Black Doggerel

( this is what Spike is looking at )

Spike is doing awesome well. I had this great long mental list of Things I Was Worried he Might Not Be Able To Do After His Surgery and he has now cleared the list completely. He can eat whole raw chicken quarters, albeit more slowly than before, and he does require them to be handed to him because he has trouble picking them up without his front canines, but once I do that he's good to go. He can gnaw on recreational beef bones, though he has voluntarily ceased his annoying habit of running round the room carrying one when he's very excited or wants to piss Squish off. He can play tug, although he needs to go carefully getting his initial grip right and his back teeth are far more destructive on the tug object than his front teeth were. He can catch tennis balls in midair. He can pick up and carry a football (soccer ball to you Colonials) although it does need to be a bit flabby for him to get a grip - I doubt he could do a fully inflated one any more. He can play the I'M A BIG HARD PROTECTION DOG BITING YOU game with me and he still drops my sleeve the moment I tell him.

My heart thumps every time I look at him. You didn't die, I say to myself in wonder. I got to keep you.

I have not forgotten gratitude or the list of people I am making art for. I love all of you.

I've been having a bad brain week, or more accurately few weeks, hence the lack of updateage. I sort of wanted to write a great long post about panic attacks, drugs, fear and mental illness but ...I don't think I can get any of that out right now. It's too loud and tangled and I doubt my ability to make sense about it. It'll go away and maybe I'll try and write it then. I don't know.


meanwhile, it is my niece Maya's fourth birthday today. FOUR. Holy crap.

oh yes - you know that TV meme that's been going the rounds? I'm too weltschmerzy and low energy to do it myself but my thanks to whoever it was that recommended Fringe. TOTALLY IN LOVE. Am also, as a direct result of said meme, in love with Justified, but I remember who recommended that and she isn't on my list. ANYWAY THANK YOU.

When you have a smart dog who is also a very good communicator, you need to listen to what he's telling you. I ought to know this by heart now and yet I still fail.

Squish doesn't do this. While he isn't precisely mistrustful, he doesn't come running to me the way Spike does, counting on me entirely to make his problems go away. (This is probably just as well or he'd be in my face 9383303 times a day crying about how the cat got too near his bone, Spike stood too near his food bowl or someone got a bigger piece of liver treat than he did. Squish's priorities are very Squishcentric.)

But Spike does. It wasn't luck that I spotted his cancer in time to do something about it. It was because he spent several days laying his head in my lap with a worried expression until I finally thought to look in his mouth. I don't know how much longer it might have taken me to find it if he hadn't.

So today he was doing the same thing, and I rubbed his ears and told him how cute he was, and didn't really listen because I was distracted and humans are way dumber than Border Collies. Turns out he was trying to tell me that he had the runs and wasn't going to be able to hold it in very much longer, and I really should have fucking listened; we'd have both had a much pleasanter day.

Oh well. It was way past high time that I threw out that old manky mattress that was on the floor anyway.

( This is my message to you-oo-oo )

one day soon, I may post something other than photos and dog vids. But that day is not today.

Dear Diary - Today my collie got bathed and the entire flat got soaked. Afterwards we went out and played ball in the park.

( It was the best day ever. )

PSSST. CLICK HERE FOR PUPPIES. THEY HAVE PINK TOESES AND NOSES. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

( There are no dog noses whatever under this cut. Click it anyway )

We weren't supposed to take the cone off till tomorrow, but I got sick of hearing the disgusting noise he was making obsessively licking at the inside of it. He's spent the last three hours obsessively licking every inch of himself he can reach, which I once would have called a disgusting noise, but compared to the conelicking it's MUSIC TO MY FUCKING EARS.

SPIKE SAYS HAI THAR LIVEJOURNAL!

It's ridiculous hot here, his cone acts like a miniature head-greenhouse, I have to rub Vaseline on his lower lip several times a day which he loathes, I can barely walk and we're all grumpy as fuck. Also it took me seven attempts to take this one picture because he kept either rolling, jerking his head out of focus or staring at the cat over his shoulder at an odd angle that made him look whale-eyed and traumatised.

but that's okay <3

aargh fuck oww. My twisted knee was nearly BETTER. I could nearly walk again. Then last night I bent over to slide Spike's cushion from his spot by the Uncomfy Chair over to be by the bed, and my knee unexpectedly made this sharp crack-pop sound.

I have a friend with a chronically bad knee and I've heard her use the phrase "my knee exploded" before. I hadn't realised how literally she meant it. EXPLOSION OF PAIN. I couldn't sleep last night despite the icepack and painkillers, there was no position I could rest it in that didn't throb with pain and I couldn't stop fretting about how the fuck I was going to walk dogs like this. Getting from the Uncomfy Chair to the bathroom or kitchen is just about possible but unprecedentedly difficult. Down the stairs didn't seem likely.

In the end I scooted downstairs on my arse with the dogs offleash and let them out to piss in the communal back garden. This is strictly not allowed in the tenancy agreement and it worries fuck out of me to resort to it, even though downstairs neighbour does it every day with his greyhound. But it was either that or have them both piss on the floor in here, what can you do? Spike didn't drink for a day and a half after he had that accident on the floor last week and I'm not risking that again.

happier news: Spike had his stitches out yesterday, barring a few inside his mouth that he'd broken. The vet put those back in with dissolving sutures so we won't need to go back. The lab results are back on his poor departed nose, and all the indications are that we got a good clear margin and Mouth Thing is no more. YAYYYY WOOO HOOO YAYY!

they also both really enjoyed the back garden. I was too paranoid to leave them out very long but they ran and bounced and were happy.

my cat boxes need emptying and my kitchen is an unholy shithole. I was looking forward to ...not doing those, but having gotten them done. Now I can't even fucking stand up without a piece of furniture to lean on and fuck fuck fuck OW. Did I say ow? OW.

Last night Spike found a two litre plastic bottle on our late walk. The cone prevented him from getting his mouth to it, so he batted it about charmingly with his paws and the edge of the cone and really enjoyed himself.

So I thought I'd film him doing the same thing in daylight. This did not quite go according to plan.