Sunday, 24 May 2015

Doggy Fat Camp ... and a Non-Peaceful Bank Holiday Weekend

Image result for fat pug

Thank you for all the comments yesterday, you really helped me to think this through.  After lots of reading, including your helpful comments, I do not think I will be taking any of the dogs for their annual boosters next year.  They are all covered until January 2016 which gives me plenty of time to check with the kennels if they can still stay there when we need them too.  I have been informed on good authority that as they were vaccinated and we showed proof of this on their first stays, this will not be a problem.

If by any chance that changes it will not be the end of the world.  Lovely Hubby will be giving up his 'day job' not long after that and if we do go away anywhere there will be so many animals to look after here on our smallholding that farm sitters, either professional, friends or family, will be the only option anyway.

Suky is a bit better this morning, as she ate no breakfast yesterday, refusing to eat at all and then ate her tea and brought it all back up immediately afterwards last night we decided to weigh her this morning.  She had gone from 12.1kgs on Friday evening to 11.6kg this morning.  I thought that while her tummy was so empty this morning I would reduce her ration of dog food and start her on her diet to lose this excess weight.  She ate her breakfast this morning and kept it down and even trotted happily around the field with Lovely Hubby and the other dogs and Ginger, when she got back she didn't even attempt to eat Mavis's leftovers, so I think it has worked with the smaller measure of food filling her up enough.

Her poor little knee is still puffy and swollen where the vet manipulated it, and I am very cross about this .... we knew it was a problem and we have always taken great care not to exacerbate it and then along comes someone who makes it ten times worse just to prove a point.  If at all possible I will not be letting her have an operation.  If it suddenly 'goes' on her or gets worse in any way of course I would get her veterinary help immediately, but I am not prepared to put a dog, especially a Pug  through a general anesthetic and an operation that involves shaving part of her shin bone unless it is absolutely and totally necessary.

Suky updates, including weight loss will be ongoing :-)

Meanwhile, outside on this not peaceful Bank Holiday weekend we have had the constant churning of a cement mixer as the retaining wall has been going up, layer by layer.

Rosy inspecting the work at close of play at 7pm last night.

This morning the guys are all back, two welders and two brickies.  The mesh gets inserted on to the uprights that are inbetween the layers of blocks and welded into place.  Then the front wall will be bricked up a few layers higher and once this has set, concrete will be poured between the blocks. 

 Once this has set another few layers of blocks will go on top and concrete poured into the gap, and this is repeated over and over until the retaining wall is the right height and can be topped off.  The back of the wall will then be infilled with a lot of the earth that was removed before it was built.

So one thing we are not having is a quiet and restful holiday weekend, although we are braving the rain this afternoon, leaving the builders to their own devices and taking ourselves off to look around Plas Cadnant, highly recommended by our neighbour Mary and somewhere we tried to get to when we holidayed on Anglesey earlier in the year, but it was closed on the day we visited.

As it's called the 'Hidden Gardens' we are just hoping they are not too well hidden ;-)

Sue xx


  1. Well if you ever need a house/animal sitter let me know, me and hubby were discussing this morning what we should do when we move, and some of the things we discussed were dog walking, pet/house sitting. x

  2. Poor old Suky, glad she is feeling a bit better! I have been dog sitting for a fortnight for a little dog whose owners are not keen to have her vaccinated so you are not on your own. She is much happier here in our home where she is allowed on the sofas and in the garden and has daily walks than she would be in kennels, They say they feel much happier about leaving her and don't worry like they would if she was in kennels.

  3. I'm definitely going to research the homeopathic alternatives to immunisations. It might be worth checking with your kennels to see if they would accept dogs using homeopathic alternatives to injected boosters. It annoyed me when the vet said that every 3 years would be fine for immunisations. Why in that case do they do them every year? Someone said to me recently that you can hear the till go 'ching' as soon as you open the surgery door! When we took our dog in to be spayed last year, her bad leg was badly swollen afterwards. I wondered if they'd been manipulating it while she was in.

  4. So sorry to read that Suky was feeling so ill after her visit to the vet. Glad she's feeling better now and hope she continues to feel better and her knee swelling goes down.

  5. You might want to research turmeric for dogs, it's a wonderful anti-inflammatory, we use it for our horses and it is safe for dogs to, obviously needs to be introduced in very small quantities.

  6. a good thing for Slipping patellas and other injuries is vit c. I have no idea why vets insist on manipulating the patella to pop out of the joint just to prove a point. Probably was thinking the op fee would pay his mortgage this month.
    Sounds like you are doing the best job leaving it alone and getting her to lose weight yet build up muscle tone. There are some good webpages out there written by vets who disagree with operating unless its a major problem and have set up alternatives.

  7. We made a similar decision. We had our puppy vaccinated when she was desexed, but she will not be going back for annual boosters, I think its just the vaccine manufacturers and vets trying to make more money out of us. Every season we have a "dog illness" scare, and its all over the news to get your dog vaccinated.

  8. Poor Suky! We had a vet who seemed to make our dog worse when she had a leg issue - never saw her again. We refused to give our pup the kennel cough vaccine (and a couple of others) - they just made her sick and we refused even though they kept reminding us. Ugh. We use a pet sitter - less traumatic for the girls (cat & dog) and no need for certain vaccines. They both get rabies shots and that is it from the vet. (Flea & heart worm for dog from us). Hope Suky is better soon and I love watching the progress on the property!

  9. Poor Suky, hope she gets better soon, so bad that the place that should make her better made her worse :( Great to see all the changes you are making and the differences from week to week :)

  10. Wishing Suky well. I never visited Plas cadnant in all the time my mum lived on Anglesey ! It looks delightful.

