Holly and her present Christmas 2013

Holly loves opening presents, she gets to help me with mine but always gets one of her own to open all by herself. This year was no exception.

Wait? Whaddayamean "wait"

Oooh, a parcel. Ok that was worth a short wait.

Better check the label, see who it's for

Is it really for me?

it's mine! best open it

Now if only I could find a loose corner...

nope, it's well wrapped

lets try the other side

success!

time to shred the wrapping

nice big chunk off that time

what the heck is that?

hmmm, a penguin but it's still caught up in the paper

come here little penguin

must free penguin from wrapping paper

nearly there

 free at last

prepare to be chomped

squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak

 

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas 2013 from Holly, Linus, Olaf and Hannah.

Linus and Olaf are not too bothered about Christmas, for them the main attraction is screwed up balls of wrapping paper to play with. I stopped putting up a big tree and now just have a small one that stands about 14" high and fits perfectly on the end of the mantlepiece. If Linus and Olaf ever mature into sensible, trustworthy cats then I may get a big tree again.

Holly on the other hand
knows all about Christmas and loves it. She is not keen on loud noises and hates crackers being pulled when she is in hearing distance. Unless she is pulling the cracker. One year I held out a cracker to her for her to sniff at, only she grabbed the end in her mouth and pulled! Oh what fun she had, she 'won' the cracker pull and now had the majority of a cracker, a hat, joke and toy. I managed to pick the toy up and move it out of reach because she was too busy shredding the cracker, hat and joke trying to find the snap. She has pulled a lot of crackers since then, has shredded a lot of hats and is still trying to find the snap.

Holly does not like wearing clothes, it's only the past year or so that she has started to accept being loosly covered by a blanket when it's cold. However she loves her tinsel and jingle-bell collars and will do anything to avoid me when I try to take it off her. At her first christmas I had a spare piece of tinsel so I wrapped it round a spare collar and put it on her for Christmas day expecting her to wriggle out of it and shred it. But she wore it all day and looked longingly at it on Boxing day waiting for me to put it on her again. Since then I have made her a jingle-bell collar, a fleecy jester-style ruff with a bell on the end of each spike. She loves that one too but only gets to wear it for short periods of time as it can be very noisy.

She also knows what presents are and loves to open them and shred the wrapping paper before playing with her new toy.

Holly in 2005 with her newly made jingle collar

the suspicious look was due to being made to sit still and have her photo taken rather than being allowed to run round and have fun.

 

four little ducks

Today is the 20th of December and according to my calculations (finger counting off days on the calendar) we have made it to 2 years, 2 months, 2 weeks and 2 days post-diagnosis.

If the bingo calling for number 22 is two little ducks then today there are four of them around and about.

It's been quite a roller-coaster ride, especially the last few weeks! But Holly is still rolling, usually through the stickiest, smelliest, dirtiest puddle of slime that she can find, and still demanding we walk further and faster than I think we should through everything the weather can throw at us.

At the start of 2013 and again in November I thought that I would be saying goodbye to her, now I am thinking that I will have to go out and buy her a Christmas present.

All up to date

All the posts prior to this one have been written from memory, the earlier they were the longer back they occurred.

The more recent events have been written only a few weeks or days after they happened but have been sitting and waiting to be published in the right order.

I have now published everything I have written so this post is to mark the transition from memory to current events. I am going to try and post regularly, at the very least once a week. If nothing exciting or interesting happens then rather than just post an entry that says nothing happened I will dig through the photos and post some of my favourites and tell you events that surrounded them. Or I will hunt through my memories of things the animals and I have done over the years and find a few to make you laugh.

lovely long muddy walk

Saturday 7th December, one week on from her first walk after the enforced rest and it's time to meet our dog-walking geocaching friends for a lovely long muddy walk.

It starts with a rather rapid descent, which Holly races down as fast as she can, but fortunately manages to slow herself down for the corner. After that it's fairly much on the level with a good chunk being on an old railway line.

The route back uphill to the car is via a different path which is longer but on a gentler incline. The walk ended up being 4.6 miles long and there were a few very muddy patches. Holly is once more covered in mud so it's going to be bath-time when we get home.

The leg is very much as it was last Saturday, still hanging a bit funny but no more spasms so it looks like the pills and potions and injections are working. I am glad I gave her a chance as I once more have a happy dog with a zest for life, or at least for long muddy walks!

30th November

Saturday 30th November, Holly's first walk since the unplanned trip to the vet on Tuesday.

The leg hangs a little bit funny in the harness but there has been no re-occurence of the jitters, twitches and spasms - phew!

My plan was to take her on a short walk around the local park, somewhere around three quarters of a mile.

Holly has other plans and as soon as we leave the house it's very obvious that she is thrilled to be back out and walking again. She sets a fast pace and heads straight for the footpath that leads to the big park. I turn her round and head her off a couple of times, but each time she back-tracks and goes for the footpath.

So we go to the big park and do a complete lap, then it's back through the village to home making a total of 2.5 miles, all at the fast pace she set at the start of the walk.

An hour or so later I have to go out to ring for a wedding, Holly is unimpressed that I am not taking her with me and takes herself off to bed and won't even accept a dog-choc-drop from me as a consolation token for not being able to come with me. Oh dear, it can't be a teenage strop as she is only 11.5!

29th November

Holly continued to improve on the Thursday, she slept a lot and by Thursday evening was back to her usual alert, demanding, noisy self. Squeaking toys at the key point in the dialogue of whatever I was watching on the t.v. and letting me know that it was time for food.

On the Friday morning I phoned the vet to give them an update. The leg was much improved, it still isn't totally hanging straight and doesn't always lift when going to the toilet, but I wasn't expecting things to be exactly the same as before.

She still has not had a walk as I am a little worried that the snug fitting harness that attaches her to the cart will trigger things off again. So despite her going a little stir-crazy she is having one more day of forced rest and we are going to have a short walk in the morning.

But we have reached and passed the 48 hour mark without a return of the spasms and if all goes well with walkies in the morning I might just start to breath a little easier again.

27th November pm

I got back from the shopping trip with most of the things I had gone for (the rest were now on order and I could just collect them when they arrived).

Holly had moved while I was out, not very far but she had flipped from lying on one side to being on the other and had also moved to a different location in the room. So I was happy that she had not lost her independent mobility.

When we went round the garden the leg wasn't hanging quite as dead as before, it still turned out a little bit but nowhere near as much as it had been. She also moved it out of the way when she went to the toilet, not as much as the other leg but it is still a little bit of movement.

So after another stomach flipping dip and swoop on the cdm roller-coaster it's time to take a few days off walking to let everything properly calm down and return to what passes for normal.

27th November - am

I had booked Wednesday 27th November off work weeks ago to go Christmas shopping. I don't enjoy shopping and really don't enjoy crowds so I usually book a day off mid-week in either late November or very early December to do any Christmas shopping that I need to.

Holly had not moved at all overnight. She had wobbled in from the garden, laid on the bed and allowed herself to be covered by a blanket. Normally she shuffles and re-arranges herself several times a night, but in the morning she was exactly where I had left her, even the blanket was still tucked round her.

With some intrepidation I reached out to touch her thoroughly expecting to find her cold after passing away in the night. But she was warm and still breathing. She was still a little bit dopey but ready and willing to get up and go have breakfast.

The leg twitching had stopped, however the leg was not moving at all. When I supported her with the scarf for a trip round the garden it just hung there. I checked and it did still have a pulse. However Holly was not willing to move on her own, she just laid wherever you put her and waited there for you to come back and move her again.

Two big questions, was I doing the right thing? should I abandon the shopping trip?

She had eaten all her breakfast with great enthusiasm and we were only 12 hours into the 48, only one quarter of the way. I didn't have a lot of things to get so I decided to go shopping so it was all out of the way. I didn't think I would be gone for more than 3 or 4 hours and me sitting and watching her wasn't going to help either of us.

So I took my list and went and caught a bus into town.

26th November

Tuesday 26th November 2013 started out like any other day. We got up, the animals got fed and I went to work.

I got a phone call at about 3pm from my Mum,she had  called in later than normal to let Holly out (she had been Christmas shopping with Grandma) and had noticed that her right leg was all cramped up. I said not to worry as it had happened before and it usually relaxed with some gentle massage.

When I got home the back right leg was all cramped up - imagine all the muscles in the leg contracting and pulling the leg right up and into the body. However when I touched it I realised it was not like before, I could feel the muscles spasm-ing. We did the usual things, a trip round the garden and pills in some ham plus some treats, which all vanished with the usual speed. Then I had another go at massaging the leg. The massage didn't appear to do any good so I very gently pulled her leg straight, mostly to see if I could or if the spasms were too strong. As the leg got to almost full extension it rotated and ended up pointing out sideways.

I was somewhat surprised at that, so pushed it back to cramped up and it rotated back in again. I tried this a few more times and got the same results each time. Extend, rotates out. Contract rotates back in again.

I supported her weight and had a good feel of the joints and bones in both hips and hind legs, everything felt OK to me but the extension/rotation thing was just too strange and bizarre. All I could think of was a dislocating hip or a broken bone. Time for a trip to the vets.

It felt like a lifetime had passed since getting home from work, but after checking the clock it was only about 10 minutes. The journey to the vets was less than an hour but felt like several more lifetimes, especially when I had to stop for fuel and got caught up in roadworks and the tail end of commuter traffic. There were lots of things going through my mind on the drive to the vets, none of them particularly good, but the one that really stuck out as the strangest was "Do I have enough Christmas cards left over if I have to re-write them?"

The vet agreed with me that something odd was going on and that dislocation was an obvious conclusion. But after feeling the joints all move and giving her a much more thorough going over than I had he said no to dislocation and no to a break.

So what now? Is this the end of the line for Holly, is it time to call it a day?

I wasn't sure and said so, I also said that apart from the leg muscles spasm-ing she was still Holly, still eating, leading me a merry dance around the garden and expecting to go for a walk that evening. Holly had been laid flat on the floor looking miserable, at the word "Walk" her head snapped up, the ears were up and the eyes were bright and shiny and full of hope that we were going to go out and find some mud to squelch through. I knew then that if there was a chance to get past this she needed it.

What to give her, we discussed pills and potions and I said she was no longer on the plt tablets as she was no longer itchy. So she got a couple of injections, a muscle relaxant and a pain killer, we didn't think she was in pain but better safe than sorry, and we restarted the plt tablets. She also happily accepted a treat from the jar on the reception counter. If no improvement in 48 hours then back in probably for the final time.

I was warned that the two injections would make her a bit dopey.

That evening dopey was not even close to describing Holly's state. The poor old dog struggled to lift her head and when you looked into her eyes you could see they were not really focusing on anything and when she blinked her eyes closed and opened at slightly different times to each other.

She wasn't just away with the fairies, she was off leading the parade through fairy-land.

It was very hard not to laugh at my poor old spaced out dog lying on the sofa dribbling and snoring.

Writing Christmas Cards

Its the 4th weekend in November. I need to write the Christmas cards that are being posted overseas, but if I am writing them I may as well go with the flow and write all my Christmas cards ready for posting and delivering over the coming weeks.

I don't send loads of cards (around 35), but most are to similarly animal mad friends so there are quite a few that are sent from Hannah, Holly, Linus and Olaf. So now I have a new dilemma, do I dare put Holly's name in the cards that the animals appear in?

She seems healthy enough and is certainly active and full of the joys of autumn leaves (much better than spring) so I decide that I will. I even seal the envelopes shut and stick stamps on them read for posting. I do hope I have not just jinxed everything.

Mud, mud, glorious mud!

As October progressed it started raining again, rain means mud and Holly is in her muddy element on walks.

This did mean that now lifting a dog in a cart over a style was not quite as desirable as it had been, because now you were likely to end up with just as much mud on you as Holly had had on her. But we continued to lift her over styles and go on muddy walks because she was thoroughly enjoying herself.

There was one field that the mud was just a bit too deep for Holly to make it through. I didn't realise this at the time when I picked her up and passed her over the style to a friend. But he had realised and instead of putting her down carried her all the way over the deep mud to the grass. Proof he is probably as barmy as the rest of us as Holly plus cart (plus mud) probably weighs almost 30Kg.

Holly's knight in muddy armour

Happy Muddy Puppy!

2 years on

Before I knew what was happening the 2 year post diagnosis milestone was looming large on the horizon, our 2000th geocache find was also fast approaching. Could we somehow manage to celebrate both things on the same day?

So there followed a few weeks of frantic planning and co-ordinating and lots of not finding any geocaches!

With five days to go we still needed 9 geocache finds, so evening walkies became geocaching walkies. Over the next few evenings the GPS, torch and mobile phone batteries all ran out of power and switched themselves off at the most unhelpful moment, but we found some lovely places to stroll around that we will visit again in daylight and we also took the geocache tally to 1999. I resisted the urge to sing the song by prince of the same name, there were other people around.

The day of the celebrations, now dubbed Y2K, dawned dry and sunny. We had arranged to meet some geocaching friends and go for a walk to a waterfall to celebrate with the geocache at the waterfalls being find number 2000 for Holly and me. We all met up and had a lovely walk through the woods to the falls where we stopped for a while to partake in drinks and nibbles (lemonade and home made millionaires shortbread for the humans, Burns kelties dog treats for the various hounds) much to the amusement of other walkers and joggers passing by.

It was a lovely trip out and well worth a bit of rushing round to find the extra geocaches for.

The Waterfall

Holly at the falls

Is it cruel?

A question I have asked myself many many times since October 2011 and will probably ask myself more and more as time goes on is "Am I being cruel to Holly?"

It's a problem that all animal owners come across, knowing when it is time to let them go.

A few people have told me that Holly must be suffering and how could I consider letting her live with such a condition. These are people who have never met Holly. Some of them have subsequently met her and changed their minds.

Everyone who meets her tells me how wonderful it is to see her out and about enjoying herself and having such an obvious zest and enthusiasm for life. This is usually just before they get run over by a zesty enthusiastic Holly who very much of the opinion that they should watch where she is going and get out of the way.

She does love her walks and knows when it is a Saturday and we are going walking with friends. I try to have a lie-in on a Saturday but she wakes me up somewhere between 6 and 7am (alarm is set for 7.30am) and then keeps up a constant whine and natter until we arrive at the start of the walk. I then spend the next 5 minutes or so issuing sterner and sterner "Stand Still" commands so I can hook her into the cart, she doesn't want to wait and keeps trying to set off to greet all our friends (human and dog) and get on with the walk.

She loves her food too, well being part Labrador she will! She can be apparently fast asleep on the sofa and I will be in the kitchen preparing dinner. At some point I will be aware that I am not alone, I will turn round and she will be there waiting for a tasty morsel to come her way. The sound of food will have invaded her dreams, woken her and be enough incentive to propel herself across the floor (using her front legs with hind legs trailing behind her) and into the kitchen.

So, am I being cruel? Probably not just yet. She gets help when she needs it, but she does prefer to move on her own. When we use the scarf-sling she chooses the direction and speed of movement unless told to wait while I open and close doors. But I have started to give serious thoughts to where to draw the line. I know the common advice is to write down their favourite five things to do and then when they cannot do three of them call it quits. But I think with Holly it will have to be when she can no longer be independently mobile.

A little Olaf Moment

Olaf is a sweet kitty and very loving in his own special way.

As a kitten Olaf fell of a scratching post and landed on his head scrambling the contents and leaving him a little brain damaged. So it takes him a little time to learn new things and if you try to teach him too many new things too quickly he forgets something he learnt earlier.

It took him a long time before he would get up on the sofa, and even then he would usually jump down again after a minute or so. By the time he had been here a year or two he would happily sit on the sofa with other people and animals, providing he wasnt being touched.

Fast forward another year and he would now happily stay on the sofa with contact and even take a nap.

For many years he has stayed at that level and been happy. This summer he decided to try sitting on my knee. He has done it once or twice before of his own free will but never stayed more than a minute or two. But he tried it a few times before returning to his usual spot next to me with a paw resting on me to check I was still there.

In November he suddenly worked out that sitting on my knee was good. So he does, at every opportunity. And he stays there, all curled up and purring like an outboard motor. Now the idea is embedded in his head it's very hard to shift it, so every time I sit down he leaps up onto my knee. Not a problem if I am settling down to read or watch t.v. But he looks most put out if I lift him off again because I was sitting down to eat dinner or just sitting on the steps for long enough to tie my shoe laces (safer than bending over and risking another black-eye from Holly).

Whoops!

As the messages that run up and down the spine gradually decline the information that the brain sends to the back end about walking and so-on stop getting through and Holly's walking got worse and worse.

Similarly messages from the back end of Holly that are sent to the brain are also not getting through.

This can be good, it can also be bad.

On a positive note one of the first set of messages to stop being transmitted with any reliability was pain. She can't tell and can't feel pain when she grazes her toes or I accidently stand on one, the downside is she doesn't know when she is injured so she is subjected to regular check-ups by me, but as the reward for being poked and prodded is treats she doesn't make too much of a fuss.

The biggest downside, after the walking, is control of the internal plumbing. I think I am lucky that so far she seems to have retained around 95% control of the flow, but what she has lost is the ability to know when she needs to 'go'.

I've got quite good at reading the signs and knowing we need to take a trip round the garden. The problem is when I don't spot the signs, then we have the odd accident in the house. The accidents mortify her, so I try very hard to make sure she doesn't have any. I never scold her for having an accident because she cannot help or control it. I discovered that letting her watch the clean-up helps her morale because she knows all the mess has gone, when I clean up without her there she keeps returning to the spot to check it has been cleaned.

Most of the time the accidents are my fault for not spotting the signs, but sometimes I lay the blame for them at the feet of those inconsiderate people who pinch the wires and cables from railway lines making the trains all run late so I get home later than normal.

No More Weapon of Mass Destruction

Holly used to own a WMD, her tail.

It didn't just wag it thrashed from side to side, up and down and, when she was thoroughly over-excited, it would go round and round at a speed that made us all wonder when she was going to take-off like a helicopter.

She has wagged over more mugs of tea than I can remember, knocked over ornaments and vases (with and without flowers), knocked baubles off the Christmas tree, broken fragile stems on plants in the garden and it has caused her to leap up barking furiously because there was a banging on the door - silly dog, it was your tail wagging and thumping on the floor.

It's got her into a few scrapes as well. She wagged it into a fire and singed all the fur at the end, thankfully not down to the skin but the whole house and Holly smelt of burning hair for quite some time after. I also lost count of how many doors and walls with still slightly damp paint on them also gained a stripe of Holly fur where she got too close and wagged her tail into the wet paint. She also managed to somehow wag it into a bucket of wallpaper paste miraculously without knocking the whole bucket over.

From about the 1 year post diagnosis point I started to notice that the tail wagging wasn't quite as furious as it used to be. Over the next 12 months or so it continued to reduce and subside until now (I am writing this entry in December 2013) it mostly just hangs down. Every so often a bit of message will get through and there will be a gentle swish, but nothing that would endanger even a flimsy polystyrene cup of tea.

For me it's the little things that seem to be the hardest to accept. Realising that her tail would no longer wag and bash everything was incredibly sad, it was always an audible indicator of how she was feeling. Now I have to go look at her ears, eyebrows and eyes to tell.

Dog Food Dilema

Shortly after the 18 month milestone Holly got to the end of a bag of dog food. I automatically bought a new 15Kg bag, and then wondered if that had been a sensible thing to do.

15Kg of dog food lasts Holly around 2.5 to 3 months depending on activity levels and how much the cats eat, yes the cats love Holly's dog food and think it the perfect treat. Holly also likes the cat food but thinks I am incredibly cruel, mean and miserly by only letting her have one or two bits as an extra special treat a couple of times a month. So would Holly be around to eat a whole bag?

I've had the same dilemma a couple more times with food and also with how big a bottle of pills to buy. The pills would need throwing away but any excess food could easily go to any of my friends or relatives who have dogs. So with that in mind I have continued to buy 15Kg bags of dog food. So far I have not had to buy any more of her pills as I bought big pots on a buy one get one free a while ago. But if you see someone in Holland and Barrett dithering about how big a tub of Vitamin E, Fish Oil or Brewers Yeast tables to buy do say hello.

The cats and Holly are fed on Burns dry biscuits (http://www.burnspet.co.uk/) the cats also get a teaspoon of pilchards in tomato sauce twice a day and officially Holly gets a few vegetables or a bit of fruit or some yogurt or a little bit of watered down gravy from the Sunday roast. In reality Holly is a dustbin, a waste disposal unit on legs and will eat anything and just about everything she can get hold of. She is not allowed chocolate, onions or dried fruit and only gets one grape from every bunch. She is not keen on bananas, oranges or lettuce. But everything else is OK according to her taste buds.

I think two of the most valuable command I have taught her are "Leave" and "Hot"

Leave means "You cannot have that, do not touch it". We went to a friends house and Holly was all for diving into their dogs food bowl and eating his breakfast, but I told her to leave it. My friends thought it highly amusing that she didn't touch any of the food in the bowl but ate all the bits she found on the floor and a bonio that was in his bed. You see I had told her she couldn't have what was in his bowl, so she didn't touch it, but everything else had not been declared off-limits so was consumed.

Hot means exactly that. Whatever it is it is hot and will hurt so don't touch it just yet. Mostly this is applied to food that escapes out of pans and off baking trays, but also keeps inquisitive noses from being burned on baking trays, oven doors and fires.

Bruises, Itches and more Bruises

It has to be fairly warm for me to switch to wearing shorts and summer 2013 was warm enough. There was just one problem, bruises.

Holly's wheels are fantastic, they give her independent mobility and allow her to enjoy walks. But there is a downside to the wheels, it may sound silly but Hollys desire to be near me has turned out to be quite painful since getting the cart. We went to obedience classes and she learnt to walk at my heel, on either side depending on which side I asked her to walk on. She still tries to walk to heel, but doesn't like being that little bit further away from me so tries to walk closer. The side bars on the cart are just a few inches lower than my knees and when Holly tries to walk to heel I get bashed in the back of the calf. Frequently enough that both sides are more or less permanently bruised.

It doesn't matter how smooth or rounded something is, if you bash it against something else hard enough you can do some damage. For one week this summer, in addition to the bruises, I also had a graze where she had run past me fast enough to be damaging and close enough for impact.

I can also report that the hub caps are ankle bone height and while having your toes run over doesn't hurt when in walking boots or a pair of sturdy trainers, sandals do not offer any protection or padding at all!

Occasionally in the past Holly has developed an itchy tummy, probably an alergy to whatever plant life she has run through when we are out and about. A few baths in some shampoo from the vet and everything is fine. Spring and Summer 2013 she got itchy again, but the shampoo was no help. If you put your hand on her, her back legs would start to scratch furiously. Off we went to see the vet, he tried an injection and said it would calm things down and wanted to see her again in a couple of weeks. One week later we were back, the injection had helped but was starting to wear off and I didn't want her getting that itchy again. Some investigation later and the conclusion was that she wasn't suffering from her normal itchy skin, but the nerves as part of their degeneration were mis-firing and making her legs think that physical contact was very very itchy.

We started her on Prednoleucotropin (plt) tablets which stopped the itching and manic scratching response. A little experimentation with the dose and half a tablet once a day was a suitable maintenance dose. Ever so often I would take her off them altogether, when the itching started again I would start the tablets again. Sometime around late September I stopped the tablets and the itching never returned. Whatever had been the cause, either exposure to a specific plant or a degenerating nerve, had stopped.

Like all dogs Holly dreams when she sleeps and when it's a deep sleep and a good dream her feet, ears and nose twitch and sometimes she makes small woofing noises as well. Like all owners I wonder what she dreams of, chasing seagulls or rabbits? Or just running as fast as the wind over the beach or the moors?

She still dreams now and I wonder if she has her wheels in her dreams or not.

What has changed is the twitching. her front feet, nose and ears all twitch the same as normal. The back feet no longer twitch, they kick! Imagine a kangaroo on it's side in fast-forward. It is a strange sight to watch and I discovered that there is still some strong muscles in those legs. I have mentioned before that Holly sleeps on the bed next to me. Normally she wedges her back against my side so when she dreams and kicks I can feel her rocking. Sometimes she turns over and sleeps with her feet against my side. Now dreaming is dangerous as I end up with a pair of feet being slammed into my ribs over and over again until I can untangle myself from the bedding and move out of range. It might not have been too bad if it had been a cold summer, the duvet would have provided some protection. But in the nice hot summer I was sleeping under just a sheet. So while the weather was hot I had bruised ribs to go with the bruises and grazes on the calves, ankles and toes.

Hooray for arnica cream is all I can say!

It's too darn hot.

The second of the milestones (part 2) was the Great Yorkshire Show week in July. I usually take the week off work and Holly and I have a week of walking and exploring. On the day I go to the GYS she goes to my Mum and Dads.

This year it was hot.

Very hot.

A few weeks before it had started getting warmer and turning into a lovely summer, as the temperature increased the walks got earlier and later. By the time the week off in July arrived we had had to abandon the evening walk as it wasn't cooling down enough and by the end of the week it was too hot for Holly to walk comfortably at 5am so we spent most of that week lounging on a blanket in the garden in the shade.

I did work out that it was the pavements and roads that caused most of the heat problems. So walkies were not totally dropped. After some careful planning we found some walks where we could park very close to a wood or field where there were lots of non-tarmac paths to walk on. We still walked as early as possible, took plenty of water and kept them short. But we enjoyed them and met plenty of other dog walkers having exactly the same problems.

I describe Holly as an all weather, all terrain dog. Maybe I should put an exception of prolonged heat in there.

We're all going on a summer holiday.

For a few years Holly and I have been going on holiday with my Mum, Dad and Grandma. It works very well, Mum and Grandma can potter round the shops while Dad, Holly and I can go off and walk and explore. Unless that is there is a good second hand book shop. I discovered many years ago that good second hand bookshops usually let dogs in and Holly discovered that they often have a bowl of water and a supply of dog treats.

I have been taking Holly into shops and on public transport for her entire life so she knows the routine, knows what she can and cannot do and is frequently praised for being very well behaved. Often when out and about with my Dad we will pop into any bird hides that we pass to see what we can spot. I got quite used to the initial horror of the other occupants of the hide that I had brought a dog in with me, this always changed within a few minutes when they realised that she had gone under the bench and was taking the opportunity to have a quick nap and wasn't going to be a nusiance at all. If we stay for any length or time or if she has had a really good run earlier in the day she will sometimes start to snore which always causes great amusement.

This year we went to Whitby, we stayed in a house on the outskirts near a dog-friendly playing field and great views out of one side of the house over the Abbey, Church and, if you leaned out of the window across both the old and new towns. From the other side of the house we were looking out over the moors.

Holly loves the seaside but I was slightly concerned about how she would handle the beach and the sea. I needn't have worried. Early in the week Holly and I were dropped off at Sandsend, the plan was that she and I would hit the beach and if all went well walk back to Whitby. If not then the rest of the family would pick us up on their way back after going to a garden centre or craft shop or something similar. To get access to the dog part of the beach at Sandsend you go down a steep set of steps, as I was looking at these and wondering how I would get Holly in her wheels down them Holly had already taken a look, assessed them and set off down them with me now racing to catch up and keep up. Previously she had happily gone down short flights of shallow steps in her wheels, but this was long and steep. And apparently no problem at all.

When we got to the bottom of the steps I unclipped Hollys lead and stood for a moment waiting for my heartbeat to slow back down. A lady approached and I thought I was in for a long conversation, but all she said was "That was an impressive descent down the stairs, it's good to see your dog still enjoying herself. I won't stop and talk as I think you need to go catch up again." Holly had taken a few moments to orientate herself and work out how to manoeuvre on the sand and was now racing at full speed across the beach towards the sea. I thanked the lady for her comments and set off in hot pursuit.

I've always encouraged Holly to use her brain, and sometime soon I may write more about the advantages and disadvantages of that for you to laugh at. But this day was an advantage day. She used to head straight for the sea and dive in. Now she was in her wheels she stopped when she got to the edge and watched the waves for a few minutes before gently wading in. She continued to keep an eye on the waves all the time we were paddling and when she saw a large wave coming she either headed to shallower water or made sure she was head-on to the wave so it wouldn't roll her over. We had a lovely walk paddle all the way back to Whitby, the sun shone, we both paddled, Holly chased seagulls, chewed up bits of seaweed and did everything she normally does on the beach, except swim in the sea.

We had a great week, the weather was good and Holly explored woods and towns and enchanted everyone at Robin Hoods Bay when she raced down the hill, onto the beach and straight into a deep rock-pool. And then exhausted me when she set off back up the hill at a seriously fast pace and kept it up all the way to the top, I didn't want to disturb the momentum so had no option but to keep up. I felt we both earned the sandwiches and slice of cake when we got back up to the top of the hill.

 Holly ploughs into the sea

A 'pebble' that even Holly can't manage to run her wheels over

Debating going back for another paddle

and leaving interesting tracks on the sand

Out and about on the Cleveland Way

101 one uses for a scarf

Number 42 - a support sling.

Holly's back legs gradually got worse, I knew it was going to happen however it is hard to spot small slow changes when you see the thing in question every day. So one day it was quite a shock to realise how bad they were getting.

I had been supporting her when needed by a hand or a foot under her tummy to provide stability and occasionally a bit of a boost. This was getting more frequent and I started to realise that although it was helping her it wasn't doing me any good at all. My knees, hips, back and shoulder were all aching with the effort of leaning, stretching, lifting and the odd lunge to stop a 23Kg dog from crash landing on the floor when she wasn't in her wheels.

The wheels are for outdoor use only, letting her run around in them in the house would be asking for demolition.

A few hot showers (for me) and the application of some common sense and Holly and I worked a few things out. I started to bend and stretch and lift properly and use a scarf to support her rather than try to walk along doubled over. Holly learnt to be patient and wait for me to close doors and pick things up before setting off at a high speed in her enthusiasm to get to wherever we were going, usually the car, the garden, the sofa or her food bowl. She can move without assistance, she moves along a bit like a seal at a surprisingly fast pace, but it does twist her spine so the support is essential for anything further than across the room.

So next time you see someone wearing a scarf in the middle of a blazing hot summer, look round for a wobbly dog who might need a little extra support.

The milestones come and go

Once more the cold and wet of Winter and Spring gradually turned into the warm of late spring and early summer. The number of miles we walked / wheeled continued to increase and before I knew where we were the milestones I had set had all been and gone!

Holly was still going. We were not walking quite as fast as we used to but she still knows when it's Saturday and wakes me up somewhere between 6 and 7am wittering and nagging constantly until we arrive at our walking destination. I think of it as the K9 equivalent of a small child on a car journey constantly asking "are we there yet?"

Her annual MOT at the vets comes round in May, this year she got a clean bill of health and the vet declined to make any predictions on time remaining. Her MOT was at just over 19 months post-diagnosis.

I started to think about a new set of milestones and wonder about how far into the future I should be making them. The decision was to set a milestone and then when we reached it make the next one based on her health at that time.

But looking ahead there were a few that I held in my mind as suitable. The first one was a weeks holiday at Whitby in June. After that there was the Great Yorkshire Show week in July that I always took off work, August Bank Holiday, Start of the new academic year in September and the 2 Years post-dianosis in October.

I had no idea how many we would get to set but we were just going to set off and take it one day and one mile at a time and see how many we could rack-up.

It was somewhere round about this time that I first had the idea of resurrecting the Blog I never wrote in to write down some of the experiences we had had so far. If you have read the start of this blog you will know it takes me another 6 months to get round to starting it.