Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day on this side of the Atlantic.  What a nice day I've had!  It started with a Skype Breakfast in Bed with my daughters... they had set their Dad up to bring me breakfast in bed along with the iPad so they could Skype me - how sweet is that?  After a lovely chat & lie-in, with hyper-terriers curled up beside me in non-hyper mode, it was time to haul myself out of bed...

It was a beautiful warm spring day and we decided to walk up to Reillanne market with the hyper-terriers.  There are lots of teeny-tiny flowers starting to appear everywhere - I think we are going to have a very verdant spring here after all the rain we've had, it should make for some nice photos.

After lunch (potato and jalapeno soup YUM, my favourite!) we went up to see the horses and gave them both a good scrub for a photo shoot.  Aero is moulting like mad, Flurry not so much, but it won't be long before he joins in as well.  Sneak preview of the photo shoot :

You'll find out more about this during the week!

Cinnamon had a go at horse-riding.  She had read the book and she knew that she should first introduce herself to the horse :

(by the way this is NOT my gobsmacked face)

Well, actually, it was more like Flurry saying :

HELLO!  YOU'RE VERY SMALL! CAN I EAT YOU?

and yeah, she snapped at him right after this photo.  He'll know not to try eating Small Brown Dog paw again...

Once I put her on his back, she was surprisingly not too petrified.

and I was even able to step away from her

I suspect if I was sitting on Flurry as well she'd be quite comfy, snuggled into me. I don't know that she'll ever match Frances Taylor's BeAnneDuvet, though!

After fun & games with the horses, we came home to find dinner had dried out, but fortunately it hadn't actually reached cremation point yet, so once I chucked a bit of hot water into it, it kind of reconstituted itself - duck cassoulet with lentils (and a glass of white wine..... ahhhh).

The weather has turned a corner and I reckon Spring is just a breath away.  No more excuses, it's time to get my saggy butt back in the saddle.  It WILL happen this week, and keep happening thereafter.

For those who have been waiting with bated breath (all two of you) here is The Gobsmacked Face :

Poor Aero thought I was going to assault him and ducked.  Bless.

(all photos in this post are courtesy of The LSH)

Not so bad, then!

I didn't like to say it - I was embarrassed for her.

But Cookie, despite making great strides recently off-leash, learning to come when called and learning to stay focussed on us, was VERY, VERY naughty.  Twice.

The first time was when I went for a walk in the woods above Reillanne - a familiar spot, one of my favourites.  I kept her on the leash until we got to the top and started to walk along the top of the ridge, then I let her loose and started throwing the ball.  She was good.  She was focussed on the ball and the treats that I gave her in exchange for the ball every time.  Then I got a text from the LSH.  Not an ordinary text, a Viber text, so it meant I had to go through a couple of extra steps to read it on my iPhone.  I took my mind off the dog while I pulled up the text, and WHAM! she was gone.  Not completely disappeared, never to be seen again sort of gone.  No, it was more a WHEE I'm free and I'm going to rampage through the woods, keeping an eye on you all the time but you're not going to catch me sort of gone.

I tried hiding from her, which used to work a treat with our Beardies years ago.  When she eventually found me, crouching behind a bush, she cocked an ear my way Oh there you are and galumphed merrily past me.

I tried feeding Cinnamon treats - jealousy has worked in the past, but not that day.

I tried throwing the ball, literally under her nose.  She couldn't have cared less, didn't even look at it.

I tried sitting down, hoping that she would come close and start sniffing at stuff nearby.  She seemed to feel that my staying still gave her license to roam further afield and completely disappeared into the woods, so deep that I could no longer hear her bell jingling.

At that stage, I thought the best thing to do was turn around and make my way back to the jeep, calling from time to time.  Eventually, she burst out of the trees far, far behind me on the trail and headed off IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.  I called, and she did a 180° turn and tore down the trail towards me, side-stepping neatly as she neared me and running past the proffered treat in my hand.

Eventually, by making a huge fuss of Cinny and stuffing her with treats, I managed to persuade Cookie to come close enough to grab her.  I made a fuss of her, although I wanted to throttle her, and she went back on the leash again.

A couple of days later, the LSH took her to the Watermeadows for a run.  I warned him. He said he'd leave her off anyway.

He unclipped the leash and she was gone like a snot from a sneeze.  The good thing about the Watermeadows, though, is that you can see where she is, most of the time.  She ran enormous loops, keeping the LSH roughly in the middle of her loops, but refused to come anywhere near him, not interested in the ball, not interested in treats.

Being better at throwing than me, he managed to throw a few treats right under her nose and got her attention that way.  He caught her in the end, but the two incidents gave us a fright and is making us rethink whether we'll ever be able to trust her 100%.

I went for a walk in the Watermeadows this morning with Gilla and Poppie.  This time, I reverted to our original policy of tying a long, light cord onto Cookie's harness.

I threw the ball, she tore after it, snatched it from under Poppie's nose and came galumphing past me, with her naughty can't catch me expression on her face.  I could, though.  I grabbed the trailing end of the cord and pulled her up short, and she came straight back to me, all happy and tail-waggy.

And that was the end of it.  We had a lovely walk.  Poppie and Cookie chased the ball and brought it back every time and got loads of treats.  Cinnamon chased moles (unsuccessfully).  They explored by the river and in the woods.  And Cookie kept coming back.

Maybe there's hope for her after all if we give it enough time.

Finally, good news on the Cinnamon front.  The vet rang this morning to say that her lumps are a benign kind of sebaceous gland tumour and are nothing to worry about.  Phew.

And REALLY finally, thanks everyone who voted for me in the ESMA awards - I didn't come anywhere (sniff!) but it was a huge honour just to be nominated.

Maybe I might share the Gobsmacked Face with you if I have enough glasses of wine some night.

How Many Cinnamons?

Sorry, I should have posted this earlier.
She was in six of the seven photos.
I hoped the ever-growing dot in these ones would give it away, and it seemed to work ok, most of you spotted her!

I think most people saw her in the bottom right corner of this one, but maybe not everyone :

and she wasn't in this one :

So well done to Dee, Grey Horse Matters, The Dancing Donkey and sort of well done to Nicola, who suspected me of being much more devious than I actually am.

And by the way, the purple bandage is still, miraculously, on her leg, and she only had to wear the Cone of Shame for one night.

She's in good form and enjoyed her walk in the snow today.

The Patient

The Patient arrived home this evening.

She's feeling a bit sorry for herself

but that didn't stop her enjoying a light supper.

Even Cookie was being nice to her

although she did steal her bed, forcing Cinny to take to the chair.

Unfortunately I found a second lump a couple of days ago, so that had to come off, too, hence the bandaged leg.  It's right on her knee, so she gives a little squeak every time she bends it.

Poor little pet.

How long before she rips that lovely purple bandage off?

Believe!

Believe in those who love you

Believe you can fly

Anything is possible

Even freedom.

Thanks to the LSH for capturing these beautiful photos of Cookie enjoying life.  
For anyone new to the blog, Cookie is a rescue dog.
We thought we would never be able to her allow off-leash.

Days of Whine and Horses

Since last weekend, Cookie has had another three off-leash walks - yes! Three!

The first one was with my friend J and her dogs, we went to the Watermeadows, which is a wide expanse of marshy fields, very open and safely tucked away from the main road.  We started off with four balls between us, and spent the first ten minutes throwing them enthusiastically.  Then one of mine got burst (it was a really cheap one), Cookie went off at a tangent to dig at some molehills and I had to follow her and bring her back.  Shortly after that, we realised that another ball was missing, presumably dropped by either Cookie or Tattie as they galumphed around.  At that stage, my nerve failed me and I put Cookie back on the leash, but she had a good twenty minutes running around with the other dogs, which was lovely to see.

Cookie and Poppie in the Watermeadows

On Saturday, the LSH and I went back to the Watermeadows, with our two dogs and our guest dog Poppie.  As soon as the ball was produced, Cookie was leaping up and down enthusiastically, whining and whimpering with excitement.  The LSH is better at throwing than me, and this time it went much better, with Cookie and Poppie galumphing around the fields merrily for a whole hour.  Cookie got distracted with interesting scents a couple of times, but we were delighted to see that when we moved on, she followed us.  She seems to be getting the idea that she needs to keep an eye on us!

The next day, we went for a walk along a ridge at the eastern end of the Luberon.  Once again, we had a couple of balls with us, and once again, Cookie was in a frenzy of excited concentration, whining and whimpering until the ball was thrown, vying with Poppie to be the one to retrieve it and and dashing back to us as fast as she could afterwards, with or without the ball, to receive her reward.

The only little glitch happened when we were homeward bound.  We met a large group of walkers, accompanied by a golden retriever.  Poppy was on point duty, and she froze when she saw them and then bolted up to the top of the ridge, from where she watched proceedings (she is very nervous of strangers).  Cookie rolled up her sleeves and went into attack mode, making a beeline for the retriever, barking hysterically as she ran.  She almost heeded our calls to return to our side, but a certain Small Brown Dog decided that Cookie needed reinforcements, and belatedly entered the fray, with her piercing yap echoing around the hills.  At the last minute, she went into "Oh hello, you look nice, let's play" mode with the retriever (who was very tolerant, bless him), which confused Cookie long enough for us to grab her.

Fortunately the walking group didn't seem to be offended by the Hyper-Terrier attack and Poppy quickly came down from the ridge once they disappeared, so it all ended well.  We do realise, though, that we are a long way from Cookie being reliable off-leash, our fingers are firmly crossed that we do eventually get there...

Rugby got in the way of any horse-riding on Saturday (Go Ireland! Only four more matches until we're Grand Slam Champions!) so on Sunday, straight after walking the dogs, we went up to the horses and headed out for a Long One.

Sleepy Aero ears heading out!

We went along the top of the ridge, Reclapous, for a while, then descended into the valley behind it, travelled the whole length of the ridge in the valley and then climbed up again at the Reillanne end, eventually rejoining the ridge-top walk where I've been with the dogs many times.  It was three hours in total, with a very long descent followed by a slightly less long, steeper ascent, through forest and scrubland the whole way.  Click on the link below to see a couple of extra photos.
Circuit de Reclapous at EveryTrail

My new size 2WW Renegades arrived during the week.  I put them on Aero's front feet, and Flurry got to wear the old, fairly worn size 2WWs on his hinds (they were originally his front boots for all of Le Big Trek).  He was noticeably more comfortable with them on, and I think I will continue to use them for any long rides we do for the foreseeable future, although I intend to experiment with leaving him fully barefoot for short rides.  Meanwhile his front feet continue to spread, which is a good thing I suppose, except it is now a struggle to get his right front Cavallo SportBoot on.  ARGH!  I don't want to have to buy more boots!!!

For the first time ever, one of the straps on a Renegade boot opened mid-ride - on one of Flurry's hinds, the oldest pair of boots we are using - and was so badly coated with mud that there was no way it was going to close again.  Fortunately we had our emergency kit with us and just swapped the old strap for a nice clean new one - Piece of Cake!  One of the reasons I like the Renegades!

How was Aero for this trek - the longest he has done so far?  Well, he was dead lazy going out along the first section of the ridge, but as soon as we turned to begin the descent from Reclapous, a new section which neither horse had seen before, he became much more alert.  He didn't put a foot wrong, but I could feel him "watching" behind with his ears the whole time, and at one stage he almost felt like he was scurrying along with his tail clamped down, anticipating that a mountain lion or a pack of wolves was about to spring out and attack him.  Fortunately, nothing awful happened, and at the far end of the ridge, he met his very first long, steep, rocky climb.  He tried to rush it initially, which works with short, steep climbs, but when you've got a steep 350 metre ascent, you have to take it steady, and eventually he did, following Flurry's lead and picking his ground carefully as we climbed.

We tried out another new bit of kit as well, the cantle-mounted saddlebag which I bought at Cheval Passion - you can just barely make it out behind the LSH's bum in the photo above.  Flurry got to carry it with two bottles of water and our picnic in it.  It's a bit small, but it worked fine, except when he shook himself - one of the bottles of water fell out, but I don't think that will happen if we pull the drawstrings tight enough!  Aero got to carry the pommel mounted saddlebag for the first time, I deliberately didn't put much in it, just the first aid kit and hoof boot repair kit.  As expected, he took no notice of the new attachment at all.  Next time, I'll put a bit more in it!  And then after that, my new Tapis Sacoches will have arrived :

And we'll have fun loading that up!

Doggy Tales

Last year in Poppy's house

Our old friend Poppy has come to stay with us for a week.

Cookie greeted her with a most unfriendly snarl, but within minutes they were playing rough and tumble around the house like they'd never been apart, while Cinnamon watched from a distance and gave grown-up growly warnings every so often : "Someone's going to get hurt"  "It'll end in tears"  "Don't come crying to me when you get hurt"



Poppy settled in quickly, even though I don't think she's ever been here before.  She slept in Cookie & Cinny's little bedroom last night and came for a 5km walk with us in the woods this morning, which she thoroughly enjoyed.  She loves the big picture window, and when she wasn't wrestling with Cookie today, she sat and looked out at the wolrd going by.  Evenings are sprawl-on-the-couch-watching-telly time...
although she does tend to hog the TV remote!


Cinnamon had her vet appointment this afternoon.  It's not awful news but it's not great news either.

On full alert in the waiting room

First of all, there's the little lump on her side.

It's grown a bit since I first noticed it in early December.  I was hoping it was something trivial like a blocked pore, but unfortunately the Vet thinks it's some sort of tumour.  The only thing to do is to remove it, do a biopsy to see what it is and then see what course of treatment is best (hopefully no treatment!)  She's booked in for Feb 14th - Valentine's day - and he will scale her teeth while she is anaesthetised too.

What I found worrying, though, was what he had to say about her heart murmur.  I've been a bit concerned about her because she's been wheezing and coughing every so often in the evenings.  When the heart isn't functioning properly, the lungs also don't work efficiently and can fill up with fluid, causing wheezing and a chronic cough - I was worried that what we were seeing was an indication that her heart was getting weaker.

I came away reassured on that front - he said the sort of wheezing and coughing we're looking out for is something that happens every day and goes on for ages - so we're definitely not there yet, and if/when we get there, we can adjust her medication to help.  Well, that much was good.

The rest of what he had to say was not so good.  He advised me to take the following precautions with her :

No big long hikes - five hours was the number he picked (does that mean 4.5 hours is ok?)

Don't take her hiking in the mountains - he specifically mentioned Mont Ventoux, but also said nothing over 2,000 metres

Be very careful with her in the summer, keep her indoors and cool, and only exercise her early in the morning or late in the evening when it's cool

In the winter, don't exercise her when it's very cold (she's kinda told us that herself, actually!)

Don't let her get hyper and excited - he told me a cautionary tale of a dog with a similar heart murmur who died after playing happily in its owners garden for the afternoon.

Which begs the question - is it better to mind her carefully and restrict what she does or should we allow her to enjoy a full, active life and die a little younger?

I think I could not, with a clear conscience, take her on long treks with the horses, which is something we've been hoping to do.  This is quite a blow - of the two dogs we have, she is the one who I know will follow faithfully beside us, no matter what we meet, whereas there is a good chance that Cookie will someday disappear in the wake of a cat/rabbit/goat/sheep on the side of a mountain.

We are going to have to rethink our plans and shape our treks to suit our dogs as well as our horses.

Oops

It was nearly midnight.  The LSH was taking the dogs out for their final wee while I gathered bit and pieces from the living room and brought them into the kitchen.  I walked into the kitchen just as the LSH came in from outside, looking vaguely stunned.

"You won't believe what I've just done," he said.

I looked.  He didn't have to tell me.

Cinnamon, the quiet, well behaved, sensible and generally obedient dog was standing by his side - on the leash.  Cookie, the rambunctious, disobedient wannabe-cat, chicken and mole-killer was presumably running riot outside somewhere, free.

Yes, he'd clipped the leash onto the wrong dog.

I put on hat, coat and scarf (it was -3 outside) and picked up a torch, while he got the squeaker from an old dog toy, hoping it would attract Cookie.  We went outside and listened - nothing.  Of course, she wasn't wearing her harness with the bell attached.  How on earth were we going to find her in the dark?

Next thing I saw her eyes glowing in the light of the torch as she whizzed towards us... and past us, intent on following all the delectable scents left by chooks and cats.  She zipped backwards and forwards for a few minutes, ignoring the squeaker and the treats we were waving at her (and feeding to Cinnamon).

Then, a miracle, and a big mistake on her part - she headed into the garage.  We legged it after her and pulled the double doors shut.  She still didn't want to be caught, though, and ran around investigating all the smells in the garage, until she disappeared into the back left corner and stayed there.  I followed her, wondering what was keeping her occupied.

Ugh.  Our neighbourhood cats have made that corner of the garage into a toilet and she was busy stuffing her face.  Yeuk.

I caught her easily while she was distracted.  No, Cookie, you're not kissing my face again for a while!

Note to Self : There's a very good reason for keeping the garage doors shut.

Crying Wolf?

It was a crisp, cold morning, there was still a light covering of snow in the field in front of our house,

Our house!

and the Alps were glistening prettily in the distance

Alps with a Frosting of Snow

so I decided to take the dogs for a walk in Reillanne forest.  Cinnamon politely declined, however, ("you must be joking, it's bloody freezing out there, Mum!") so I set off with Cookie.  The road was clear and dry all the way up the hill, but there was a nice covering of snow at the forest itself.

The entrance to Reillanne Forest from the car-park

Very inviting!

It seemed like no-one had walked through the snow before us, and once we turned off the lane pictured above onto a narrower trail (the one we followed on the horses last weekend) we were suddenly walking through virgin snow.

Virgin apart from some animal tracks, that is.

Fox? Dog?

I guessed these were fox prints - they were a little bigger than Cookie's.  I didn't think they could be dog prints, as there were no accompanying boot prints, but I suppose they could belong to a stray dog.

What on earth does this belong to? I wondered.

It was quite big (the oak leaf gives some idea of scale) and seemed to be cloven hoofed.  Too big for a sanglier, too big for a deer, it seemed large sheep-sized, or small cow-sized...

Because it was interleaved with these, I came to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that it was the slightly mis-shapen print of a hind foot of a very large dog :

They petered out after a while and then seemed to reappear, although the back feet were now leaving a clearer "paw" print.  This time, I actually did a double take, and realised just how big this animal's paws are.  I fumbled in my pockets for something to give scale and found a €20 note - this is just over five inches long and just over three inches wide.

Those are some seriously big paws.

Bearing in mind that there were still no boot prints around, was I looking at the tracks of a very large dog who had gone exploring in the woods on his own, or was I looking at wolf tracks?  Whichever it was, I certainly didn't want to run into the owner of those paws...

Cookie and I kept our walk short, just in case.

Wolf or dog, does anyone out there have an opinion?

The Homecoming

We were quite certain that Cookie and Cinnamon would react differently when they saw us.  Cookie would be ecstatic, whimpering, wriggling, wagging her tail as she tried to climb into our arms.  Cinnamon would be aloof, sticking her little nose in the air and refusing to engage with us.

After a long, tedious journey which I might moan about at a later stage, we finally arrived at the kennels in Montfuron to pick up Cookie.  Eager to release our poor neglected little dog from her prison, we leapt from the jeep and rushed into the building.  There she was, ready and waiting, in her crate.

In the middle of the cattery.

Eyeballing a FLUFFY PERSIAN in the cage beside her.

Undaunted, the LSH called her name a couple of times - she completely ignored him.  He bent down and quickly opened the cage.  She darted from the cage, dodged his waiting arms and tried to work out how she could get at that FLUFFY PERSIAN, caged only inches beyond her nose!

We gathered her bits and pieces and said goodbye to the owner's father-in-law, who had kindly agreed to meet us there late on New Year's Eve.  Then we grabbed Cookie's lead and hauled her out of the cattery, while she continued to pull and strain at the end of the lead, paws scrabbling on the concrete floor as she remained intent on getting into the FLUFFY PERSIAN's cage.  We had to drag her out to the car and bundle her into her crate in the boot, but she was in such a state of cat fixation that she still didn't realise that it was US.  About five minutes down the road, though, she began to whimper and whine - she had finally realised what was going on and that we were near home.

We carried on past our house to collect Cinnamon from our friends Bob and Jane.  We knocked on the back door, and Cinnamon ran over to it, yapping loudly (this is normal Cinnamon behaviour, she thinks it's her job to repel all boarders).  What was not normal was that when I opened the door, she immediately stopped barking and jumped up and down beside me, clearly thrilled to see us.  I picked her up and she cuddled into me, licking my face enthusuastically - exactly the reaction we had expected from Cookie, in fact, and the complete opposite to what we had expected from the Small Brown one!

We said our goodbyes and thank yous to Bob and Jane and made our weary way home.  Cookie continued to whimper in the back of the jeep while Cinny balanced on my knee, weaving from side to side as we rounded the corners.  Once inside the house, Cookie finally went wild, running around hysterically, checking all the rooms in the house to make sure no cats had broken in while we were away.

Two days later and she is pretty much back to normal.  She is reluctant to let us out of her sight, but is content to curl up and snooze so long as she can see us.  Cinnamon, of course, settled in straight away, but then again, while Cookie was shivering in the cold, mountain-top kennels on Christmas Day, Cinny was stretched out in front of a log fire, watching Lady and the Tramp.

It's no wonder poor Cookie was a bit upset, really!

Dear Cookie

Dear Cookie,


I am writing to let you know that I have decided to keep your human.  You have done a good job training him (he gives the most excellent belly rubs) but now it is time for him to be re-homed with a dog who is will truly appreciate his finer qualities, a handsome Anglo-Hispanic dog like me.

I have already decided which photo we will use for next year's Christmas card, this one is rather fetching, no?

You can keep the female human, but this one will be moving to Southern California with me shortly.

I cannot keep the smug grin off my face.

Sincerely,
Joaquin (Jack)

Crash! Bang! Boom!

Nature gave a magnificent display of pyrotechnics last night, with lightning flashing and thunder rolling from about 11pm right through to... well, it's mid-morning now and it's still going on.

The magnificence of it all began to pall somewhere around 1am, when we realised that any sort of sleep was unlikely and REM sleep would be impossible.

Somewhere around 2am I began to worry about Flurry and Aero, standing on a hill-top under a shelter with a corrugated iron roof.  What if they got a direct hit and were fried?  There would be two Crispy Critters waiting to meet me in the morning and my dreams of enjoying Provençe with my horses would be shattered.

A less dire scenario which played through my mind involved images of them galloping around in terror, breaking through the electric fence, which would of course be dead because surely the power would be out with all these bolts of lightning flying around.  After breaking through the fence, where would they go?  Not very far, maybe as far as the stables... oh no, there's even more metal on the stable roof to attract lightning... another Crispy Critter outcome... or maybe they'd bolt down the road, they wouldn't know where they were, they might run into a car...

These are the sort of things I worried about every time we had a big storm at home, but at least I could put a coat and wellies on over my pajamas and run out to check on the horses there.  I tried to reassure myself with logic - if they had taken fright and bolted, there was nothing I could do until daylight, anyway.  If they'd received a direct hit... well, again, there was nothing I could do.  Going up to check them was pointless until the morning, and anyway, putting myself at risk by standing on a hill-top in the middle of a thunderstorm was a pretty dumb idea.

I fell into a fitful sleep around 5am and woke with the daylight around eight.  I went up to check them, knowing that my middle-of-the-night imaginings were over-dramatic, but fully expecting to find Aero pacing anxiously up and down, soaked to the skin and shivering.  I was less concerned about Flurry - I tend to think of him as indestructible - but neither of them has ever been through such in intense, continuous electrical storm and I was quite certain they would both be a bit upset by it, and Aero would most likely be the worst of the pair.

I was met by a thoroughly soaked Flurry, who was standing outside the field shelter with a morose expression which would have put Eeyore to shame.

Meanwhile a slightly-wet, but warm and contented Aero was happily tucking into HIS hay in the shelter, making faces every time poor Flurry ventured under the roof.

I gave them both a scratch, informed Flurry that he won't be clipped today and gave him a heap of hay all to himself.  Then I went home for brekkie, much relieved.

☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂

I've been concerned about how Cinnamon would cope with a serious thunderstorm here since before we moved.  Due to her heart murmur, we can't give her sedatives, but during the first (brief) storm here ten days ago, she worked herself up into quite a state, panting, shaking and trying to dig a safe nest in the floor, with her little heart pounding all the time.  That time, she ended up underneath our bed, and once the storm moved on she calmed down pretty quickly.

This bout of thundery weather has been forecasted by meteofrance.com since the beginning of the week, and I decided to try dosing her with this stuff :

We've given it to the dogs for the ferry crossing the last two trips.  They were definitely more relaxed on the boat, especially the last time, but it's hard to know if that was because they were getting used to the journey or if the Kalm Aid was helping.

I gave her two squirts of it in her feed every day this week - it's one of those things that you can build up in their system.  Last night (and this morning) was a big test, and I have to say it has definitely made a difference.  She's not happy, but she's no longer so hysterically distressed that she can't cope with her fear.  There's no panting, no digging, no whimpering, just a little trembling and restlessness, and I'm no longer afraid she'll give herself a heart attack.

Thumbs up to Nutriscience and Kalm Aid.  I hope I can source some more here in France!

Canine Pilates

Cookie latest fixation is Pilates :

After five minutes of a workout, she's exhausted and fit only for her bed.

Have we finally figured out how to get to the bottom of her?

Dylan's Happy Ever After

My stalker at the back door

I've been holding off writing this in case I jinxed things, but it's been over a week now and all seems to be going well.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of a friend saw Dylan on Facebook and asked about him.  She came up and met him, accompanied by her two sons and their cousin.  The kids were a little awestruck by his size, but he was everything Tracie was expecting, and more.

My stalker at the patio door

We agreed that once he had recovered from being neutered, she would take him home on a trial basis, so last Wednesday she arrived to pick him up, along with her sister, whose car had a dog barrier fitted.  Dylan was coaxed into the car, we gave whatever advice we could think of, handed over the last few scoops of dog food and his micro-chip registration card and watched, fingers crossed, as the little hatchback drove out our gate, with Dylan's big goofy face looking out at us through the back window.

It sounds like Dylan is in the home from Heaven!  Tracie (being a big softy) couldn't bear to hear him whining when he was put to bed in the utility room, so he has ended up sleeping in her room.  The boys play ball with him until they're all just too tired for any more fun, or until he has burst all the balls they can find - whichever happens first!

Dylan loves tennis balls!  He eats at least three a day!

They live in a house in the country, with half an acre of garden, so he has loads of room to run around, and plenty of company during the day, as there are a couple of older children too.  The only problem is cats.  Tracie's daughter has two kittens, and Dylan thinks they're fair game, but hopefully he will soon learn they they're part of his new pack.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but when you see a picture like this :

Dog & Boy in perfect symmetry

you kinda get the feeling Dylan has come home.  He's got two boys to play with, plus two older sisters, PLUS Mum, who he is now shadowing as he shadowed me.  It's as close to doggie Heaven as you can get!

A tired dog and his boy

Best of luck, big guy!  Aero and Cookie miss you - and I'll be thinking of you as I clean the paw-prints from around the back door!

Dylan keeping Aero company during hot-tubbing