Lone Pine Lodge

I have just had the worst 2 hours of my life so far. I took the girls up to the girls behind the village for late night toilets, normally we walk into the first field , I take their lead off, they do what is necessary, snuffle a round a bit then come back to me the leads go on and we come home. I have to take Saffron out as she will not use the garden, Kandi does but she comes as well. Tonight was not normal, we got up up to the filed , I took the leads off and Kandi was off like a greyhound from the gate, over into the next field but by the time we got there she was no where in sight, not that I could see very far just to the end of my torch light. Well I've spent the time since then(8:30 pm)wandering round the streets calling her quietly and asking every god I knew the name of to bring her back then coming back home in the hope she would be sitting on the doorstep. Half an hour ago I started out on what would have been my last circuit and this time I took Saffron with me in the hope she might scent her. And she did, As we passed gate to the house next door to Beth's Saffron pulled me towards it. And sitting behind the gate was Kandi. She was so delighted to see us I hope she will not go chasing off again. What puzzled me then was how did she get into the garden. The front gate was shut, there is about 6 feet deep bramble patch on the field side of the fence behind the house. The only way she could have done it would be if Beth's gate at the back of the house up to the field was open and she had come down into the back garden and jumped the gate between the two houses That gate wouldn't be open as it has a strong spring on it to make sure the young nephews and nieces couldn't get into the neighbouring garden when the were visiting. I know she is a good jumper but I didn't think she was that good.
Kandi will still be coming for late night walkies but until it is full daylight at 9:00pm she will be kept on the lead.

The Met Office has been warning Wales about blizzards heading in from the north west since last weekend. We will not be having the depth some of you in the colder parts of the world have. In normal snow weather we are unlucky to have more then a couple of inches. We, here in the valleys of South Wales have been on an amber warning, up to six inches, for this week. Tonight it changes we are now on red alert a foot or more. We haven't seen that much since 1963 and that was the worst winter of the 20 th century for the UK. So I am going to go stir crazy if it lasts more than a few days. I won't be able to drive any where and the dogs will be jumping out of their skins with the need for a good walk. I'm not at all sure Kandi has ever seen more than a few millimetres of snow she is only 2.75 years old and her birthplace they haven't had any proper snow for over 3 years. Saffron did see a few centimetres last year and loved it.

Beth gave me a digital movie camera for Christmas, I will have to take it out with us on our short walks and learn to up load any thing that they do that is interesting.

Dawn,or at least the first view of the sun that day, ove the Nevern esturay Newport Beach.


( Read more... )

My freind Sue and her 7 dogs(4 large crossbreed a 3 Shelties, photos will come later)arrived Saturday. Sunday I stayed home with the two eldest, cross breeds aged 15 and 16, and my two. The old boys came for a very short walk in the morning and then pottered in and out of the garden for the rest of the day while I took the girls on a nice long walk. One of Sue's Seven is Katie, my Kandi's daughter, and as I think I've told you Saffron and Kandi are half sisters so I will leave you with a few pictures of the Sheltie family.

Kandi and Katie are sitting side by side, Saffron has her back to us, and that is 15 year old Elliot behind the group.


( Read more... )

I noticed last year that Saffron loved the snow, it seems it is either a coincidence, a family trait(Kandi and Saffron are half sisters and share many more distant ancestors than their father)or a Sheltie trait because Kandi went a little mad tonight after being taken for their last walk and insisted that the garden door be opened for her to race around the lawn in the snow, closely followed by Saffron. When they came back in, a bribe of biscuits was necessary to get them in, they decided that my very small and crowded living room would be their playground tonight and I got some action pictures of them. Let me reassure those of you who do not know the breed, they are playing not fighting.
( Cut for size )

My default icon will be changed as soon as I can get home and get my camera recharged. Long story short I have another sable(a true shaded sable this time)Sheltie from the same breeder as Saffron.

I have been looking for a companion for Saffron for some time now and have not succeeded but Sue was waiting for a replacement pup in lieu of Saffron being unfit for purpose(She was bought for showing and breeding and because of her hip problems can do neither) and while examining the present avilable litters was chatting to the breeder and asked her if she knew of any one who had a young Sheltie in need of a new home and was asked why. Sue explained about Saffron needing a companion and the breeder said more or less.
"I am thinking of replacing one of my breeding bitches with a pup from this litter I may have one to rehome"
It turns out the youngest of them has never really bonded with her owner and it was she, a 2 year old, who was being replaced. So last Sunday I drove up to East Anglia and Sue's place and Monday we went to collect her pup I went with her. Candy and I were firm freinds in minutes and I was able to take her out to the car to meet Saffron. The meeting went well and we left with Candy and Katy. Katy is a shaded sable too and by coincidence Candy's daughter. I cannot fault the conditions at their breeders, in many ways they were better than living with me, they had their own bed spaces and a huge run they could go and mix with the other bitches as and when they wanted, good food and toys for those young enough to want to play. But it is the breeders income she cannot afford to become to fond of any of the dogs she has as breeders or breeds to sell and they do lack petting and fussing that those who are a pet/working dog, in Sue's case, pure pet in mine, get. Candy we have discovered is a Sheltie that responds more readily to affection than food and I am giving her that in plenty. She has only had one litter but we think she has only left the confines of the kennel to be mated and for visits to the vet and groomers so the outside world is very foreign to her. Rather like a nun who entered and enclosed order 20 years ago as a young woman and decided to change to an order that goes out in the world in middle age. She is very nervous and doesn't know how to walk on a lead. Men are an unkown factor in her life and big though the run is we think she suffers fron agarophobia but she has come on miraculously since she moved in with Sue's pack. There may be a set back when it is just me her and Saffron and it will take a lot of time and patience before she is half as confident as Saffron but I will persevere. No pictures today as I am working on Sue's computer but I promise plenty when I am back home.

Thank you all for your good wishes, Saffron was groggy for most of the evening and wanted to go to bed at 8:00 pm but I made her stay up til 9 then we went up and she flaked out while I watched TV until normal bedtime and flaked out myself. She really hates the collar and won't even move when she has it on so I removed it when we got up this morning for her to eat and left it off. After two attempts to get to her scar were met with a very firm and loud NO with her nose being pushed away from it she has not tried again, I've taken the bandage off her front paw and she licked that intensely for about 5 minutes then left it alone. she has been sat on my lap since8:00 am until 10:00 when I put her down to go get dressed. When I came back down she had got up on to 'her' chair(I have a very low stool in front of it so she just walks up the way she does steps)and is curled up asleep. She is eating very well and has drunk for the first time since she came home so every thing is going very well. She is in some slight pain as she takes 3 steps and then sits down and asks for a carry. I am being a kind Mam and giving her a daily dose of the painkiller she usually only gets when I think she need sit for her hip problems(Metacam has some dreadful possible side effects like liver failure, kidney problems and stomach problems so she gets as little as possible), it will only be for a week.  I am also being a cruel Mam and refuse to carry her.  so I am sitting here at my lap top glancing occasionally over to the little one and lazing the day away.

First the computer woes, I have been having problems with my desk top for some time now. It hasn't been remembering my passwords for my sites and Java and an other program for simple gaming have been crashing with unpleasant regularity. I have been putting up wit it but when it crashed three times in 10 minutes (when I was trying to upload some photographs I gave up and shut down until I can get it to the nice shop in Blackwood that mends dodgy computers. So I am writing this on my lap top which does not have the pictures on it I want because the desktop threw a wobbly.
The photos were of Sue and her dogs at the agility show, they will be posted at a later date. But I do have to tell you about the weekend. Sue and the gang arrived about 9:00 pm on Wednesday night. When she knocked on the door Saffy started her "I'm a big tough dog and if you come in here I'll bite you act" but as soon as I opened the door and she saw Daily Dylis(shelties)() and Eliott)( the 11 year old cross breed that looks like a setter cross but isn't) pulled Sue through the door, she went into her welcome dance with squeeks. When Sue went back to the van and brought in the rest of the pack{ } she became so excited I thought I might have to sedate her. The others weren't much calmer but they all finally settled down to sleeping(everyone except Dylis and Saffron) and playing(guess who). Thursday wasn't a particulaly good day so we spent the morning shopping in Abergavenny. The dogs remained in the van in their cages, Sue has a van with 7 cages, 4 large one on the bottom row and 3 smaller ones on the top, which completely fill the back door and are lockable so that when the dogs are left in them with out us, the back doors are opened and the cages locked so the are not over heated if the sun comes out. Then we went in search of a picnic area following the directions given to us by the tourist information office got lost and ended up in a very nice woodland picnic area in a forest (wood= native trees Forest= pines trees planted by man) with a stream running in a small valley cut off from the picnic area by a good fence and a style. After lunch we lifted the small dogs over this and taught the larger ones to jump it and they had a whale of a time paddling and exploring.
Friday we went to Tintern abbey and had a lovely sunny day walking the dogs along the Wye Valley walk and browsing the shops. Saturday was show day I will talk of that when I can use my photos. Sunday we went to Builth Wells Had Lunch by the river walked the dogs and started for home as it started to rain. We stopped off at a gift shop/art gallery/cafe in a railway station which ahd managed to survive it's railway by 50 years.
Monday morning Sue and company were going home so she packed her brood into the van and I did the same with Saffron and Losyn in my car and all 10 of us went for a lovely long walk down the Sirhowy Valley Country Park. Thanks to the visit Saffron has learned to walk down the bedroom stairs but not up them and is eating everything I put before her instead of being picky. It won't last but(with the food I mean, I think she is too proud of herself walkign down stairs for her to stop)so I am enjoying it while I can.

Do you remember this.

This is Saffron the little 13 week old T. Rex masquerading as a 13 week old Sheltie. Well she is over 6 months old now and is still a cute little dog but with one major problem, She has been diagnosed with Hip Dysplasia you can read the the horrible details here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_dysplasia_(canine)
but the excerpt below will tell you how Sue realised something was wrong with her

A dysplastic animal has probably lived with the condition since it was only a few months old, and has therefore grown up taking the chronic pain for granted and have learned to live with it. Dogs suffering such pain do not usually exhibit acute signs of pain. Sometimes, they will suddenly and abnormally sit down when walking, or refuse to walk or climb objects which they usually would, but this can equally be a symptom of many other things, including a thorn in the paw, or a temporary muscle pain. So pain recognition is less common a means of detection than the visible gait and other abnormalities described above.

Sue realised something was wrong when Saffron stopped standing on her hind legs to watch her take a bath and just sat in front of her instead of jumping up on her lap when she wanted a cuddle.
She is undergoing what little treatment is available to her at the moment which is building up her hind legs muscles by intensive walking and hydrotherapy. She will never be a healthy dog and will not be able to keep up with the pack so Sue was looking for a new home for her, preferably with some one she(Sue) knows. She mailed me about this just before our holiday and I immediately mailed back and said I'll have her. We discussed it thoroughly over our holiday as Sue wanted me to understand what I was taking on. After her spiel about HD and it effects on dogs I told her I understood exactly as she had just described my own problems with arthritis it was decided that providing her other two owners(she cost £700 and it took three of them to afford her she is now worthless, money wise at least) agreed I could have her and they would contribute to the cost of the medication she will need for the rest of her life. She will be ready to come to me in early December and no she isn't my Christmas present it will be all the grooming gear you need for a long haired dog so I will be getting that early. She is a darling little dog who thinks she is a great big dog but like all the Shetland Sheep dogs I have ever met loves people and being fussed. Sue doesn't want to let her go but it is only because she knows keeping her would be a form of cruelty, she would have to walk with the old men(Bas 13 and Elliot 11.5), she couldn't take part in the pack rough and tumble with out pain and she knows if she comes to me she will see her at least twice a year probably more. So when she arrived I am going to inquire into the organisation called Pets as Therapy which organises visits, usually by dogs into long term care homes for adults and children, she will get all the fuss she wants then.
So that is why I am looking forward to Christmas like a 10 year old who has been promised his own wii and a new bike from Santa. I am also worrid to death as to 'Can I cope'. I know I will when it comes to it but I still worry.