All clear and signed off

Now I do realise that I have been a bit remiss in updating all my fans with progress but, frankly, I have been pretty busy doing things recently. After my luvely birthday, not much happened until Tuesday when I went to see my personal surgeon, Bonito de la Puerta, for a checkup. I got up, had my breakfast and was then bundled into the car thingy to go and see him. When I got there and saw him I was quite excited but then it went a bit wrong. He left me with my personal surgeon, Bonito de la Puerta, and I had to spend the day in the kennels there. Sometime after I was dumped by him a nurse came along and gave me a little injection which made me go fast asleep. I don’t really know what happened after that, but I know that when I woke up I was feeling decidedly groggy. Eventually, Daddy Richard and him turned up and I was paraded out to the car thingy. They seemed to be under the very false impression that I was going to jump in voluntarily – how wrong they were! I most certainly did not jump in voluntarily and I waited (not very patiently either) for one of them to lift me into the car. Eventually, Daddy Richard lifted me into the car thingy thingy and I assumed we were going home. Nope, we weren’t. We ended up driving straight past home and going to Oxted so that I could meet my new friend Tamsin from Doodledooz in Oxted. Now don’t get me wrong, I like making new friends, but I was hardly at my best! I still felt very groggy from my sleep, I was dribbling slightly and I was most definitely not happy with him! I am quite sure that he was responsible for how groggy I felt. Anyway, I have decided that I am going to go and stay with Tamsin for a couple of weeks. Apparently they are going to this place called ‘India’ and I don’t want to go with them. Although I love my Country Retreat, I thought that for a couple of weeks I would prefer to go and stay with a family, so that’s what I’m going to do. When we eventually left to go home I was still very unhappy with him so I just planted myself in the driveway until Daddy Richard came and carried me to the car – he was quite out of breath by the time he got me in the boot! He only had to carry me about 50 metres and I only weigh 27kg – blimey if it was me, I could pull that much with my eyes closed!

It turns out that there was some good news though. My personal surgeon, Bonito de la Puerta, has given me the call clear and signed me off as being fit again. I still need to be a little bit careful and I shall still be visiting my personal therapists, Emily and Katie, at Hydrohounds for a while, but I don’t need to go and visit my personal surgeon, Bonito de la Puerta, anymore. I shall miss him, of course, but I am glad that I have been given the all clear! Actually, talking of my personal therapists, Emily and Katie at Hydrohounds, there was one rather unfortunate after effect of my sleep. I know that I was very groggy on Tuesday but I didn’t feel quite right on Wednesday or Thursday either. My main problem was a dicky tummy. I had a terrible case of what he called ‘The Squits’. It was very uncomfortable and not at all pleasant. Obviously, rather than worry about my state of health, all he did was moan saying “How am I going to pick that up?” and “Why can’t he do this somewhere other than long grass?”.  OK, I admit it, he did pretend to be worried for me, but I’m sure he was just pretending! I think I may have mentioned this in passing before, but he really isn’t very smart … about as useless as a poo bag with a hole in it, if you get my gist! Anyway, on Thursday we all piled into the car thingy and went off for my ‘wimming session with my personal therapists, Emily and Katie, at Hydrohounds. Of course when Emily found out about my little tummy problem, she said that I couldn’t go ‘wimming because it wasn’t fair on me or the other dogs that go. Well he knew that but he’d forgotten of course! Honestly, why me? What did I do to deserve him? So, since we couldn’t go ‘wimming I took them both for a walk on Reigate Hill … although why I am so nice to him when he is so useless is beyond me! Mind you, the amount of mud I managed to get on me (and later him) made the whole trip worthwhile!

I’ve been for the odd run around on The Green too since I have been signed off. Fortunately, my little tummy upset passed (literally) by Friday morning and I was back to usual. I took them both down to The Green for a run around (well, I did most of the running) on Friday and then Daddy Richard produced a ball! I love a ball! As usual he was moaning … “You’re supposed to run and catch the ball and bring it back!” I’m sorry? Who’s game do you think this is? My game is that I run after the ball, catch it and then lie down on the ground with a full on attempt at destruction. My personal opinion is that this is far more fun than a simple game of ‘fetch’. A rather unfortunate by-product of this game is that the ball doesn’t last very long (about 10 minutes on average) and I do get rather upset when he comes along and removes a tatty, broken, soggy, ex-ball from my mouth and throws it in the bin, but I still prefer my game! My Auntie Zena says that I am obsessive about balls which is probably true but doesn’t sound that great a compliment to me. I was going to look up ‘obsessive’ on Doogle, but I can’t be bothered, so I’m not going to. I did see something on Poochtome the other day (Poochtome is the far superior version of Face-ache or whatever it is that humans call it in the human world!) about some nasty people putting food down to temp dogs to eat it and it having poison in it or something. I am having to be extra careful about stealing things to eat now! It is very difficult to restrain myself and not eat, but I am doing my best! He appears to be keeping a watchful eye out too which I suppose is good too.

The porch is actually weather tight now too. It seems to have been going on for a very long time (I think the door was due to be fitted about three weeks ago but there was a ‘delay’). I don’t know when it will be completely finished because the bricks can only be done when the temperature outside is not too cold … and it has been flamin’ freezing over the last few days! Actually, I’ve had a few thoughts about this building lark. I’m thinking of writing a guide to getting the builders in. The last 7 months or so have been quite a learning curve and I’ve got some top tips about how to steal the builder’s tools, when a bout of continuous barking is useful and what to do if the builders sucks the air through his teeth and estimates it is about a week’s work! Anyway, that said, it does look like it is nearly coming to an end. Simon is coming tomorrow to finish the woodwork (he almost moved in last year, he was here that long!), so progress is definitely getting made! The porch makes a huge difference – it cuts out virtually all of the traffic noise and provides a really good space for me to shake off any excess water or mud. He seems to think that it’s better if I do it in there and I can definitely get better coverage of him with the mud so it’s a win, win situation! Talking of win, win situations, I have had a bit of a change of diet. I was on Canagan which I did rather like but it did seem to be having a bit of an impact on my bottom burps which were of epic proportions in terms of their pungency. He read up about it and found some suggestions that it might be diet related, so he ordered some new ‘bespoke’ food to see if it might help. Usually, if the food is being changed, it is advised that you mix it over the course of a few days whilst gradually increasing the quantity of new food and decreasing the amount of the old food. Apparently this avoids getting an upset stomach. Since I already had an upset stomach though and hadn’t been eating, he decided to simply start me on the new food.

Amazingly, this new food (from Tails.com) rather agrees with me. He actually commented that the consistency of my poo is vastly improved and I must admit that my bottom burps are much less pungent than they used to be. Of course I still produce the odd bottom burp but I find that they only have to leave the room for a while nowadays instead of evacuating the entire house for a few hours! Actually, talking of leaving the house, they have started to do this for longer periods now and I don’t mind at all. (Don’t tell him but it gives me a bit of peace and quiet from him for a while!) I’m always happy to see them return (until I remember what he is like!) but I don’t mind them going out. I tend to just lie down in the study and push out a few ????s until they get back. Being able to run around and walk off lead is so much more liberating too. I am much happier and, although I still pull like a freight train when I am on the lead, I think that both Daddy Richard and him are enjoying being out with me more. I always get a treat when I go off lead and I always get a treat when I come back to them but I get to run around pretty much where I want to. That said, there has been a little incident but it was hardly my fault – I found a gap in the fence up Bay Pond path and so popped into the garden that it was supposed to be fencing in. I don’t think I was supposed to do that because he didn’t sound very pleased when I eventually came back. I have popped in a couple more times but I have noticed that my lead tends to go on before we reach that point (at the top of the path) nowadays.

I almost forgot to say thank you to all my fans for my birthday wishes and my birthday messages. My friend Myfanwy has got a new companion – he’s called Carwyn and apparently he likes to play a lot, so I can’t wait to meet him. And my friend Charlie has been to stay with his Auntie Linda because his Mum and Dad have been away on holiday (I think they went to see the ‘Northern Lights’ which I have looked up on Fidopedia but it was all a bit too complicated for me!). This holiday thing seems quite popular with humans, I really don’t get it. It’s a bit like this food thing – why is he always cooking different foods from India and China and Italy and Spain and France … he’s no good at it anyway with all the practice he does! And that’s another thing … they’re going to India on holiday! I’ve looked this up on Fidopedia and it says, “India, officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country (with over 1.2 billion people), and the most populous democracy in the world.” Why would they want to go there? Asia is even further than Reigate Hill and you have to get an aeroplane to get there. And won’t they get lost amongst all those people? Apparently they want to see the Taj Mahal (I couldn’t be bothered to Doogle that too) and Jaipur and Mumbai and they are going to Cochin (where they have been before!). I don’t know what is wrong with Godstone Green! Anyway, all this talk of food has reminded me that I am hungry and I haven’t had my dinner yet so, with that, for now must paws … ????