Boating blues

Last year when Murdoch had his check up and inoculations at the vet, the vet mentioned that his teeth need cleaning and checking. He was concerned that Murdoch had a bad tooth that possibly needed extracting. His view is that all dogs should have this done only once in their life time, and the decision was when to do it - as they get older their teeth need to be descaled and cleaned, but they must not be too old that the anaesthetic is of risk to them. At 12,5 years old Murdoch was a good age to have it done. Some vets use this as a way of making money and will recommend doing it more frequently, but Murdoch's vet said that was totally unnecessary. 

So today was the day - I took him in early this morning, and the vet said he would check his teeth properly once he was under anaesthetic to see if any needed extracting - it's also a trade off between a tooth being infected and needing to come out,  the dog needing the tooth to be able to chew properly. All went well and amazingly the vet did not have to extract any teeth. Adam came with me to fetch Murdoch again later this afternoon, as he was still groggy and could not walk properly so I needed Adam to pick him up into the car. He is fine and is now sleeping.

After I dropped him off this morning I drove a little further to this boat club, where these bright blues caught my eye. It made me think of the Oxford vs Cambridge boat race and their different colour blues. (Cambridge is a more sea green type of blue and Oxford is a more normal darker colour blue). The boat race takes place on 7th April, and many of the crew members are post graduate students, often from abroad - it can hardly be considered an amateur student race anymore. This year double Olympic gold medalist James Cracknell will be part of the Cambridge crew - at 46 years old he will be the oldest boat race competitor. He is currently doing a one year masters course at Cambridge.