Oh the stress, the stress ! It’s worming time here at Poorpaws which means dosing thirteen dogs on three consecutive days with what, I am sure, is foul tasting liquid. Why don’t I just give them a pill ? Well, I’m quite a mean person (I mean ‘mean’ as in don’t like to spend money, not being mean to anyone/thing) and the liquid is much, much cheaper than the easy pill. Of course there are a couple of dogs who just WILL NOT open their mouths when they spy the syringe and they of course get the pill in cheese. The others, darlings all of them, trust me (oops !) so happily comply, only to look at me reproachfully when they realise what is going on. Of course they all get treats afterwards but they are definitely (or definately for Line of Duty fans) offish with me afterwards. Anyway, we are on day two of the treatment, so just one day to go. As many of our dogs are very elderly, we have quite a few who are on daily medications, so getting the worming done, dishing out the daily meds and stopping the dogs not needing meds from trying to drink the cough medicine meant for others, is quite a task and I have to admit that at the end of it I am not 100% sure that the right dogs have had the right treatment !!
I realise many people will be disappointed with the ghastly wet day forecast but I am delighted ! I had a massive plant up of pots yesterday and they are all out there now drinking like mad and, hopefully, preparing to bloom beautifully. I love gardening, though, sadly, am not blessed with green fingers. Our garden is littered with ‘quirky’ stuff, for example an old ‘pop pop’ bike used by everyone in France very many years ago is not decorated with flowers, but strings of onions and garlic. There are also two really old bicycles found in the outhouse of a property bought by a friend, a tiny, very rusty kiddie’s bike found in the garden of another house bought by another friend and an old wooden wheelbarrow found in an attic. My latest project is a ‘vertical garden’ which I saw on line and which consists of two wooden pallets, one providing the back and the other cut up to make planting ‘shelves’ across the front. Well, Ernst is a master carpenter so I asked if he could make one for me. He said he would so I suggested he looked at the online video. Pooh poohed that idea, he knew how to do it. First model turned out to be a horizontal garden. Rejected kindly. Second model had ‘shelves’ that were so shallow that I couldn’t put plants in them. Rejected rather tersely. Third model ok, but the third shelf is at floor level, er, we have many male dogs ! However, this model was accepted in desperation as I wanted to get it planted up before Winter ! I have just put the teeny bike in front to stop the dogs peeing on it. I finally planted it up with herbs yesterday and would add a photo but it looks rather feeble at the moment so I’ll wait until the plants have bushed out a bit.
We have had quite a few donations from people since we were unable to run the Book Sale in April and I would like to thank everyone so much. The donations will be credited against book purchases in June (12th/13th). Thanks to you, the vets are paid up to date and food supply is guaranteed. We are keeping everything crossed that nothing stands in the way of the June sale when we will be so happy to see you all.
Only little Axel on the adoptions page and he looks like he will be going to a new home very soon. This is not to say that we don’t have dogs for adoption, it just means that Danielle has been so busy, she hasn’t had time to send me photos. You can always check out the website ‘secondechance’ and just click on ‘Midi Pyrenees’, then ‘Lot’ and you will see, amongst others, our dogs under ‘La Mere aux Betes. You could also go on to her Facebook page.
Last episode of Line of Duty tomorrow – yippee ! “Mother of God” I hope we find out who ‘H’ is, my money is on Kate !
Sue x