The pace of life as slowed a little, I'm still off work but expecting to return early in July (huzzah for getting better! Boo for having to go to work!) and Rusticles has had a few adventures including a couple of visits to the vet.
I'll start with that story; I took a couple of photos this morning of Rusty's sore patches to help illustrate. It was Thursday of last week at around nine in the evening that Mrs the Millbrooker noticed our four legged hero's face was swelling up and breaking out into what I can only describe as "hives" - horrid big red sore lumps over his snout and on the top of his head. These shots are five days later as things are getting a lot better:
Not really knowing what to do I rang Glenda from Guide Dogs who looks after welfare issues; she told me to get hold of the vet straight away. So we found ourselves driving to Liskeard to meet the duty vet at 10 o'clock in the evening. Rusticles had a steroid injection and has just finished a course of antihistamine tablets. He's also got some cream that I get to spot onto his sore patches.
He's absolutely fine in himself now, he just doesn't look as handsome as usual. Oh my, but he was sorry for himself for a couple of days. We reckon he must have stuck his head into an ants' nest or perhaps disturbed some bees in the garden and suffered an allergic reaction - but the truth is we'll never really know what caused it.
On to happier things - Mrs the Millbrooker's birthday has recently passed and Rusty was made nice and smart for the occasion, even though we had to change plans at the last minute because he wasn't well enough to travel and be on duty for a long period.
We had all of the younger folk of the family around for a barbecue lunch. Only two of them are shown here - MinorEarthQwake, Dozybean and NooNoo are out of shot. Rusty spent most of the barbecue time under the table, in the literal rather than metaphorical sense. MinorEarthQwake made sure that he got into the spirit of things with a party hat a little later, though.
Since I last wrote here, it's also been Grandma Dong the Legend's birthday but I forgot to take my camera and have nothing to show for the day but a vague memory of being distinctly under the weather the morning after.
A new Morris team has started up in Plymouth and they're calling themselves The Old Town Twelves. As Dozybean has joined up, we thought it would make a decent excursion to head off to Pelynt and its Trelawney Fayre where the Old Towners were to have their first ever dance out. Aficionados of such things might notice that they have a Molly in the team, although they refer to him as Nursie for arcane and perfectly good reasons.
It was another blisteringly hot day and His Rustiness was glad that we didn't do a lot of walking around; it was his first working outing since he had the unfortunate episode with the ants or bees or whatever it was. He spent plenty of time finding whatever shade he could under our chairs and slurping a plentiful supply of water.
Rusty's very favourite bit of the outing was finding something (heaven only knows what) that had been spilled on the grass and needed very careful licking and nibbling for a while.
And lastly, and most definitely out of chronological order, we've had an outing to Launceston Castle to dance at the Charles Causeley Festival, celebrating the famed poet of that rather lovely town. Wreckers Morris at their best....
Now - it's entirely possible that I could have done these things without His Rustiness to look after me; after all I did the same sort of thing last year using only my long cane and the goodwill of friends and family to lead me around when necessary. But every time I go out with Rusty on his harness, I feel a tremendous sense of freedom and independence that I haven't known for some years. Friends and family still help out sometimes - but I know I can do most things without asking for help because Rusty is there and doing his job. I can't thank everyone involved in getting him to me enough: his puppy walker, his boarders, his trainers and his sponsors. Thank you all.
I'll leave you with a short video of me washing down Rusty's spending area and watering the plants and Rusty at the same time - listen for the squeals as he shakes himself off indoors....
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