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Things we love to do


It's Sunday again - where do the weeks go? This weekend we have mainly been ,making the most of the autumnal weather and doing the things we love. Abi has been at Angie's and has come home tired but happy after having pretty much the run of the yard to herself all weekend. Today she was left to get on with stables and sorting the horses out while Angie left for Cornwall and Claire was not sue until lunchtime. I have said a number of times that the responsibility she has there is quite something and she responds to it brilliantly. It definitely feels like a better set up for her at the moment to go there every other weekend and have all the advantages of a proper yard and decent horses rather than trying to make it work locally. 

Izzy has been off with Glenn today motorbiking again. As much as Abi is loving her horses, Izzy is loving her motorbiking. He as booked her in for a days coaching in half term and she cant wait. Today she was making friends with a couple of people at the track that they've now seen a few times and so she's beginning to feel a little more accustomed to what's going on. I will try and focus on the positives of this - she comes home glowing and full of what she's been doing - rather than the fact that she happily told me today that she'd had a bacon sandwich for breakfast, a Mars Bar for mid morning snack and a burger for lunch... that's a proper man's nutritional planning for you!

Autumn colours

While this has been going on I have mostly been despairing at the fact that Betty can wee for England and no matter how many times we take her outside, she can still produce a wee again when you least expect it. This weekend she has been loving the fact that we can spend more time outside and is fast getting used to her surroundings, getting braver every hour. She has so far found the guinea pigs (which she is fascinated by and tries to climb in with them if the doors is open for cleaning), the woods at the bottom of the garden and 2 (yes 2) dead pigeons in the hedges. These she brought to me very proudly - much to my horror - she hasn't had her jabs yet and I'm sure she is not supposed to be eating this sort of stuff!  She loves all the leaves and will happily spend hours playing in big piles of them as I rake up, with her and Bertie racing through them as they play. This does not make for a quick clean up task!

Bertie and Betty have been getting on brilliantly and he has taken her straight under his wing. As long as he is with her she is happy and confident, as we have found out at night time. The first few nights were a bit fraught, not least as the one thing we know she definitely does not like is being contained in any way. We tried in the small wire crate (she got her teeth stuck), the small travel crate (she yelped) and then the adult crate (she climbed the sides and yelped even more). We then got the dog play pen (bought for some other reason that I can't remember), and within 10 minutes she had managed to climb out over the top - bloody Houdini! At 1am on Tuesday morning (after the dirty protest of the night before) I gave up and shoved them both together in the utility room and bingo, not a peep for the rest of the night and no mess at all - sorted! So this is how they have been sleeping - 10pm until 6am clean and dry with no complaints. 

Unfortunately for all of the upside of Betty's breakthrough, poor Bertie has had an upset stomach since Wednesday which has been leaving him feeling a bit miserable. It isn't affecting his appetite, but I've been getting increasingly worried as there seemed to be blood in his poo by yesterday which is never a good sign. I could take him to the vet but they never seem very conclusive so instead I did a bit of my own diagnosis and I think he has Colitis which apparently is quite common in Boxers (of course). It's basically IBS and all the symptoms seem to be there. It should pass but if he's still not better by mid week then I will bite the bullet and take him to see the vet. I've put him back on the gastro food and we will see - he seemed better this afternoon so fingers crossed. This means that after coming down yesterday morning to adult sized disaster (which of course Betty had danced in and Bertie had then laid in), I'm now getting up in the middle of the night to see if Bertie needs to go out - give me strength!!

Besties

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