"Marina" wrote in message
...
Yowie wrote:
gentle snip

The likely suspect is arthritis, especially since its getting cooler
around these parts and she's a senior doggy that refuses to use her
kennel and therefore sleeps on the ground, silly dog (the kennel is
unchanged, AFAICT). There are many and various treatments and I hope they
aren't going to be fearfully expensive. Her eyes are bright and she's
still got that stupid doggy grin, so I don't think its time yet. Still, a
few purrs, prayers wags and whatever wouldn't go astray at this point.
May it be easily dealt with, whatever they find.

The Mir'a'Cal kitties are sending their bestest purrs for Fluffy.

Piggy-backing here as I wanted to use your snip, Marina ;-)

There is a drug that is so effective against bone pain in horses that they
can be ridden and even raced when they are lame because they suddenly
aren't. I'm not in favour of using it for that purpose but it is equally
effective in dogs. We kept our elderly German Shepherd out of pain on it
when his hips were on the way out for a couple of years.
It is colloquially known as "Bute" which is an abbreviation of its proper
name (I can't remember what that is, but your vet will know.) OTOH there
may be better painkillers on the market now for Fluffy, this was quite a few
years ago.
I'll tell you all one day about Rebel, rejected as a police dog when he tore
out the thigh muscle of the man he was arresting. Why? Because the man
attacked him with the baseball bat he was about to use for a bank robbery.
And of course, it hurt the dog, who was brave and would not back off, so he
hurt him back..
It seemed a shame he got a dishonourable discharge from the police force for
that. Apparently it's fairly ok for a police dog to bite if they meet a lot
of resistance but not to carry it quite so far as Reb did.
Myself I think the bloke deserved it. He kicked the dog in the stomach and
hit him over the head with the baseball bat. A lesser dog would have backed
off I suppose but why do we need lesser dogs in the police force? We don't.
We need dogs like him so that criminals will realise that when the police
say "stop, or I'll send the dog" if they don't stop and then resist the dog
with violence there is a chance they'll get really hurt.
Perhaps ripping out the thigh muscle was a tad excessive though. I suppose
the police were afraid of being sued if he did it again.
Poor boy lost his career through that.

If anyone is interested why and how we came to get Rebel, how it was
difficult to get him over his racism (yes really), why he hated women at
first, please just ask.

Tweed