn up, do what you're told and go home. You get your pay and don't really need to worry about the tax man.

Then after a couple of months I was offered another, better job and decided to take it, we also decided to move over towards Edinburgh as we;'d both be able to get to work without spending hundreds of pounds on fuel every month, so no sooner had we unpacked than we were packing up again and moving on. This was when Badger stopped eating. We thought it was due to the move, so we didn't worry too much. Two weeks into the new house he was still bouncing between being the wonderful mad Badge and a quiet sleepy boy that we weren't used to. We wondered if it was a growing phase, he was only 18 months at this point, but after he was sick several times in one day we took him to the vets. They ran some tests, but couldnt' work out what was wrong. They kept him in, we all stayed quite positive. Until I got a call at work fromt eh vet to say his kidneys were in a bad way. I had no idea what this meant but had a fabulous explanation from David the vet. Basically, he had to undergo another test with twom possible results, one meant medication for the rest of Badgers life and the other basically meant no hope. What an awful situation! Poor Badge was on a drip in a cage and the vets told us we could visit him as ofen as we wanted to so we did. It would take a while for the results to come through so I decided to visit Badge in the early afternoon, he was very ill and wouldn't eat, I sat on the floor stroking him and trying to tempt him to eat but he just wouldn't, all he wanted to do was sleep. I started to cry and he lifted his head and licked away my tears, you couldn't have made that up, even though he was very ill he still cared, as you must have worked out by now the results weren't good, basically the vets were keeping Badge alive, there was no hope and it was the end of the road. Really there was no desicion to be made, so we lost him....

And so we continue. Henry suffered awfully after Badge died. He ended up on doogie valium, I think i needed it too as I had moved house, started a new job and lost a member of the family all in a week! Molly was fine, she seemed to have accepted that Badge wasn't coming back and just got on with the new house, she is so cool!

It took about a month for Hen to settle down and in that time Molly went from being the serious matriarch ton a playful nutcase of a greyhound who now shoots around the house like a mad thing and seems very happy, maybe the responsibility of being above a mad saluki and a border collie had got to her? Anyway life has calmed and we are looking forward to blogging again and following everybody else. x