Winter Weirdness

Strange things have been happening lately inside and outside the house. It started off when things got a bit colder. Owner came home with a duvet one day, and she put it in my crate! It's so comfy and warm, I really love it!

Next thing that happened was that Owner started to bring the garden inside the house! How mad is that?!

I'm trying my best at camouflage in this photo, and I have got a chewed up bit of rope ball in my mouth!

Owner started to put sparkly things, lights, and little balls and cones on the tree. I'm not allowed to play with those balls (although I do give them the odd nudge with my nose every now and then when Owner isn't looking!)

Then the ground when all white and crunchy.  Here is a little moving picture of me looking for the grass. I'm afraid I was a bit rude and didn't play with my friend Otto because I was busy trying to find out where the grass had gone!

I

Owner then started buying things and hiding them. I spotted this toy in toy prison (see my last blog for details) when Owner opened the prison door one day. I liked the smell of this one and was hoping it 

might be for me.

 

But then horror of horrors, Owner wrapped it up and put this label on it...

Did you read that? "To BARNEY" (not Millie), "love from Millie"! LOVE FROM Millie? No-one asked me! I would rather it was "TO Millie". I'm not really happy about this. OK Barney is a nice Golden Retriever  but I'm not sure he should be getting toys out of my toy prison!

Apparently this is all preparation for a chap called Santa Paws to visit. He doesn't pop by very often or for very long so everyone gets very excited leading up to this.

I feel much better about things today because my good friend Oscar the Terrier from Twitter has had a word with Santa and I had an email from him! He knew my name, had a photo of me, and knew that I wanted a frizbee for Christmas! I am SO excited I can't sleep and I can't stop wagging my tail!

I'm a bit concerned, though,  because Santa is supposed to come down the chimney and we have a fire lit in the evenings so I'm worried that he might burn his bum. The other thing is that my bed is opposite the fire and I'm told that if we see Santa arrive we don't get any presents, so to be on the safe side I try and keep my head turned away from the fireplace.

 Hope you all have a lovely time this Christmas.

I love toys!

Anyone who knows me will know that I absolutely LOVE toys. I am very lucky to have a basket full of them...

...but I always gratefully accept any new ones (and actively seek them out if possible). I love toys so much that given the choice between food and toys, the toys would win!

This week I have mostly been playing with my Kong Wubba. Unfortunately it fell apart when I played with it.

I really think Kong should employ me as a Quality Control officer. The left-over bit is still fun to shake and run around with though, and is still my favourite toy of the week.

My next favourite toy this week has been my Wainwright dental ball on a rope.... except the rope bit "fell off".  There was a knot of rope inside the ball after the main rope fell off, and I have managed to set the knot free. It still works really well as a ball though. Perhaps I could work part-time for Wainwright toys as a QC officer.

 I have 3 toys which have passed QC:

The others I play with less often. They have all got some broken bits. 

Whenever Owner thinks a new toy is at risk of "falling apart" it gets shut in toy prison. There is a squeaky stuffed toy in there whose insides started to come outside.

There is also a stash of spare balls for the park, and a big bag of food in there, but I know I can't get in (I've tried).

I have separate toys for the park which I don't get to play with at home. I REALLY love these.

The ball on the left is a solid rubber ball which Owner flings using the ball flinger. She likes it because I don't chew it like the spongey balls. It is also washable if it lands in something nasty. (It doesn't float though, and a few of them have gone missing in action in some deep puddles).

I get to play with the dummy (in the middle) as a treat in the park. My friend Oscar, the Vizsla, introduced me to these. In fact, I "borrowed" one of his for a few days when we first met. In exchange for his dummy, Oscar's Dad kindly gave me this one. If I am heading towards someone else's toy in the park and Owner says "Where's your dummy?' I'm over there like a shot!

The ball on the right is a squeaky tennis ball. 

Which one do you think I want most?....

....And the winner is.....

....The squeaky tennis ball! 

I never get to play with this for any length of time, unsupervised. I think there is a limit on the number of squeaks it does because it doesn't seem to last long when it's in constant use. Also the ball tends to fall apart quite quickly. Owner keeps this as a top treat in the park.

When I stayed with Mum & Dad this week I got a new toy - the dental kong on a rope. 

Today the dental kong miraculously turned up at home! There may only be 2 days left this week, but I think this could become my new favourite toy of the week.

It's great to swing around,

you can play tug with Owner,

but I just need to check that the knot on the rope is secure.

The knot fell off when I was at Mum & Dad's and Mum had to tie a new one. I'm checking the other end.

Any dog toy companies can contact me at this address for QC roles. My fees are quite competitive.

On the mend

Following my near death experience I had to spend 3 days in the vet hospital. I had special photos taken all over. The only problem showed up on my right hind leg picture, but it was a big problem.

Never mind the broken bone, can you see my tail? 

The vet took pictures from different sides, all while I was asleep. Who knows what else they might have done!

The lovely vet lady that fixes broken bones had to order a special metal rod to stick my bone back together, so I had to wait an extra day for the operation. Now my leg looks like this on the special photo (from 2 different views):

You can even see the staples that were on the outside of my leg. They have gone now though. There were some fragments of bone shattered that are just hanging around inside somewhere!

As Owner didn't come to see me, while I was drugged up, the hospital staff kept a diary for her. I think they were pleased that I managed to keep busy despite my injuries as I had reports such as "Drip proving impossible to manage this pm as dog keeps twisting itself up in it. Has also chewed off connector and dressing....dressed leg with no chew dressing"; "Trashed kennel and has pulled out I.V. and chewed up dressings".

Ha! - so much for the no-chew dressing!

When I went home my leg was sore - don't look if you're a bit squeamish!



Ready?




Are you sure?




OK then:

I was doped up on lots of pain killers when this photo was taken. This was the day I came home. Owner slept downstairs on the floor with me for the first 2 nights, but as I tried to get up and lie on top of her in the night that special treatment soon stopped!

Now my bum definitely looks big in this one! 

Can you believe they shaved my leg, but left my bum hairy?

I decided that after I got over the stubble growth I couldn't be bothered with keeping up the whole leg-shaving malarky - how do human ladies keep up with it all? It would take me ages to do all 4!

In case you're wondering the red blob in the photo is the chewed off end of one of my kong goodie bones! 

It was a couple of weeks before I was allowed to even lead walk, and then a couple of months before I was allowed to run. That was really difficult once I started feeling a bit better! My 6 week post-op X-ray showed I had a bit of a screw loose! It's funny because Owner used to say that before I even broke my leg!

I had to go and see a lady called Ruth who is a physio-terrier-ist. She likes to prod and poke and fiddle with my leg a lot. Sometimes she makes me go swimming too - I get to play with lots of tennis balls in the pool! (I love tennis balls).

When I started seeing the physio-terrier-ist, I could hardly bend my leg, but now I am running and jumping around like anything! I still go for prodding, poking and fiddling to keep my leg flexible, but other than that I am NFM.

(Normal For Millie)

Near Death Experience!

It was a year ago today that Owner thought I was a goner!

We were having a lovely run around on Dartmoor (well, I was having a run and Owner was walking) - just like today when we went to the same place. I did a lot of to-ing...

...and fro-ing (Does my bum look big in this?!):

On our travels we met a lovely Border Terrier who I thought would like to have a sniff and a bit of a play.

Turns out that the lovely BT was actually a grump & didn't want to say hello. She snapped at me and chased me off (I know! I was surprised too!). Then a weird thing happened - her humans called me over "Milly come here", so over there I went. Grumpy BT went too. Then grumpy BT snapped at me again & chased me right off the path and down the hill. I ran up back up to the path & kept going at full pelt. This was my view:

You can imagine that it seemed nothing out of the ordinary to just run straight ahead, especially with a little whipper snapper at your heels and tail!

My next view was this:

Yikes! Too late!

Owner had gone ahead thinking I'd catch her up when I'd finished larking around. The next thing she heard was a gasp from the other 2 humans and then nothing. 

This was me sitting at the top of the bridge today - it's really high isn't it?! 

I heard Owner say "Is there a drop there?" because from her angle you couldn't see a drop (tell me about it!). Then I heard Owner say a rude word & saw her rush down the side of the bank towards me. 

I was lying on the ground just beyond the rocks you can see in the photo. My leg hurt so badly I couldn't move, whimper, or even open my eyes. Owner thought I was dead already. Then she was thinking of head injuries,  and internal ruptured "this, that & the other". 

The other 2 humans were really kind. The lady put her jacket around me and the man spoke to someone on his iBone. Even the grumpy BT came over and gave me a sniff. Apparently she's called Milly. Well I wasn't to know the humans were calling Milly with a "y" and not an "ie" was I?

The man knew a local farmer who came out with his Landrover. While we were waiting for the emergency transportation to arrive, Owner knelt down next to me and was stroking me and saying nice things just as if we were on the sofa together at home.

When the farmer arrived he scooped me up and into to back of the vehicle to drive me & Owner back to our car. Owner could see that my right hind leg was broken but she was still thinking about all the "this, that & the others" that might be wrong. 

When we went back today, I took a more sensible route down the bank!

As it was a Sunday and my usual vet was closed I had to go to the nearest vet hospital. Don't tell @WMPcsidogsmithy, but I think Owner might have driven a bit faster than she should have to get me to the hospital!

Good job it was just a Dartmoor Bridge and not the Rainbow Bridge I went over!

Mini Millie

This is my 1st blog!

My name is Millie Dog. I'm sometimes known as No-Millie; Down-Millie; Naughty-Millie, but mostly just Millie, or Mills.

I was born on 11th January 2009 miles away from where I live now with Owner (@my-owner) & Lodger. This is the 1st picture Owner saw of me.

I was about 4 weeks old. I'm a bit embarrassed because I've got a podgy tummy & still have some of my lunch around my lips!

Owner came to visit me when I was 6 weeks old & I liked her straight away because she smelt of ham sandwiches!

I went home to live with Owner on 14th March 2009. This is a picture of me in the car on the snuggled in next to my vet bed & some newspaper in case I needed "to go"! I have always been a good snuggler - I started young & have had lots of practise. I'm best at snuggling with Owner!

I was very good on the journey to my new home & only did one wee. I wasn't sick, didn't poo & didn't cry hardly at all. Owner promised me that once I settled in at home & got over missing my dog Mum & brothers & sisters I would have the best life ever and she was right!

I liked to change my position a bit during the journey to check out the best position to sleep in! It took all day to travel.

When we got home I had a look around the garden. There were three lavender plants next to each other. Now there is only one! The middle one I ate, and the right hand one I wee'd on lots and it died!

 This was my 1st meal at home.

 And this is me safe & sound in my crate. (I'm at the bottom right of the photo!)

 I looked tiny in there then, but I have grown into it since then! Owner gave me lots of toys to keep me company.