skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Our dog is old. He remains small, cute and loveable, but is in equal measures smelly and increasingly infirm. The vet thinks he might have Cushings disease which, dissapointingly, is nothing to do with him turning into a vampire. To start the process of confirming the diagnosis he needs a urine test - our excellent vet Ian won't do a blood test until he has ruled out some of the cheaper-to-discover other things; this is one of the things I like about our vet, he won't rip you off.
On the way out of the surgery Ian hands me a small vial and cheerily says, "Just drop it off at the surgery when you've got the sample." That is all he says. He doesn't offer handy suggestions on 'piss gathering in dogs whose little todger is barely four inches from the floor.'
So, attempt number one. First thing Saturday morning I open the patio doors. Max, always eager for that blissful morning release we all enjoy, approaches the pot containing Clematis Nelly Moser. As he cocks his leg I am there ready and poised with a plastic breakfast bowl; but Max is too good for me. As I dive beneath him with the bowl he looks back startled (sorry I forgot to mention he is deaf as a post too). He stops peeing and trots on giving me a look of bafflement. There then starts a game of 'Dad chasing Max armed with a plastic breakfast bowl' around the patio - only I tire of the game fairly rapidly saying "Bollocks to it then". Of course as soon as I have uttered the fateful words, Max releases a gusing flow that must have lasted about thirty seconds, all of the time eyeing me and the bowl with suspicion.
Still, I have a plan: Max always pees on plastic carrier bags whenever he sees one on our walk. He also has a sense of humour and pees on anything placed temporarily outside to be returned indoors later - meaning I must wash it thoroughly. He particularly likes to pee on houseplants put outside for watering.
Here is the plan: I stand a house plant on a carrier bag so the pee will run onto the bag and I can tip it in the vial. Sure enough he approaches the plant and cocks his leg peeing beautifully up the side of the pot. The piss myseriously seeps away into some sort of pissy black hole - it is nowhere to be seen, let alone poured.
I sulk and wonder whether this is the sort of amusing anecdote that vets talk about, "Do you know what I told one of our clients today...next time I'm going to tell him to tape a bag over it, that'll be worth a laugh..."
So, Saturday afternoon Mrs C and I adopt a cooperative approach. He always behaves for his mum; so Mrs C takes him on the lead to a nearby park; we take him in the car because he doesn't walk far now. She sets off walking, I lurk behind, stalking with the plastic dish. He approaches a post, lifts his little leggy and releases a stream which I catch in the plastic bowl succesfully.
We congratulate ourselves for the succesful piss collection and then look up to see anxious parents guiding their tots away from the playground apperatus nearest the fence where we were gloating over our specimin.
Anyway, by that time the vet was shut so we proudly stored our little piss-pot in the fridge next to the skimmed milk...where you could hardly tell the difference (that little aside was for anyone on a diet, like me).
So now we wait for Ian the Vet's call for the next stage.
I've wrote about Max, our West Highland White Terrier, before; but this weekend I've been musing on the downward passage of life we must all eventually take and couldn't help but think that his age is starting to show. Not least when his instinct overcomes his ability. Take, for example his propensity for chasing aeroplanes; we live on the inbound flight path to Manchester Airport; a lot of planes fly over our house and Max takes exception to every single one of them. The sad thing is that I understand why this habit has persisted despite our every intervention. It's quite simple doggy psychology really: he sees the intruding plane; barks at it and chases it; it goes away - success that reinforces itself every time. Today though, he was awoken from his slumber by an invading plane and his head didn't come around quite as quickly as his legs so, as he chased it up the steps he tripped, banging his chin and dazing himself - not that that stopped him. It was a chink in his otherwise solid canine armour.
I know how he feels - not long ago I saw an officer of the law chasing a young rapscallion and pulled over in the car to help. Instinctively I sprinted after the thieving urchin only to be pulled up breathless and clutching my strained groin 100 yards on - the urchin glanced back, slowed and strolled on insouciantly - a chink in my already creaking armour.
I think that Max and I should stick to our strengths - as I'm writing I'm about to prod him with my toe to see if I can wake him to go to bed. I bet I struggle to wake him and I bet neither of us stop trying to do things that we really ought not.
Those of you who are parents will remember how, as small children, your sons and daughters made new discoveries: eyes wide as saucers as they learnt how Lego could produce whatever shapes they wanted; or the joy of discovering how numbers worked, as they added and subtracted (one that passed me by). As adults though, we seem to lose that joy sometime around late middle age, so it was great to watch our aged hospital-incarcerated relative open their birthday present - the MP3 player and combined DAB radio.
There is a lesson about old dogs and new tricks here: if the trick is of sufficient benefit the old dog will gladly adapt to it, just so long as there is a younger dog to thrust headphones over their ears oblivious to their protests. So, after the first gruff rebuff at being faced with this foreign gadget his expression changed as he heard Black Dyke Mills in crystal digital quality; and the years fell away and, with re-found enthusiasm, he was suddenly eager to learn the secrets of MP3 and DAB; especially when he realised that he would be able to listen to live football commentary on Radio 5 instead of being forced to listen to the extortionate crap hospital service. Though I hesitate to call it a service, blatant profiteering more like.
Finally, you may have noticed a slight reduction in my usual rate of blog posts. This is not unrelated to hospital visiting and I will do my best to maintain a skeleton service during our time of nightly trails to the grim Victorian edifice that is North Manchester General Hospital.
And finally, finally, I borrowed the picture of the dog from Lisa, check out her excellent Flickr site where there are loads more. This dog isn't particularly old but is scared of new things.
