Pendlewitch

Yes I think so, she has another home in the pipeline though so she will have a good outcome I'm sure. The right one for Jack will be out there somewhere and we will wait for her.

Jack seems to have got over the loss of Jumble very quickly and is back pretty much back to normal for Jack. He's fine in the house but can be a misery to walk until he meets up with friends he and Jumble knew, then he's crazy! I have looked at loads of rescues but I keep looking for Cecil and Jumble lookalikes which I'm sure is not the way to go. Which leads me to the following! I found a JRT bitch who has had to move as her owner is terminally ill, her daughter has taken the little dog but as she works full time she feels she is not giving the dog the attention she deserves. It's a bit complicated as I would be going through a rescue but they do not have kennels, they either foster or home from home but through the rescue if you get my drift. If in foster all dogs are neutered, if adopted from home you have to sign an agreement to neuter asap. Now to the problems, the dog is approx 60 odd miles away and in the last week came into season, of course I'm not prepared to go any further with this until she come out of season. Another difficulty is I cannot take Jack on a round trip of 120 ish miles to go see the dog, he would be so stressed he would seem insane by the time we got there never mind having to come all the way back with him completely off his head. It looks like the owners are anticipating me going and collecting the little dog and bringing her home with me which would mean I'm taking her into Jack's house without any prior introduction, not the best idea in my mind and I don't know if the rescue would allow it. Even if I could take him it would be a very short and basic intoduction and not really that useful. Maybe I could kennel her for a few days and do proper introductions but if it doesn't work out I would still have to return her. She does sound near perfect, very like Jack in character, gets on with other dogs ok, is house and lead trained and a couch potato in the house but non of this means anything if they take a dislike to each other. Jack came into Jumble and Cecil's house not having met them before and it was ok but bringing an unknown dog into Jack's house could be a very different matter. My head is in a whirl! Comments and opinions would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks to all for your kind words, it helped a lot at a very sad time. The large space that Jumble occupied is hard to deal with, and I'm missing his craziness so much, I don't know what to do with my hands when I take Jack for a walk! I do feel that Jumble walks with us every day and will do for a while yet. Jack is doing alright but is a little sad and puzzled, when we meet dogs they both knew he goes crazy and doesn't want to leave them. I may look for a little friend for him at some point but not for a while yet. Here's a picture of my lovely Jumble.

Jumble was a bit wobbly yesterday and had diarrhoea, later on he had had another episode but was quite cheerful. This morning he was very wobbly and struggled to get up. Whizzed him into the vet and it was decided to treat the diarrhoea first then look at his wobble. By the time I got him home he had totally lost the ability to stand and was becoming very distressed. I had to carry him to the car and dash back to the vets. I had to make the awful decision to let him go, treatment was not really an option, steroids may have helped a bit but the DM would have continued to advance and the outcome would have been the same at some point. I could not have put my beautiful, bouncy, noisy stresshead through struggling to do the normal batty Jumble stuff. The look in his eyes when he knew he could not get up was heartbreaking, I knew I had to let him go. I can't believe this has happened so quickly, I'm in total shock! Goodbye my lovely boy, run like the wind over the Bridge, Cecil is waiting to show you round.

Super photo Clare, 17th out of 40 is not to be sneezed at! On a very different level I did Banner's agility competition today, it takes ages to put all the stuff out, 5 minutes to film her and ages to put the stuff back. I had to construct a tunnel for this comp, imagine a thin tarp sheet and a brisk wind rippling the sides and trying to lift the whole thing into space! Banner, bless her little cotton socks went through it without a backwards glance! The bottle bank, scary corner and wildly flapping curtain were not problem. Off home to make the film and send it off, good job I watched it through though, I'd missed out the entire weave!!! Thing is it was just after the tunnel, right in my face and I missed it, forgot it, had my head in the clouds or whatever, can't believe I did that! So on Friday I have to do it all again, arrrrrgh!

Update! Clumper's owner says I can ride him on a regular basis, how good is that! I do like him and it would save a lot of expense so worth a shot! Little Banner is very slightly lame so is in her stable for a week on the off chance she is developing laminitis. She hasn't put weight on, I am being very strict about the amount of grass she has has accesss to but she does have cushings so a bit worrying.

As I'm considering retiring next year I'm having thoughts about another horse. Because of my hip problem Wanda is too wide and I have serious pain if I try to ride her. I had a go on Clumper the other day and although he is 16hh and looks like an elephant he is nowhere near as wide and I was much more comfortable. So after much debate I'm thinking of an Icelandic, the tituppy action would be an advantage as it would assist with the stiffness and that they can rattle along in tolt if required which would be super. The others in the picture would be an Akhal Teke, (where would I find one), as they are small, narrow and hard as nails, or final choice would be an Arab. Do any others spring to mind, not a fell though, just not my sort of horse, Dales, Highland and the like would be too wide so it has to be 14hh or thereabouts, narrow and quick moving!

Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Banner rocks the stage again, she was third in her May agility competition with 96 points, the winner had 99 so not many lost. I just hope it doesn't send her up to the next level! My little pony is a super star!

Wanda is so happy, she's on steroids for her pollen allergies and she just loves it, I think she would snort it with a straw given the chance! Her eyes glaze over and she breathes it and just about says aaaaaaahhhhhh, as soon as she spots the spacer and mask it's gimme gimme gimmie, I think my horse is a druggie! Banner has done her May competition, closing date is today so waiting for the results with bated breath, she did make a few mistakes but I'm not too concerned as I don't want her to go up another level yet. She did the bottle bank and the water splash brilliantly so really pleased with my little pony!

More strange things popping up with my boy, for a while he's scraped his back feet, not all the time but on hard surfaces it can be clearly heard. He crosses his back feet in trot and when having a poo he moves forwards as if he can't stay in one position and if he turns too quickly he looses his balance and sits down. I walked them in a very overgrown area the other day and he had huge difficulty with anything over the path that he had to step over and ruts made him stagger a bit. I gave up very quickly on this walk, putting him on the lead did help giving him something to lean on as we made our way back. One thing I had already picked up on was his tail not wagging so much even when encouraging him to wag and I have spotted him standing with a back foot turned under. I can't reproduce this as he hates his feet touching and freaks out at the very suggestion! No further seizures since the ones caused by his booster shots and he's his normal self apart from the above, I was going to say bouncy but it's just struck me that although he's as shockingly noisy as ever he is not bouncing and boinging plus it's ages since he dashed off and jumped over a bench just for the hell of it!!!!! How have I not noticed that? He's still an incredibly happy dog and as long as he stays that way I'll deal with whatever else is thrown at him.

Ok, who has swiped the summer? We are back to howling winds and streaming rain, I'm on nights so just popped to to see the horses, Banner was shaking from head to foot, put her in the stable and wrapped her up in a fleece for 10 minutes and left her in, poor girl was freezing! Monty was a bit cold but Lilli didn't seem to even notice it was raining but they came in anyway! Big horses were off across the field and not bothered at all, I seem to have a couple of wimpy shetlands!

Well done Milo! Interesting about your saddle Clare, YO Sam has changed Obe from a WoW to a Harry Dabs dressage and a very similar reactiion. He's much freeer and does not curl up and drop the contact now. Wanda has thrown a splint, good going at 18 year old! It's not huge and she's not lame, vet has given her some anti inflam cream and says keep in walk for a while. Banner has done another agility competition, she came 11th but was only 4 points behind the winner so not bad really. Lilli is going to start competing too, could be interesting when she throws a huge temper tantrum and tries to bite me!

30 to 40 ticks a day Anne, oh eeek, that's horrid! I'll chase up the herbal wormers and garlic oil, thanks for the info. Rachel, thanks for the heads up about the horse fly sprays and citronella!

Thanks all, it does sound as though the booster is the culprit so he won't be having anymore! Yantan, your points have rung a few bells, I do use carpet freshener and fly spray so those are going to be banned. I don't use flea treatments as they just don't seem to get any, Jumba is really good at picking up ticks but I take those off with a tick hook. What about worming, I've always used Drontal but I'm wondering about that now!

Jumble is ok but still having occasional odd seizures for want of a better word. Today he did the paw raise, then a head tilt closely followed by a bum flop then wobbly trips, then vacant then seemed lame in front but was followed by another paw raise. Sometimes his gait was kind of paddling and wobbly, then it would go stilted. Between each event the 'normal' Jumble appeared and he'd leap round me barking then off into another do. Got back to the car rather slowly, he needed a hutch under the bum to get in and promptly collapsed in a heap. Got back home and a very normal Jumble bounced out of the car, flew round it a few times barking like he always does and hurled himself into the kitchen asking for breakfast! He's off the steroids as they didn't seem to make any difference apart from him being ragingly hungry all the time. Whatever is going on is very peculiar but he is not having episodes every day or even every week and between them is is just the same as he ever was, noisy and bouncy. He did have his booster shot a few days ago so I'm wondering if that triggered him but I suppose that's clutching at straws and would not give me anymore of a clue as to the root of the problem if it had set him off. I don't know where he is going with all this but at the moment most of the time he's fine so I suppose it's wait and see!

Yay, way to go Milo and Sam! No turnout for a fair while here, the fields are not showing a blade of grass. The sheltands and baby horses go out in the daytime but are waiting to come in at 4pm. All the others are still in winter turnouts but are getting ratty, they want out! Wanda is being a prize moo and a rotten bully, for such a nice horse she can change in an instant and I have to admit when she has her ears flat back and is snaking her neck she bears a remarkable resemblance to a camel. Don't ever tell her I said that!

Oooo, that's a bit naughty, she should be tacking and untacking and looking after him. Time for a discussion methinks, you are not in the least unreasonable.

I think lots of people are lacking motivation, the winter has gone on far too long and the week (ish) of almost spring weather had most of us fooled and thinking we were past the worst, We have snow forcast for Thursday night, Saturday and Sunday, I HATE snow, half an inch round here and we grind to a halt because we are incapable of dealing with it as we are just not used to it. Lilli is casting hair out in clouds, all the rest are clipped so not much going on with them. Lilli did her first session in the arena today and was shockingly awful, bucking and kicking and crocodile snaps! I use Richard Maxwell techniques and did get a bit out of her in the end, will have to find an alternative to backing up though as she can't. The little monkey has a serious temper, what a tantrum!

I am a fool! I spent the last week practising with Banner for her next agility competition, what I hadn't noticed was that she had gone up a level and I was doing the wrong course! She has really gone up too quickly, there is a vast difference between starter and first level, just proves how clever she is though. We will have to work hard now to get sorted by the closing date, Banner can do it because she is awesome and brilliant. Took Lilli for a walk round the yard and lost Millie in the mirror somewhere, fortunately she was in the stable when we got back as Lilli was getting a bit upset! I hope I don't have to start walking round with a mirror just so Millie doesn't get misplaced!

So very sorry for your sad loss Ian, life is just so unfair at times. R.I.P Chloe, run free little one.

Awww that face!

I was beginning to wonder where everyone had got to, glad y'all doing ok. Wanda is fantastic since she came off the prascend and started the Feedmark C-plus. My shets are great, Lillie is still fairly obsessed with her companion, Millie in the mirror which is highly entertaining! The yard shet Monty has been a bit off and not eating but seems to be coming round now, he has malabsorption problems and has to eat huge amounts of slop to keep right so not eating was a big worry. YO Sam went to a dressage comp with her horse Kim a year to the day from her surgery on her collateral and annular ligaments with a very poor prognosis, now just how good is that! She wasn't placed as Kim was more than a bit on end but just to get her there is a huge achievment.

Rest in peace beautiful Max. I know how much you are hurting but Max isn't, you gave him that freedom. Hugs and thinking of you.

Well Jumble was still very quiet this morning but his funny walk and hunched apperance has gone, went out for a wee and wobbled when he cocked his leg. So off to the vet, blood tests done with mild sedation and nothing showed up at all. Vet is convinced Jumble has had seizures and the events of the other week probably were as well so has put him on a steroid to see if things can be quietened down. Jum has found his bark at last, I never thought I would be so glad to hear the hysterical yap again! I've been advised not to walk too far from the car in case we have problems but we do that anyway because of his flopping over habits, this was always put down to his enlarged soft palate but makes me wonder a tad now. Many thanks to all for good thoughts!

The way he's behaving now Karen I think you could be right. He's very reluctant to move from his bed and when he does he pulls his front legs back under him before standing up and I did think his back is a bit arched. Vet first thing tomorrow!