Life with Hellcritters

 

I took Pav to the vet yesterday.  Since our little episode with unspeakable substances in the South Desuetude churchyard a few weeks ago, she’s had a funny spot on the top of her head.  There had been a stain there after our adventure and I had rubbed rather hard when I got her home and into the bathtub.  My first thought was a soap allergy, and the first time the vet saw her about a fortnight ago he said that was possible, but keep an eye on it.

I’ve kept an eye on it.  It’s begun insidiously to spread, and there are little crusty bits.*  Eczema?  My next thought was that this was a late bad reaction to the final puppy jabs—she’s six months old, and that’s a classic time for a late backlash.  It hasn’t been bothering her any—it’s apparently not even itchy—so aside from giving her the obvious homeopathic detox remedies, in case it was to do with the inoculations, I’ve been leaving it alone.

And then Southdowner texted me last week that she was coming this way, could she stop in and how was Monday?  Great, I said, let’s meet at the abbey for evensong after my voice lesson.**  Of course she wanted to see Pav:  I am merely the gateway for the viewing of Pav.  Oh what a beautiful puppy, said Southdowner, even if she does have a funny patch on her forehead.  Southdowner had never seen anything like the funny patch either, so I agreed that I’d take her to the vet and ask them to culture it, whatever it is.***

Meanwhile the hellhounds are going through a Not Eating phase.  ARRRRRGH.  STRESS.  STRESS.

Here I thought Pav would enjoy the vet—she loves strange places and strange people and strange experiences.  But apparently some recent trauma was hanging heavily in the air† and she spent the entire episode trying to crawl inside my shirt.  When we got into the examining room she started backing up the wall, which made me all nostalgic for Holly, whose trick that was.  The vet said that The Patch might be adolescent hormones—but that he agreed a culture was a good idea.  So I trapped Pav, something I’m extremely skilled at from the exigencies of trying to greet three hellcritters simultaneously with a minimum of mayhem, the vet got his scraping, and Pav and I went for a nice restorative hurtle by the water meadows.

It’s Bacterial Overgrowth of Unknown Origin.  I am very fond of this vet—who’s been at this surgery for as long as I’ve been in England—because he has a rare combination of skills:  He wants you to know as much about the situation as he does, none of this I Am the Expert, Now Shut Up and Do What I Say, he allows you to have your own experience and to frelling well know your own critter (‘look, he/she is off, I can’t tell you how, I just know it’), and he will do his level best to support you in any responsible decision you make about your critter—including, for example, putting Rowan to sleep on a Sunday afternoon.††  So when I came back today for results and drugs, he showed me the culture and told me what all the different fuzzy bits were . . . and I’m afraid chances are the reason whatever this is got hold is because I scrubbed so hard.  I probably broke the skin I was trying to clean and let the bad bugs in.

Sigh.  However.  We have drugs.  And the hellhounds ate dinner.

* * *

* This is some of the reason why there haven’t been hellterror pics lately.  It’s not a great weeping sore and people don’t cross the street to stay away from us.  And in a photo you can’t really see what you are seeing:  it looks a bit like a few pixels have failed and a small spot on her forehead is breaking up.  But it makes her look imperfect and that is not allowed. Also she’s enough bigger and faster that she’s a lot harder to take photos of, I keep forgetting to ask visitors to take some, and I haven’t addressed the problem yet.

** This is not the best idea I have ever had.  I was high enough, so to speak, after contending with Dido, that I managed to listen to that heavenly, and professional, choir, without either bursting into tears or setting fire to my music.  But it was a trifle scourging.  I’ve done this a few times—gone to evensong after my voice lesson—but it’s curiously worse when you may actually be getting somewhere in your own embarrassingly negligible way.  If you’re a wombat watching a thoroughbred horse race you can just look at those pretty shiny long-legged creatures and think ‘wow’.  If you’re a 13.2 hand cob, which is to say a little short square horse, it may be harder on morale.

*** There’s been at least one puppy drama you haven’t heard about because it lacerated Olivia’s feelings so badly and I know she keeps an eye on the blog for Pav sightings.  Last time she was down she didn’t bother with any of the niceties like ‘hi, how are you’, but snatched Pav up immediately and looked at her teeth.  All four puppies two or three months ago had their bottom teeth growing up inside their upper teeth because their lower jaws were too narrow.  If this was a permanent situation it could be bad, like corrective dentistry and expensive and traumatic mucking about bad.  It would also mean that none of the puppies would be bred, because this is a significant enough design fault that no responsible breeder would risk passing it on.

I was of course delighted to be let off the show circuit thing, but I felt more than a little wistful about no longer having the possibility of breeding Pav some day in the far distant future.  She is so pretty^ and sweet and she is amazingly mellow for a bull terrier^^ and all these generous and comprehensive traits are so exactly what you do want to pass on.

Southdowner was distressed about the narrow jaw situation too:  Lavvy is of her breeding and (according to Olivia) more or less took Olivia by the ear while she was helping her choose a stud, and said This one.  So she felt responsible as well as involved.  We won’t worry about it now, she said (especially to Olivia, who was throwing herself around and declaring that she was never, ever going to breed a litter again and furthermore she was giving Lavvy away and moving to a dog-free atoll), let’s see what they’re like when they’ve grown a little more:  puppies do go through some weird phases.

I think Southdowner waited a good thirty seconds before lifting Pav’s lip to check her teeth . . . and then grinned all over her face.  I knew that the teeth met better than they had when Olivia had looked but I’m not sure what I’m looking at and wasn’t sure if all was well or not.  All is now well.  Crufts next year, said Southdowner, still grinning.

Um.

. . . Southdowner also says that Pav won’t grow that much more—but that she’s too thin and I need to feed her more.  Yeep.  Here I thought she was elegant and svelte.  Bullies don’t do elegant and svelte, said Southdowner severely.  Bull terriers are supposed to be chunky little granite boulders on little short legs.  Feed her more.  Oh.  Well, she’ll like that.  Southdowner also says that I can certainly go on carrying her as long as I can go on carrying her:  that as far as Pav is concerned, she’s a lap and/or under-the-arm dog.  And as previously observed, she dangles extremely well.

^ Sic:  you just need to get your bull-terrier eye in.  Of course I’m also intemperately biased, but she is very pretty.

^^ I was reading an article in a dog mag at the vets’ yesterday about bull terriers.  In the first place the photos were all of inferior bullies, and in the second place the text is all about stubborn.  Well, bullies are not Trainability Machines like border collies, but border collies have other drawbacks+ and STUBBORN?  At least they EAT.  Sighthounds are stubborn and you can’t even frelling bribe them.

+ See:  SHADOWS

† I asked Southdowner about this and she said, absolutely.  It’s not just that dogs pick up stuff that we don’t—a frightened critter releases fear pheromones.

†† In a long by dog standards life of frequent vet-necessary emergencies, all of Rowan’s happened on weekends.  Including the final one.