A Dog's Life

Lib has gone to work just now, not that it's a working day for her, nor will she be paid, but there is something she wants to do out of hours or something she wants to talk to the weekend staff about whom she does not normally see. She left quietly perhaps not finding me very communicative as I was trying to do some basic yoga exercises that her sister Pat sent me on facebook in the hope it may help my stiffness and soreness which has returned steadily as I have reduced the cortisone, now down to one 5mg tablet a day this past week. Activity is again painful and I am not in the best of humour much of the time. I see the quack again next Tuesday and it will be interesting whether he recommends I continue at 5mg for a while, further reduce to 2.5, half a tablet, or increase to give me some better relief again. He may send me for blood tests again and probably it depends on how much pain I tell him I'm in. Pain is pain and difficult to quantify verbally. I am in less pain than I was before the cortisone started but putting my trousers and socks and boots on is not an easy thing nor working at anything but slow pace measuring movements and work goals accordingly. I loathe being unwell.

Back to 'A Dog's Life', Lib took 'Pip' with her to the nursing home. She loves going with Lib to see the oldies and performs with all the excitement and tail wagging happiness that Jack Russells can. The oldies love to touch and pat her and Lib says even the crazies who are for the most part aggressive to staff and other residents just melt and are so gentle to the little dog. It must soothe their soul with some long gone happy connection with pets back in their childhood.

Pip is seven years old this year. She's had a number of narrow escapes. She ate snail bait from a tin in my van once, and has had a couple of close calls from traffic. This year she disappeared into some scrub at the back of a shed at Hanna's where I grow things, in pursuit of a rabbit. She had not reappeared when I was ready to go and I could not find her. Earlier I had heard muffled barks from underground from the direction of the shed but now nothing. Going around the shed whistling I thought I heard faint whimpering from under the shed so tried digging here and there but I had no idea where she might be. Rather than dig for hours fruitlessly I whistled and whistled, thought I heard more faint whimpering, but if I had heard it it stopped and there was no Pip and no noise at all, just deathly quiet.

It seemed I had lost my wonderful Pip. I slowly resigned myself that she'd been bitten by a snake or crushed by a wombat as there are numerous wombat holes at Hanna's and she is always down them. I had been warned that wombats were well known to crush small dogs to death against the burrow wall after they becoming tired of intrusions. The snake scenario seemed more likely, it was during all that hot weather, and I had always been a little ready for Pip to go that way as she is so adventurous and always fossicking about in the scrub for rabbits or under rubble or wood heaps. And JRs being totally fearless I always thought she would go a snake if she came across one. And there are snakes around there and a few dogs have been lost around Gembrook this year to snakes.

So I was trying to build up my resolve to leave and go home with Snowy only, imagining Lib and Gordon's grief at the news. I knocked on Hannah's door and told her that I it looks like I'd lost Pip as she was out helping earlier with all my whistling and calling and listening and looking. We were looking down the grass path to the scrub and the shed when out came an exhausted Pip completely covered in red dirt coming towards us. You can imagine my huge relief.

When I washed all the dirt from her later I saw she had lost fur from the top of one front paw and the same from a few toes on a back leg and i assumed this had scraped off in getting out or her predicament backwards somehow. A couple of weeks later this was not growing back and the dog was licking there much of the time and it looked inflamed and sore so I took her to the vet. The vet gave us anti inflammatory medication and antibiotics but there was no improvement so I went back and Tom vet put one of those buckets on her head to stop her licking, gave her stronger medication and an injection to kill mites that cause wombat mange. The bucket lasted four days before Pip managed to make it tear to pieces on her never ceasing hunting cavorts, but the licking cycle was broken and the hair has grown back.

Snow had a serious and persistent ulcer on an eye in Jan/ Feb before Pip's drama so we were up and down to the vet for months it seemed but all is well and both dogs are fit and healthy.

We are luckier than our next door neighbours. Week before last they lost there Rhodesian Ridgeback hit by a car in the main street. They returned from work to find the dog gone. Neighbour Tom had hit a wombat in his car on the way home and the car was severely damaged and had lost its water as Tom drove home and the engine was damaged, so Tom couldn't go looking for the dog. The vet rang him next morning as the dead dog in the vacant block opposite his clinic was reported to him and the dog was microchipped so he found the owner.

Tom and kath had no idea why their dog had escaped but I knew. About 2pm that day someone started firing a shotgun in the farm behind our street. I happened to be home and suddenly Pip and Snow were scratching at the door to get in. At this stage I had not heard shots and thought there must be a thunderstorm brewing in the distance that I could not yet hear. Soon it was obvious and the firearm which must be an automatic shotgun was booming for about half an hour intermittently with multiple shots then a break then more. I know not why whoever it was was shooting at this time of day and in this manner as every rabbit for miles would have been well in hiding. It was, in my opinion, irresponsible hooning with a shotgun that would have terrified every dog in every yard for kms.

I have voiced my annoyance to the police and landowner. The police was a dead end, apparently I should have reported it when it was happening so they could come out and see the person doing the shooting. As if they'd still be there. My suggestion that the police contact the land owner by phone to discuss the pros cons of vermin control and discharging firearms close to residential area was met with the response that they'd rather go to the scene when it was happening and talk to the shooter in person, in case it was an illegal shooter. Whatever suggestion I made to this guy in the new $8 million police station in Emerald he had a negative attitude in response.

The landowner, via office staff, said that someone had permission to shoot and destroy vermin on their property and it was entirely legal.

Nothing can help my neighbours who loved their dog and had put in two years raising and training it. We were lucky it wasn't ours.

Where is common sense gone?