Off on our hols, see you soon :)

We'll be back in a week !

Up with the birds

Mrs Bitey had a nice surprise a couple of days ago when we met up with a very dear friend who has recently returned from a trip to Cape Town. She brought Mrs B back a gourmet treat of doggy biltong and dried sheep liver chews.

They stunk to high heaven, were brittle and studded with peppercorns. They were also 100% dried meat with none of the crap that is put into treats you get here. And, of course, Mrs B absolutely loved them. As we humans were worried about the brittle texture and risk of choking, attempts were made to ensure that Bitey chewed them properly bit by bit. Not a prayer. Mrs B wolfed them down in a frenzy of crunching and gulping topped off with a loud gut wrenching belch.

One of the great things about our canine friends is that they live for the moment and don’t worry about either past or future. The downside of this is that they don’t think about consequences. Once she tried these new delicacies, Mrs B was like Oliver Twist – she wanted more!

Mrs B is extremely hard to ignore or resist and her employment of hardcore scrounging tactics resulted in her having rather a lot of gourmet treats. The by product of this was not evident until the following day when she was afflicted with a bout of the World’s Worst Wind. She also needed to go out for ablutions slightly more frequently.

Which is why we were staggering around the block bleary eyed at 5.30am this morning. Whilst I would have preferred to have remained in bed oblivious to the world, I did get an unexpected treat myself. The flight path over my home was not used this morning so for once there was complete silence with no mechanical 747 birds flying over. The real birds therefore could strike up their morning chorus uninterupted and sang their little feathered hearts out. It has been a very long time since I’ve heard such a beautiful dawn chorus and I am blessed to have heard it.

Even if it was a flatulent Jack Russell that woke me up….

Back to reality

Mrs Bitey has adapted to the return to reality of normal (for us) life better than I have. While she is full of beans catching up on the new smells in the dog park, it is me struggling with a very sore op site and minimal energy.

As it is half term, the dog park has been devoid of dogs and thankfully we have been spared the gauntlet run of the snob convoy. It’s been quite nice to not have small town, small minded snobbery from the nouvelle riche.

However, it’ll be good to see some familiar and friendly (ish) faces in the park. So far we’ve only seen a toffee nosed twit with standard issue chocolate labrador and matching Land Rover who was terribly pleasantly condesending to Mrs B. You could imagine him thinking how pitifully sad it must be to be a non pedigree breed. Imagine the horror of it all.

Snowy swansong in the shire

We are finally back in the ‘burbs of big bad London after an extended exile in the west. Much as it was nice to sample some country air and spend time with family, there’s no place like home and it’s good to be back.

We had a final snow walk before heading off although the snow was starting its soggy retreating melt. For once, we’d timed it just right as it was softer for terrier paws to run on but consistant enough to avoid being ankle deep in mud.

I’m going to miss the common land greatly as it is such a vast open space devoid of squirrels, sheep and other things that Mrs Bitey enjoys chasing. The views are amazing and the beauty of it is that you can always seek a small spot of solitude and silence if you want to. Going back to the dog park will be a come down for both of us but there it is. Even the bigger parks like Richmond and Bushey up here are not the same- they have tons of traffic shortcutting for starters and deer and a million other people and dogs looking for a patch of peace. However, the offset to all of this is that I still enjoy living here and have the people that I am lucky enough to call friends around me.

Give us a couple of days and we’ll be back to normal again

Ain’t snow stopping me now

More snow has fallen and once again last night, Mrs Bitey was a big jessie not wanting to get her paws cold. Ablution trips were notable in their increased speed and reduced frequency.

So it was with mixed feelings that we headed off to the common land to play ball today. I had visions of Mrs B refusing to get out of the car and me going for a solitary walk instead.

Such fears were dispelled within seconds of driving onto the common. There was a cacophony of squeaking, squealing and barking accompanied by frenzied tail wagging and pawing the car window. Once stationary, I barely had time to retrieve the keys from the ignition and don thermal hat and gloves before being kicked and trampled on in a manic bid to get out now!

I don’t blame her. The common looked even more beautiful than ever. To the East, light cloud reflected light off it in a thin blue and pink stripe that slashed across the sky. Looking West towards the Severn Estuary, moody dark grey clouds looked surly. Trees and bushes were stark and skeletal in contrast to the endless carpet of crisp white snow and underfoot it was like walking on royal icing.

It was also unbelievably cold with a bitter breeze seeking out any exposed flesh instantly. Underestimating the temperature, I’d not put Mrs B in her jacket, but this did not seem to bother her in the slightest.

Her antics chasing and hunting with her ball are already well documented here in dog blog land and I cannot add much to previous descriptions other than to note that she seemed even faster in her all action sprinting with one reckless cornering episode leading to a spectacular loss of balance , sending her spinning and rolling into a snow drift.

An added comic touch was her snout coated in snow and her rather refined technique of shaking excess snow off the ball before returning it to me. Had she not been snorting and belching snowflakes, I’d have mistaken her for a proper little lady!

Good to see my all action Bitey having such a riotous time

Nurse Bitey

The recent spree of ill health and misfortune continue unabated with the advent of yet another affliction- this time the perennial winter favourite of the bacterial world- Norovirus.

Norovirus is not nice. It’s painful, explosive and leaves you feeling like a herd of buffalo have charged across your abdomen. It’s a full house of unpleasant symptom bingo- pyrexia, joint pain, fatigue, cramps, vomiting and diahorrea. It’s the last thing that you want after surgery.

Thankfully, our canine friends appear unaffected so while I have been doubled up over a basin or sweating ice under layers of blankets, Mrs Bitey has been delegated as Charge Nurse.

As it goes, there are some benefits to terrier nurses. Firstly, they are generally cheerful and sociable souls that don’t seem to mind being with a cranky groaning human. In fact, Mrs B has been quite sympathetic, giving me the odd sniff or prod to make sure I’m alive and cuddling up against my cramping stomach which is very soothing. She is also the storage heater of the dog world and can belt out tons of heat. An added plus is that curling up under a duvet is a perfectly acceptable way for Bitey to while away a few hours.

Mrs B has also been very tolerant of my lack of mobility. Our playtime on the common land was abruptly terminated when the full extent of the bug dramatically kicked in and since then she has been limited to shorter and far more sedate strolls out with Granny supplemented with various boisterous games of Kong chasing, again with Granny who is able to doze in the chair, watch daytime tv and play Kong in a fabulous feat of pensioner multitasking.

Granny, and all other old people for that matter, find Bitey charms very difficult to resist, especially in the giving of treats, and so Mrs B has cashed in on this unrelentingly.

However, before you fully form the vision of Bitey Nightingale tending the sick without fault or foible, let me burst the bubble ever so slightly…

All nursing empathy and care goes out of the window once Mrs B gets comfortable in or on the bed. Territorial and stubborn, she continues to hog the bed and kick me if I move. She believes that the extra hot water bottle is for her benefit and as she is spending long hours on the bed, has decided to customise it by hiding half chewed rawhide bones and soggy Kong toys under the duvet. Nice.

When she decides that I should be awake, she jumps on my head and licks my face, ears or neck. She licks my feet or the back of my knees in the hope that it will get me moving. It does as it tickles like mad and is the last thing I need after finally getting comfortable.

The worst is when I have to vomit as she takes the vile retching noises that ensue as an invitation to play and comes barrelling into the bathroom trying to get into the sick bowl and bounce off my shoulders while madly growling and barking. A sedate variation of this is to sit on my feet and refuse to move so that she has a grandstand view of my head in the bowl. She has narrowly avoided being barfed on several times now.

But the lovely thing is, annoying though she can be, I know that she thinks that she is doing the right thing and is trying to help. It cannot be much fun trying to sleep with a feverish, groaning heap retching and fidgeting but Mrs B has been determined to stay with me.

Doggy devotion or what?

Snow go

Mrs Bitey doesn’t seem to like the white stuff this time around. Last time we had a lot of it was not long after I got Mrs B. We were at home when it started and as soon as I realised that it was settling, I grabbed Mrs B, put her warm doggy coat on and we ran outside to play.

On that occasion, she loved it. She tried to catch snow flakes and sniffed madly. She dug, snorted, rolled and burrowed in it and ended up with a very snowy snout. After that we endured weeks of slippery compacted snow and ice which was fine for paws with claws but not so for human feet in boots. The shining surface was akin to skating rink ice as I found out one evening when Bitey spotted a fox, charged after it dragging me in her wake floundering around in a gravity defying attempt to stay upright. (I succeeded just).

We also had boisterous games of ‘Search and Rescue’ when the ball landed in deep snow drifts. We had a 100% success rate at this and much mirth was had as Mrs B sunk up to her armpits in snow and I had that freezing trickle around my ankles when the snow managed somehow to get down inside my boots.

This time around however, the snow visit has been short and sweet. I don’t know whether it was because it was much windier, it didn’t stay long or deep enough to be interesting or whether it was because she didn’t have her coat on but whatever the reason, Mrs B refused to venture beyond the back door other than to have a hasty wee and run back in again. I can’t say that I am too gutted- I have escaped sub zero gale force snow walks- but I have missed the general mania and hilarity that only a Jack Russell in snow can create.