Oh What a Night

It didn't go well when I tried to replace Hugo's dressings with fresh ones as instructed, and so we ended up back at the vets. He obediently lay down on the sofa beside me, and kicked up his legs in anticipation of a good tummy rub, rolling and twisting his eel-like body. Who could resist this? I scratched and tickled him for a while, and then began by removing the very strong adhesive strip which had been attached at the top of the bandages to stop him chewing them. But, horror, his hair and skin was coming off too. He yelped, and buried his head in my lap. With shaking hands I cut away the parts I'd managed to free without hurting him again, and started work on the three layers of dressing before getting to the sterile patch underneath. I might have guessed, it was stuck fast to the wounded pad of his foot, dried blood glueing it firmly in place. Could I continue? No, I could not, and so we leapt in the car in the rain and dashed into Fram. He stood gamely as the nurse applied spirit to the tough adhesive, carefully avoiding the sore bits where the flesh had been pulled away while I muttered about the idiocy of applying such a thing in the first place. With water she softened the dried blood and succeeded in getting the patch off painlessly too. Me? I held his brave little head, kissed his long sweet nose, and coo-ed at him, brave boy! beautiful boy! all the time feeling faint and sick. Newly clad in pale blue dressings this time, back home he strutted around the kitchen like a stiff-legged manequin, coming eagerly for the biscuits I just couldn't resist feeding to him.

Lea' me 'lone

At bedtime he left his cosy sofa and followed me upstairs. "Go down," I told him, "go back to your bed." But he walked into my room instead and curled up on the floor. I knew I couldn't send him away, not after what he'd been through, and he knew it too. I fetched his bed, and he got straight in and lay down, watching me. It was a long night. I was aware that he hadn't had a proper walk since lunchtime on Saturday, and nor had he performed as usual. Concerned that he might need to go out in the night, I only half slept. At 2.30 he tried to get into bed with me but I sent him away. At 5 he was wide awake and frisky. At 6.30 he tried again to climb up with me, and this time I got up and took him out to the field where he performed both of his jobs immediately. But now he wanted to play, and I was like a zombie. I'm still like a zombie; I don't cope well on less than eight hours sleep. He's fast asleep again, blue legs stuck straight out in front of him. I can only watch, and envy.

Extraordinary light on the distant trees