Bichon Frise

Star has gone from strength to strength since my last post about her, The Restorative Power of Baked Potato. She is so much better that she's been back on the dog food for weeks - being indulged with baked potato is a distant memory, thank goodness. I'm sure she would choose being out of pain and being able to move around freely over the molly coddling she received.
 

It's four days after Star's TPLO surgery for a ruptured cruciate ligament now, and it's been a rough four days for us all, but especially Star. She doesn't take pain well, and I don't blame her if I'm honest. She is normally such a cheerful dog and it's been upsetting to see her spirits and her tail down for so long. She refused to drink until yesterday, so we've been dosing her with water using a syringe from a bottle of children's medicine. She has objected to the procedure, but eventually resigned herself to it.

We wanted to get out and about recently to enjoy the good weather we were lucky enough to have in the UK, but we had a problem. How could we take Star out and about when she is only able to use three legs? Since her cruciate ligament rupture she has been completely lame in her hind right leg. Then we remembered the stroller we bought when she was a tiny puppy. We ordered it before we even brought Star home as we suspected she would never manage to keep up with or cover the distances that Buddy does. We were wrong; once she was about ten months old she has had no problem keeping pace with our Labrador. She did use the stroller when she was little, and we brought it back out to save

Unfortunately, the news about Star is not good. She has ruptured her cruciate ligament and will need surgery. After her x-ray we had a difficult conversation with a very nice surgeon who took us through all the options. The good news is that he can give her a functioning knee joint again. The bad news is that it will be a long, slow recovery, and she will have to take things extremely steady over the summer. There could be complications like post-op infections, or problems with the cartilage in the joint, plus the cruciate in the other leg may rupture at some point too.

When I uploaded this picture of Star it was just because I thought it would accompany a blog post about how she makes herself comfortable and hogs the best seats in the house. However, since I uploaded she has somehow injured herself, so the photo is accompanying a blog post about that instead.

We walked both dogs on some forestry land on Tuesday evening and they both got excited about some exceptionally muddy water they had found. Both dogs raced around, full of the sheer joy of being alive - and being up to the armpits in muddy water. Star

The snow seems like a distant memory now, but when it was here Buddy and Star had an encounter with a snowman. Just as they had got used to the field across the lane from us being covered in cold wet white stuff, the local children built a snowman. This was something new, an odd development in a usually flat area, and had to be carefully approached. It was interesting to watch their reactions.

They both noticed it as soon as we entered the field, and there was a slight stiffening in both their body language.

I've just read a fascinating article on stray dogs in Moscow entitled Smartest Dogs: Moscow Stray Dogs . Apparently a growing number of dogs who have to fend for themselves are developing impressive and effective new ways of "hunting" down their food, courtesy of unwitting humans!