w-a-l-k.....

Thank-you for all the kindness you showed yesterday's disinterested but surprisingly symmetrical ponies, you're a super bunch :)

I'm lucky enough to have lived a full life (so far!) and yet I can say with certainty that there are few things happier than the look on the pooch's face when you say "Pushka.."(looks quizzically at you...) "do you want to go for a ......walk".....

Still, even now, at '12 and a bit' there's a howl, a spin and the inevitable dash for the door. Woe betide you if you're not actually ready to go - there will be insistent howling, whining and stampeding betwixt the door and your position until you are. So for many a year now we've had to spell the word out to each other as we make our morning plans.

We were told years ago that anything after 12 would be a blessing for a large dog, so even as she slows down we know it's our duty to see to it that as long as she wants to we make sure Pushka gets those walks on the fells. She's given us so much that it's the very least we owe her. Today at the vet was inevitable, good and yet to be known. On some level she is simply getting old, but even the vet calls her remarkably puppy like and enthusiastic. The good was that her hips are fine, but that means next week must be xrays to check her spine, which in turn me anesthesia, not nice. The vet is hopeful though that diagnosed correctly her stiffness and pain can be medicated - there'll be more days on the fells together yet.