Stinky butts!

This morning I found four rollup fag ends at our kitchen door - ie in Archie's play area - from the flat upstairs. I put them in the bin, muttering quietly to myself about ignorant folk. They'll be moving out soon, so let it pass. Later there were two new ones. That straw broke the camel's back! I retrieved them from the bin and stomped up the stairs popped up to investigate.

When the girl opened the door I proffered the stinky butts and said, 'Would the person who is throwing fag ends into our back yard kindly decease... er, no, I mean, desist...'

I asked if she had visitors, as this only happens now and again. Turns out, her parents are visiting. It's a grown up mature person who chucks fag ends out of windows with careless disregard!! Somehow this is worse. I'm expecting a knock on the door and a profuse apology some time soon. Perhaps with chocolates...

Archie's ears have bothered him off and on since he was a wee baby, sorry - puppy... We clean them regularly - he lies and lets JR clean them now, no bother. But every now and then he'll have a very vigorous scratching session - you can hear him all over the house - sounds like Thumper in 'Bambi' (for those of us old enough). I suspect it's because we didn't get all the original medicine in the exact right place (he put up a strong resistance to anything going in his ears) and so didn't quite knock it on the head. Though the vet did check him a week later and declared him clear ('£47.50 please').

So today we took him back to the vet, who announced that his ears were 'occluded'. His ear canals had too much hair in them (schnauzers are prone to this) for any medicine to ever get into the actual canal. The only thing to be done is to sedate him and clear the hair completely. So tomorrow he goes in for the day. ( I suspect it won't be '£47.50 please') Once they're clear, we'll then be able to keep them hairless. Poor wee chap - he doesn't know it yet.

We got a new retractable lead. JR finally refused to use my improvised long lead (a piece of rope) declaring it an embarrassment, and so now we have a retractable one like everyone else.

Archie hated his rope lead too, but not for the same reason. And he will hate this posh new retractable one just as much.

PS Looking at last year's blips, it was around this time we first saw this flat and loved it. And here we are - in it!