The best thing my dog
could have had last night was a good night’s sleep, so I settled him in his
basket and went to bed. I lay there listening out for him. I heard Rolo
fidgeting and walking about, but I heard no cries from Fudge.
I came down at 6.30am
to find Fudge seemingly a little better than yesterday, but still out of sorts.
He had a little walk round the garden then took himself back to his basket.
Over brekkie I watched an episode of “Top
Boy” whilst worrying about him.
I hung the washing out,
and thought Fudge might like a little walk. I showed him his lead and he didn’t
look very interested. I put his collar on and he heaved himself up. I got
Rolo’s harness on him and took both dogs to the car. Rather than jumping in Fudge
tried to climb in and started crying. I went to help him and found his stomach
was again rock hard. I immediately took Rolo back inside the house and took
Fudge straight back to the vets where they again admitted him to dog hospital
again.
This time I didn’t quite
make it out of the vets myself before collapsing in tears.
I was supposed to be on night duty tonight.
With both "er indoors TM" and "My Boy TM"
away I knew I couldn’t leave him overnight. I did a little phoning round. A
colleague offered to do my night shifts; that was *such* a relief. Covering shifts at short notice is difficult; an
August weekend doubly so.
So I then took little Rolo on the walk I’d
promised him. We went out to Kingsnorth. There was an e-souvenir to be had
today for anyone logging a find on a multi-geocache. Multis start off with
puzzles you do when out and about. In this case you go to the village sign in
Kingsnorth, answer a few questions, do a few sums, and you end up with totally
the wrong answer. You then swear a lot, realise that two plus two isn’t
fifty-seven, do the sums properly and then go find the geocache. Whilst multis
aren’t rare, they certainly aren’t common. In fact there was only one (that I hadn’t found) within five miles
of home. So me and Rolo went for a little walk. I’d actually been to the
village sign at Kingsnorth with "Daddy’s Little Angel TM"
and "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM" and
done the sums some time ago (February 4th to be precise) so all we had to do
was go to where I’d calculated the thing to be hidden, do the secret
geo-ritual, and come home again. We got to where I thought we were supposed to
be, and after ten minutes of fruitless searching I suddenly spotted the cache.
Obvious! Laying on the floor. I’ve put it back where I thought it should be.
But I might be wrong…
We carried on with our
walk. We probably covered a circuit of about a mile. Personally I would like to
have gone further, but (for those of my
loyal readers who have never met him) little Rolo is tiny. Probably a
quarter the size of Fudge. He’s not built for long distances; he slept like a
log after yesterday’s four miles. So we came home and I had a slice of cake
with a cup of coffee whilst the washing machine chewed more laundry.
The vet phoned and said
they wanted to keep Fudge until 5pm, so finding myself at something of a loose
end I mowed the lawn then cleaned out the fish pond filter. As the pond isn’t
as clear as it might be I put in some finer filter medium, turned it back on
and watched the water leak out. I say “leak”;
“gush” might have been a better
description. So I turned it all off, re-assembled it how it used to be, and
turned it back on. No leaks this time. I was rather pleased about that.
I then wasted half an
hour cutting back more of the various climbing plants which pour over the fence
from next door, then watched a little telly until 3pm.
Brian and Rachel had
invited me to a barbecue. Originally I’d declined as I had thought I was going
to be in bed prior to the night shift, but I thought that an afternoon in
Brian’s garden might take my mind off of worrying about my silly dog. So I
spent a rather good afternoon with family and friends in Brian’s garden until
it was time to collect my dog.
The vet said he was
much improved, but had been on stronger pain relief. I thought he looked spaced
out. We went back to Brian’s and sat in the garden for five minutes but Fudge
wasn’t himself so I carried him home. I put him down and he crashed out where
he was on the floor. Eventually I persuaded him to go to the garden, and having
done his business he staggered back to his basket where he snored for the
evening.
Whilst my dog slept I
did loads of ironing in between watching him sleep. He woke shortly before 10pm
when I chivvied him outside for a tiddle. He walked very awkwardly; I blame the
catheter which is still in his paw. I managed to slip one of his tablets into a
bit of cheese and he scoffed it. I then hand-fed him all of his dinner. I shall
probably be up with him most of the night…
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