Monthly Archives: November 2008

Saga Khan

I’ve not told you about the events of six years ago, and I’m not going into it all now. It was a difficult year, that will do, and in September, my mother was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, a stent was fitted (that is, a little tube was inserted via her throat under general anaesthetic to keep her bile duct open) and she was sent home with a ‘few weeks to six months’ assessment of her possible life span.

So, nearly six months later she was doing fine. She had become well enough to drive again and was enjoying life. But suddenly, she had become unwell. On Friday, the doctor had visited and then took me aside, told me that the stent had failed and that she had only a week or two left to live. Since she was in some discomfort, he said that he’d arrange for a Macmillan nurse to bring a morphine drip the next day, and in the meantime he left me with a prescription for morphine to give her by mouth.

Later, Kenny called to walk the dogs. Tilly decided not to go. I told Kenny the news.

He was gone, walking on the marshes, for some time and I was a bit concerned, but he returned just before 5.30 with both dogs, Khan on three legs. “He’d had his little run and was just trotting along by my side, but then he suddenly yelped and he couldn’t put his foot to the ground. We waited for some time, but it’s no better.” I looked at Khan’s left foreleg. “He’s broken it,” I said. Kenny thought it was only sprained, but I rang the vet and they said I could go in straight away. Kenny came too.

It was indeed broken. He must just have dropped his foot into a hole, maybe a rabbit hole, maybe one made by a cow’s hoof in the soft ground, and the tibia and fibula had snapped. The vet looked serious. “It’s a bad break. We can set it, but it won’t be an easy job and it’s touch and go whether we’ll save his leg. I don’t suppose he’s insured? There’s a specialist orthopaedic vet in Fakenham, but they’d cost thousands.” I told him that Khan was insured and he looked relieved. He rang straight away and came back to say that if I could get Khan over there by 10 o’clock the next morning, they could attend to him in the afternoon. For his part, they would bandage his leg to keep it in place, sedate him and keep him overnight, and I could pick him up at 8.30 the next morning. It takes about 1 hour 20 minutes to get from my house to Fakenham.

I had to go back and tell my mum what had happened. She was in bed, quite sensible but not at all well, and wondering where Khan was. I broke the news.

That night, she had little rest and I had none. She tried the morphine syrup, but she hated sweet things and said it would make her sick. I didn’t stay all night – her bedroom chairs were pretty but uncomfortable and somehow it didn’t occur to me to go into her own drawing room, but went home in between times. I wrote up the events of the night – I went through every quarter of an hour, even if I was with her for 10 minutes of that. I don’t know why I came away, especially as, every time I went through, she was trying to get out of bed. She wasn’t in pain but in discomfort and was restless. She was a bit more settled by the morning and the Sage said he’d sit with her. But he had to go out later, so I asked him to ring our friend Jeni, who also cleaned for my mother, and ask her to sit with her later in the morning. I got dressed and went off to the vet.

Khan’s leg was bandaged but he was not in pain. I lifted him into the car (it would be harder now to lift several stones of gangly dog) but greyhounds don’t sit and he wouldn’t lie down. I’d have to drive very carefully, not to jar him or to risk him falling into the seat well.

We arrived before 10 and were checked in. We had to wait for some time (I needn’t have hurried) but were eventually seen. I signed various consent forms – I explained that my mother was too ill and I was her representative – and left poor Khan, trusting as ever, to be dealt with.

Sorry, darlings, more episodes to come. Too much for one post.

Far Kennel! (sorry everyone and sorry Murph, I couldn’t resist)

I read an article, several years ago, which was an interview with the actress Annette Crosbie (probably best known nowadays for One Foot in the Grave). She is a great greyhound enthusiast, has several herself and works and lobbies hard for their welfare. She said that once you’d had a greyhound as a pet, you’d never choose another type of dog. My children and I looked at each other, rather dismayed. Did that mean, we wondered, that we were condemned, willy-nilly, to having greyhounds?

I grew up with dogs. At the time I married and left home, my mother had 7 of them – the number later rose to 11 which was crazy and she couldn’t control them, but 7 was fine. When I took them for walks (after dark only, we had a big garden for daytime exercise) I’d have 4 on a lead and the others, in our quiet back streets, could be allowed to run free. There was a clear pack leader and they were well-behaved. That is, well-behaved in the way our relaxed attitude found acceptable. They all lay on the sofas and slept on the beds, for example – in my teens, I shared my bed with 3 big dogs. Obviously, I was closer to some dogs than others. Susie was my pet as she had come to us in unfortunate circumstances – one day, I saw a car draw up with an anxious-looking black dog in the back and I knew at once she would come to live with us. A man got out and went to the door and indeed, when he left, Susie stayed. His wife had cancer, they had 3 young children and he couldn’t cope with everything. It was the start of the summer holidays and Susie and I spent hours together. The other dog I adored most was Huckleberry. He had, simply, the sweetest nature of any dog I’ve ever known. We called him (sorry *slush alert*) Laughing Boy. He was a superb climber, jumper and swimmer and it was impossible to keep him in the garden. He used to spend hours with the roadsweeper, strolling round the local roads and sharing his sandwiches. He was extremely beautiful and knew it and spent hours grooming himself. He loved the water and happily wallowed in the river or the muckiest pond, afterwards licking off every scrap of black mud. I blame that filth for the stomach cancer that eventually killed him.

I won’t start on Chester, whom I first saw and chose (it was mutual) as a 3 week old puppy and whom I held as he died 13 years later, except to say that he taught me to be fluent in Dog, which is mainly spoken with the eyes (also from the throat and in the curl of the lip).

This is meant to be about greyhounds. What I’m trying to say is that, whilst each dog has its own personality, greyhounds are not like other dogs at all. I don’t know if it’s nature or nurture – my mother always wished she could have had one from a puppy. Khan’s lack of instinctive communication with either people or dogs may well have been as a result of being kept in a kennel for his first 18 months. Because he’d failed as a racer he didn’t build up a relationship with a trainer and afterwards he was with too many other dogs in the rescue centre (but I think he had his own quarters and was exercised but didn’t live in the same kennel as them) to receive much individual attention. He was always treated kindly, but it would have been far better for him to be rehomed straight away. I think that the reason they don’t is to be sure that every dog and bitch will be neutered, but (with my mum’s example, I know this from experience) it’s easy for animal lovers to be unable to resist giving every pet that needs one a home, whereas I now think that it’s better to do the best for a few than a lesser amount of care for many. I think that one can lost track of the fact that the care being given is less than the best – in this case, not materially but in terms of the individual development of the young dog. I’m not wanting to be anthropomorphic about this and I’m not saying a dog is the same as a child – this is an imperfect analogy – but compare it with having several children, all close together, and not having time to read to any of them or teach them to put on their own clothes, and only giving the troublemaker or the sickly one any individual attention. You’re not going to expect the same personal development as if you have taught and guided each child and helped them to learn how to get on with each other and yourself.

So, a greyhound will either have been a racer or unsuited to be one, and will have to learn to be part of a family, to be housetrained, to be alone, to be obedient. They can learn all these things but, while they will be eager to please you, they might not now how to go about it. And if they have an annoying personal habit – like constant whining, or gyrating on their back, or darting in small circles, or running until they’ve forgotten where you are – it can be incredibly difficult to train them out of it because, while they know you are not pleased, they can’t necessarily marry up their behaviour with your reaction.

So I think Annette Crosbie has a point, that if you can get on a greyhound’s wavelength and learn to appreciate them, they make lovely pets. But they’re not my sort of dog and they’re not everyone’s, and I think that it is not helpful for their admirers only to focus on their good points and not to acknowledge their weaker ones. Nevertheless, as I said a couple of days ago when I’d stroked the customer’s greyhound (which prompted this series of posts), I was surprised at the affectionate recognition of its sweetness that I felt.

Khans and Khants

There are various little things to know about greyhounds, which will be explained to you if you go to a ‘proper’ greyhound rescue centre, rather than the RSPCA which just lets you find out. One is that they will not know their name. They’ve just been given a random name and so if you don’t care for the name it comes with, simply change it. Another is that they may well be untrained, although ex-racers will have been taught to walk to heel. Fortunately, this is not too much of a problem, especially once they have learned their new name, as they are eager to please and very biddable. In addition, they have never lived in a house so are not housetrained.

Again, this is often not too much of a problem as they quickly learn. Usually. Most of them. Khan was a rather slow learner. He realised that he shouldn’t misbehave in his living quarters, but my mother had two sitting rooms and used one much more than the other. So if he was caught short, he tended to go in the drawing room and lift his leg on the sofa. This did not go down well at all. Also, like Henry, he had wobbly bowels, so my unfortunate mother found that she still had to get out of bed two or three times a night or else she found heaps of ordure in the hall the next morning.

In other respects, he was fine. But I found it hard to become really attached to him. He was most undoglike. It’s my theory that dogs either think of their owners as honorary dogs, or themselves as honorary humans. Khan didn’t understand either. He was eager to please, but he didn’t quite know how.

For example, he was the only dog I’ve ever known who would tread on another dog. If Chester, who ruled the roost (except for me) was lying in his path he would blunder over him. Chester was not aggressive, unless he disagreed with the Sage or Ro (who booted him out of the room, to much mutual growling) so he did not snap, but he was quite aggrieved; rightly so. It’s just not what dogs do. It’s not dog etiquette, whereas bottom sniffing, for instance, is.

Once in a while, he would be overcome by nervous energy and rush a couple of paces, wheel round, rush again, turn again – he was oblivious to anything you said and had to be physically stopped. He only ever did it indoors and it was really irrritating, especially as his long slender claws did no good for the carpet. Once, I was busy and couldn’t get up, so chucked a cushion at him. It was small and light and I didn’t throw it hard, but he stopped and yelped and stood trembling with confused eyes. He also used to writhe on his back happily, in a back-scratching sort of way – the sexlessness of it (as Weeza just put it, ‘frog legs and neuticles’) was strangely repellent. I just couldn’t get on his wavelength. I’m good with dogs, cats and horses, but I didn’t understand him. He got on well enough with Tilly and Chester, but he didn’t quite gel with them either.

The people who loved him most were my mother and my sister. My mum felt protective to him and Wink really did love him. His sweet nature appealed to her and she didn’t mind that he wasn’t very doglike.

I’ll conclude about greyhounds tomorrow and then I might continue with Khan’s saga, but I’m not sure whether to. Poor dog, things went a bit awry, and some of it was at the time my mum died and the stories are all intertwined. Shall I go there, is the question. I’m not sure. I sort of want to, but I sort of feel it’s all so involved, and the endings, of two episodes, are neither of them happy because one time my mother died and one time Khan did. Your call I think – if you’d like to know tell me, if the summary (see above) is enough say nothing and nor will I.

Khan

Henry had been lovely, but he was never easy. We weren’t at all pleased that the RSPCA had pushed my mother into having a totally unsuitable dog – she was frail and he was enormous – and they knew all about the running away problem, as he had, we eventually discovered, been returned from several people who hadn’t been able to cope with him. In addition, she was told that all greyhounds had robust health and would eat anything. Indeed, he would. Unfortunately, his digestion couldn’t cope with it and she sometimes had to get up several times in the night to let him out or had to clean her carpets in the morning. In the end, she fed him a diet of rice and chicken, which he didn’t much like but which kept his stomach settled. He also spent quite a lot of time at the vet. For the first time ever, it turned out to be cost-effective to have dog health insurance – we’d never needed to bother with our robust mongrels.

He had a thick coat of sandy-coloured hair – unfortunately he attracted fleas rather badly, which my mum never noticed until Chester caught them, whereupon she complained bitterly that my dog gave her dogs fleas. His coat was so thick that it was hard to rub in enough flea powder to get rid of them. He got on well with my dogs – as I’ve said, he had a lovely friendly nature and Tilly, who has some whippet in her, loved to run too. They would gallop along the drive, one inside the field and one on the drive itself. He was a different dog when running and completely forgot everything except the chase. If they were together, when he caught up with her she stopped and rolled onto her back. You could see in his eyes that she was, for a minute, nothing but his quarry. She knew that if he caught her he would instinctively nip the back of her neck and was afraid, though only of that. She understood that it was only instinct and not aggression.

After he died, my mother was doubtful whether to have another dog. Her health had been poor for some time. I pointed out that we’d been through the same conversation when her previous dog had died five or so years previously and asked if she could really contemplate being without a dog? Well no, she couldn’t, but she was worried what would happen to it if she died. I reminded her that we’d always promised to look after it and she knew we’d never turn a dog away. We were a bit dismayed when she decided to have another greyhound, though. This time, equally disenchanted with the RSPCA, she approached a greyhound rescue charity, they came to visit and to ensure that she was able to give the dog a good home, and so she acquired Khan.

He was much smaller and had never raced. He was only about 18 months old and it had been discovered at an early age that he wouldn’t run. He really wouldn’t. Completely uninterested. He wouldn’t even chase a ball, never mind an electric hare. He could have been a different breed from Henry – even his hair, a handsome browny-grey colour apparently known as ‘blue’ in the trade was fine and quite thin, with no undercoat at all. He’d been with the charity over 6 months, which puzzled us – why not house him straight away? – but it seems that they keep the dogs until they are physically mature so that they can be neutered. Lying on his back, legs akimbo, he looked like a frog.

So, no problem with him running away then. But there’s always something, isn’t there?

By the way

Greyhounds again tomorrow, but just while it’s on my mind…

I have spoken to the other two people doing the food with me for WI on Tuesday evening. One looked slightly alarmed as she doesn’t really cook. So she’s bringing the tea, coffee and milk. I said, hopefully, that she can bring either instant or real coffee as there are cafétières there and she said that’s all right, she’s got instant. I gritted my teeth as I said that’d be fine. Then this evening, I rang the other person. She said that unfortunately she’s got an art class on Tuesday so she can’t come, but she’ll make some sandwiches and send them along. “Fine,” I said airily. “I’ll do something else savoury and a cake or something and that will be … fine.”

It’s not the first time I’ve found myself doing most (occasionally all) of the food. Pity I’ve got a meeting all morning, but there we go. I wonder what will be in the sandwiches.

I’m thinking I’ll do some bite-size crôutes and top them with various things, such as mushroom in cream and wine, a tomato/onion mixture, scrambled egg or things like that, some cucumber slices topped with salmon pâté and some tiny cheese scones topped with cheese. Then I’ll do some discs of chocolate and top them with chocolate mousse and some mini meringues filled with cream and fruit – half grape or blueberry, and some tiny bite-sized iced cakes.

Yes, it’s chi-chi, but as long as it tastes good, I don’t think it matters. And it’s pretty and not much work and I can do quite a lot of it tomorrow. But I’m open to suggestions.

Feeling hounded

A customer brought her greyhound into the shop on Friday – dogs are more than welcome in there. As is usual with the breed, it was very friendly and came over to me to be stroked several times while the lady was filling her basket. I quite surprised myself with the warmth I felt towards it.

There’s a great deal of affection, in the dog rescue world, for greyhounds and it’s understandable. There are a great many dogs bred for the racing business, some of which obviously won’t make the grade, and those that do finish their racing careers with several years of healthy life in them. It’s inevitable that many will be put down and many others are available as pets.

My mother always went to the RSPCA when she wanted to give a dog a home, but they let her down the last time. They said the only dog available was a particular greyhound, and put a lot of pressure on her to take him. She agreed, and he turned out to be enormous, the biggest greyhound I’ve ever seen. He was, as they always are, very sweet-natured, friendly and affectionate. He was an ex-racer and (we weren’t told this at the time but by someone who recognised the type of scar on his side) his career had been ended by an injury gained on the racetrack when he sped out of the trap so fast that he caught his side against it. The trouble with him was that he loved running so much.

One is always told how little exercise a greyhound needs, and that a couple of gentle walks on the lead are quite enough. Well, some maybe. Henry needed to run though. Not that far, five minutes flat out were sufficient, but if he didn’t get that every day or two he used to pace the floor, whimpering for hours on end. But he needed fields to run in – one, fenced, wasn’t enough and when he got out you couldn’t follow him, so we took him to the wide-open spaces. There are plenty round here, but he wasn’t very bright. If he couldn’t see you, he wouldn’t be able to return to you. So, he got lost and each of us in turn spent our free time taking him for walks, having a successful outcome after a stressful outing several times, then losing him, finally finding him, coming home and saying “never again” and passing him on to the next sucker. Kenny, our gardener, who never gave up on anything, ended up as the only one who would let him off the lead.

Even Kenny, however, couldn’t keep him under control. One afternoon Henry ran off and Kenny, after a long time searching, came back dogless. We went out in the car, phoned the police and the RSPCA and had a very anxious evening. Finally, we had a phone call from someone who had found him on their doorstep. We went to fetch him; he was very frightened with sore paws and (we were able to piece this together from various sightings) had run several miles along a busy road first one way and then the other. He had never received any unkind treatment from anyone and so when he finally chanced into someone’s back garden, he simply knocked on the door for help.

This did at least temper his wanderlust and he started to take some notice of where he was and return after his run. My mother had him for the rest of his life and she loved him dearly. So, when he died, she decided to have another greyhound.

Khan was quite different.

Party!!(!0

It’s between Halloween and Guy Fawkes, but more importantly it’s still half term, so Dilly and Al threw a party. Aimed at children and their families, so it started at 5.30 and the menu was simple – hot dogs, bought cakes (and Party Rings, woo hoo) and the like. Even the fireworks were colour more than noise. It all went down a storm, except that it rained. Darlings, were we daunted? We were not! The bonfire has been postponed until real Guy Fawkes (Remember, remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot – for those dear souls who are Foreigners and who can hardly be expected to understand) but we all watched through the windows while the Sage, Phil and Al busied themselves in the rain letting off fireworks. We had the windows open so that the real gunpowderish aromas would waft through.

Ro’s first party was a Bonfire Night party when he was 3 months old, and he loved every minute of it and stayed awake all evening until well after 11 o’clock. Zerlina is not quite 11 weeks and she was quite as entranced, although the fireworks were gentler. Squiffany was as interested in her reactions as in the fireworks themselves, and kissed little z between fireworks. All the children were lovely and played happily together; even the boisterousness was good-humoured and without tears. Afterwards, I fetched more beer and wine and we got cheerfully mellow together (noo, not the children, what do you think I’m like? not like that, at any rate).

What is most worthy of remark is that Zerlina has blown her first deliberate raspberry. She has been interested and has copied the mouth movements for a while, but tonight, after much practise, she finally managed a brief but deliberate ‘pfft’. We are immensely proud.