As time passes by ......

It's ages since we blogged. Time has so often been sucked into other priorities; living, studying, other pressing writing tasks, trying to keep ahead of the garden, staying as healthy as possible, that I've overlooked the blog. And of course there's the all important dog walking. In my unhealthier moments (of which there have been too many of late) this becomes DIY exercise for Wigeon. Open the garden gate and tell her she can go and, boy, can she go! Being lucky enough to live on a hill farm (Wigeon soon had to learn that sheep are 'out of bounds.')  there are acres of space just by the cottage where she can run full tilt and free her long muscular legs.

Wigeon at full tilt

I'm so envious of her, the speed, the sheer joy she gets from running. I always longed to be able to run easily, to run far and if I wanted to, to run fast. Quick 100 metre sprints at school were my best; long distance runs never my strong point. That was reserved for 'throwing things,' discus, shot or javelin being the athletic disciplines I excelled in. Maybe years of chucking bales of hay and straw around on the farm or years of catching and turning sheep at home gave me the extra advantage?

There's a grassy bank (obviously its all banks on a hill farm!) just north of the cottage, now punctuated with the summer dots tormentil and interspersed with colourful wild pansies, where Wigeon habitually goes into sheer cracker dog mode, running flat out making it into her 'wall of death' run. It often ends with her belting straight at me, do I keep my nerve and stand still or take a step out of her way? So far better to stand still and pray she gets it right as she comes off the bank, overshoots and has time to turn round and come back to me with her sides heaving and her tongue flapping.

 

Having been run over and felled, quite literally, by a high speed Puffin, my wonderful whippet of years gone by, I understand the maths and physics behind velocity hitting stationery objects. Some years ago my mother was run down by two of her lurchers one snowy morning as they played carefree, overtaken by the joy of running in fresh snow to notice where Mum was standing. She heard a crack as they impacted against her legs. My brother found her hanging onto a field gate, desperate to catch him on his morning sheep rounds and take her home, or as it turned out, to hospital - with a broken leg.

Preparing for Wigeon

This has been an interesting week to say the least. Wigeon is arriving on Monday so there's been a lot to do to try and be truly ready for her. The hiding of any attackable wires, in fact anything that might be possible puppy chewing material. Then there's getting ready for the likelihood of times coping with a widdling Wigeon until she becomes properly house trained. These are just for starters. I got her a new bowl and a collar today - just a temporary baby collar as she'll be in a proper hound collar when she's big enough. Judging by the amount she's grown in those last two weeks, it won't be that long. I've dug out some puppy toys too that my old girl has grown out of playing with .....mostly!

I realised that it's 11 years since I brought a puppy up and that seems so long ago. I've sometimes thought of my life in the dogs who have shared life with me and seen how ones life passes with these special friends. It's going to be interesting to find out what my 11 year old thinks of her new housemate. Thankfully the lively old girl has a wonderful nature and so I hope that she will have the sense to lay down the ground rules with Wigeon and then come to love having a canine companion again in the house instead of being stuck with boring me and her canine and human friends up on the farm.

Oh, and I also bought the all important bag of puppy food today. One of the most critical things to get right from the start for the young Wigeon to get her as strong as possible. I don't want her to end up in the serious state her mum has done.

Her mum, Teasel, had a trip to the vet yesterday as there has been a lot of worry about her condition ....or lack of it. The vet asked loads of questions; all of which couldn't be answered as we know nothing about her other than when she came into the rescue centre and when she had the 11 pups, rearing 9 of them. Today, after Teasel's first lot of injections and the medicines the vet gave her she did look brighter ....now, if only we could get some weight on those bones of hers. She's in good hands with my mum so that's hopeful to bring any dog round to full health. It's the canine equivalent of intensive care with loads of TLC thrown in too.

I'll have to recheck the garden for any 'potential escape routes' on Sunday but I'm scuppered for now as I had a steroid injection into my right knee today so I've (in theory and hopefully in practice) to rest the leg for a couple of days to get the greatest benefit from the injection. That's important as I need to be as mobile as possible to cope with an active youngster when she comes. She might run rings round me as it is! One thing ......I wondered if Wigeon will grin like my old dog does? I do hope so as it's such an endearing trait. Do you think she'll pick it up as 'learned behaviour?'

The other very important thing I have to do now is to get ready for a poetry reading I'm doing on Sunday in Callander as part of the Poetry Scotland weekend (I think that's what it's called!) I'll just try to be at the right place at the right time, catch up with fellow eco-poets from the region who I'm reading with and hopefully we'll all read well and perhaps we might even have a dry day for a change?!

Help! Where's Mum gone?

Those women came back again today. It was good to see some more friendly faces. I don’t think they could get over how much we’ve grown. Well we all have – we’re bigger, hairier, madder and badder than we were two weeks ago! We came to the kennel door in a tide. A tide of 9 eager pups is hard to hold back, but they managed it and none of us managed to get out. I’m glad we didn’t as there were jeans to grab and shoelaces to tug on and that younger woman to climb all over. We had great fun.

I hadn’t realised that Mum had gone out as we were all busy playing and clambering over the younger woman. Mum’s not come back –it’s strange without her and there’s no topping up from Mum now. I’ve lost the red nail varnish on my back, probably from all that mucking about with the other pups. Yesterday I had a line of hair clipped across my neck so that I’ll be recognisable. I had my photo taken again too. Wow, am I famous? …..but where is our mum? Do you think I’ll see her again? From the way one of those women was speaking I think it might be yes – whoopee!

My Mum and the rest of us!

I thought you might like to see a photo of my Mum. She's still thin despite loads of feeding and she came in to the rescue centre thin and unwanted, just a couple of weeks before we were born.

Mum is great and this is one of us when she came to feed us again. You can't see me, I'm at the back, but do look closely at the blonde pup by her front legs - have you ever seen a banana back like that before ......and the back legs? Talk about begging or is this being just plain greedy?

I'm here!

I've got a friend or have I found a friend? Two women came to see my Mum again today, Their brows were furrowed and they took her out. 'Just a rickle of bones,' I heard one of them say. They're right. My poor Mum is in a right mess and I don't know how that was allowed to happen but she is slowly getting better. I'm sure we're not helping Mum as she's been good to us and fed us well, but now we're on solids too we hope that will be good news for her. After they came back in with Mum they asked to look at me and my siblings. Nine of us survived from the eleven born. We're a mixture of colours but I'm, well I don't know what I'm going to be but I'm not blonde like my mum and some of my litter mates.

Anyway in they came, towering over me. The rest of the pack were flat out but I thought the younger person looked interesting so I waddled over to her. She grinned and spoke to me. I wagged my tail, I mucked about, bounced around, looked sweet, bit her finger a few times and then she took me outside and had a reet good look at me. Now I've got three marks on my back - red nail varnish. Yep nail varnish, except it's on my back? They said we have to know who you are. Eeek! I'm a marked lassie already.

Apparently she'll be back when I'm eight weeks old and then I have to move from here .....to another country! How exciting! I hope they're ready for me. I liked the look of them and I reckon life could be pretty good in my new life. I mean we can't all stay here forever as there are far too many of us and other dogs need to come in here to be looked after and found new homes. I heard the younger woman say, 'I think this is the one that's chosen me. It's gonna have to be her.'