Your Day (apart from gardening) - what took place?

Snuggled with the duvet last night - it's a hard life for a dog in this house you know.....

 

Absolutely love Retrievers @Logan - Labradors too. I would love one, but whilst our garden is a decent size, the house itself isn't and it would be a bit small for a big dog.

Well a few steps forward and one back with our wee man. We took him a short wander around the park yesterday, which he loved - he would have carried on, but we didn't want to push our luck. Last night, he was fully on alert with his 'mummy has beef' face...



Which is a ton better than he was on Thursday...



He remains a wee bit incontinent overnight - he seems oblivious to it happening as he will ask to go out during the day. We have got a load of puppy pee pads, although he isn't always on them when it happens so our carpet cleaner is doing overtime and I am about to be awarded shares in the shampoo company

Last night he had one of his wee night accidents on his bed and it appears that there was some blood in it, quite dilute so not a lot of blood to the amount of urine, but still quite a bit. The odd thing is that this was very reminiscent of one particular incident when I was in hospital, when a nurse checked on me in the middle of the night to find me soaking through with blood in the urine (quite a lot of both) and yet fast asleep. More puzzling for them at the time, I was still on dialysis and deemed to have no kidney function at all, yet here I was soaked in it. It was deduced that it was a clot (I had a LOT of DVT's when I was ill) that had essentially been pee'd out, and soon after that my kidneys did in fact start working again.

Smudge had no kidney issue (that we are aware of) but I am left wondering if this is sort of similar. As I type, I am waiting on a call back from the vet for advice. He is up and about this morning, chirpy and tail wagging, peeing well (and it is clear), breathing is good, and his appetite is right back this morning.

Meanwhile, I am running about washing dog bedding, cleaning carpets and doing my domestic God routine. I have taken a few days of work to keep an eye on him.

 

He is a Jack Russell crossed with a Chihuahua (it was either a very unlucky Chihuahua, or a very keen one! ). He is a right wee character, always has been - not the most social dog, and will growl a bit, but then if you were to visit us within an hour he would be on your knee giving you cuddles.

I am doing OK thanks @Victoria - sort of reached a 'level' where I am not as good as I was before, but then not as bad as they anticipated I would be. What can you do, but carry on and do your best? I am changing my garden plans a bit this year, as I tried to do a sort of 'normal' garden last year and it was just too much for me in the end. Hopefully this year will be more successful.

 

Aye, you are right about the money, but in fairness Colin no amount of money would cure either myself or Smudge. I really cannot complain about the treatment I received either - they must have spent an absolute fortune keeping me alive.

 

We had our cooker fixed today. It's a big gas range and not many people will work on them. The fan that blows all the hot air from the ovens and grill stopped working some months ago.

The vent is just below all the knobs on the front and just above the top doors. Without the fan working the knobs get very hot and they started melting (some form of plastic as it's illegal to have metal knobs).



We had someone in to sort out the non-working fan. He had to drag the cooker out (very heavy) as access to the fan is from the back. He removed the back panel, loosened the side panel and got the fan out - it's a cylindrical one. He checked it to see whether he could repair but it was no good. So he said he would look for a new one and would have to put this one back in as it completes the electrical circuits. He put it all back together and was out of here in half an hour saying he would charge me when he has finished the job.

He never contacted me again so after three weeks I phoned him. He apologised (said he had lost my phone number ) and said he would get right on to it. That was mid December. So on Friday I phoned this other man (recommended by one of Mrs S's friends) and he came round this afternoon.

He seemed a bit of a ditherer and he and his 'boy' spent a few minutes trying to work out where the fan must be - until I told them it was at the back. The pulled the cooker out, with a struggle, took the back off and couldn't work out how to get the fan out! They eventually took the side off (still couldn't work out how to get the fan out), tried to get the top of the hob off so that they could get into the thing (wouldn't move because the glass top was fixed over it), removed the glass top and eventually got the fan out. He looked at it and said he has one of those on the van .

Came back in with it and then couldn't work out how to line up the holes on the fan with the holes on the cooker. A few minutes of bashing some part of it with a hammer got the things into line. Then they had a slight struggle putting it all back together (after testing that it was working) because they had put all the different type of screws together (a couple of dozen of them).

He put the cooker back, trapping his finger - but the job was done. An hour and twenty minutes and one, large, fan unit later he charged £68. A very reasonable price for the job but they didn't instill any confidence in me for what they were doing. They also didn't want to take their shoes off (peeing down outside).

This is what the replacement unit looked like and the first one I could find on line was over £90