Bossman likes to hunt in the winter. Only for food though, him and Mum eat the venison. Me, I just get the lamb and rice dog food! It stops me getting the itchies. (My tummy is all nice and hairy again and I don't have to have so many pills now, just one every three days and Bossman cuts the capsule and puts in on my food cos I got too tricky about spitting them out.)
Anyway, back to the hunting thingy. Bossman decided to try a different place this year. It meant that they had to clear the place of brush and low branches. He can't climb trees so he has a tent blind so we had to move it. Well, you won't believe the fun and games we have had with that! Especially as Mum hasn't been too wippy with the arther thingy. What took three days last year has taken two weeks this year. Bossman says he ain't doing it again. And I say, 'Yeah Bossman, we'll see'.
Well of course me and Maggie have to go along to see they are doing everything right. Today Mum was a bit better after the doc gave her some magic pills and she could help more so they got a bit more done. Now everything is nearly ready, they said. Just one more morning should do it, they said and again I say, we'll see Bossman and Mum, cos they always find something else that needs doing.
Anyway, here is me and Maggie after our exhausting morning.
Maggie was even too tired to play with her toys, they're still in the toy basket!
Mum says she wants to write a bit about how things are going with Maggie, so I said well OK then Mum, go right ahead.
Boris and Maggie's Mum here again.
Maggie sleeps all night in her crate but in the morning she is bursting to pee. A couple of nights she did it in her crate and another day she peed all over me as I carried her to the front door to let her out to go. The front door is the whole length of the house away. This morning, I tried something different, we have a door to the outside in the sunroom where we sleep in the summer. We don't use it a lot but common sense prevailed and this morning I just pushed her crate to the door and let her out. She peed on the outside step but that is OK, better than in her bed or on me. I rinsed off the step afterwards and sprayed it with Lysol spray and hopefully tomorrow we will make it off the step. So, so far, 8 nights of dry beds, two nights of wet bed and one morning of peeing on the Mum. I am happy with that, the dry beds far outweigh the other things and we do get to sleep the night through.
The next thing we are working on is the "mad hour" in the morning and the "mad hour" at night.
We were getting up, taking her out to do her business then feeding her then taking her back out to do her business again. Then when she came back in she launched into "mad hour" so had to be supervised and played with.
This meant we were not getting our breakfast for nearly two hours. This morning, we tried something different. My husband made a pen for her which fits along the passage between his office and the kitchen. She has a bed and some toys in it and once a day we have been putting her in it for an hour or so to get her used to it. This morning we put her food and water in it and put her in it after we bought her in from doing business. She ate her food, played a little and had a sleep. We were able to eat breakfast in peace too and clear up afterwards. (If loading the dishwasher can be called clearing up lol). This may be the solution to the morning 'mad hour'.
We actually had to wake her to take her out with us when we went up to work on the hunting patch. She had a grand time up there frolicking and chewing logs and when we were done I put her in her crate to bring her home. I opened it up for her to get out but she didn't want to come out so I carried into the house and left her to sleep. Boris crashed out too.
She just woke up and I took her out and she did her business. I brought her back in, applied the medication and she went to her pen and barked. So I picked her up and put her in and she went right to her bed and is napping again.
As for the skin patches, the tummy and leg patches are doing great and the hair is growing back in nicely but the tail patch is getting bigger. I think she may actually be chewing on her tail and making it worse so I will call the vet again on Monday and see what they think. You can see the tail patch in the picture below.
Overall she is thriving and growing and we love her to bits. Cuddle time is very satisfying too. I didn't want her to miss out on the comfort of snuggling up to her Mum so a couple of times a day I sit with her on my lap and we have snuggle time.
The steroids the doctor gave me have started to help with the arthritis pain and stiffness for which I am very thankful.
I will update weekly on here, I want to keep a record of her progress and Boris has kindly let me use his blog to do so.
Thank you Boris, the handsomest dog. We love you too big guy. XXXXX
