khanu

I'm hoping the anti-inflammatories will help with the pain. I'm allowed to supplement them with paracetamol but nothing else. I've just taken my first tablet as you have to take them with food. He said the trouble is you need to rest it, but that's difficult as the shoulder is used in most arm movements (as I've discovered today) but also that you need to keep the mobility otherwise you can end up not being able to use it at all. My main problem at the moment is walking the dogs as I normally walk with them either side - plus they pull when there is more than one or two of them at a time. This may force the issue of group loose lead walking.......

Mrs squiggs I did go to the doctors. Just took a while to convince the receptionist that I needed to see one and then had to wait for the appointment. Official view is I may well be screwed. He actually said it may be time to panic I've hurt the tendon that goes from back of shoulder blade to shoulder to humerus. An unusual one to hurt apparently. Also very unusual and concerning to get sudden onset like this with such bad pain. I have some heavy duty anti-inflammatories for the next 14 days and exercises to do so I don't lose mobility - they hurt like feck. If it doesn't get better then I'm off for xrays and things and possible cortisone injections - which I really don't want as no one I know who has those as ever been able to come off them and has just got worse. I'm so pissed off - I was about to start swimming training but that will have to be put off for at least 2 weeks. I wonder how much it will hurt to run and cycle with it? Got training with Talyn tonight which could be interesting. However having had the doctor scare me shitless that I'll lose mobility if I don't use it I'm tempted to just do everything as normal and just grit my teeth.

considering taking Syd's Metacam for my shoulder....

I'd like to restart the day please. Had an awful nights sleep, or rather non sleep. Think I was worried about the vet visit this morning. Woke up with a knackered right shoulder - no idea why, but it hurts to just lift my arm to type on the keyboard. Got Khanu, Syd and Talyn ready to go to vet, Khanu shot out the door - holding him in my right hand, my shoulder couldn't take it so my hand smashed against the door frame and I've taken a huge lump off a knuckle. Bled all the way to the vet, in the vet, on the dogs etc etc.... At vets - Khanu is fine, just went for annual check up and vaccination. Syd probably has arthritis in spine, which is why he is struggling on walks, he's now on metacalm low dose for a fortnight to see how he does. Talyn's lumps are nothing to worry about - scapula probably and old injury, rib is probably his floating rib that sticks out a hell of a lot probably due to his odd structure - possibly massage last week has changed his posture a bit which is why I've suddenly noticed it. However he does have fluid on his front left toe, likely to be arthritic, likely to go periodically lame. Nothing to do for now, but will need full investigation if his lameness gets worse. Probably not as bad as it could have been for Syd or Talyn, but my wallet is lighter to the tune of £105 (which is probably not bad for 3 consults, vaccination and meds......) Dog loose on road coming back home, but I couldn't catch it - it ran off over fields, had a shock collar on and looked like he had been out a while. Shoulder really hurts......I can lift it maybe 5 degrees without it being agony

I am very chuffed The way the review works is you are scored against peers world wide and my review means I was put as in the top 10% of employees world-wide (and it's a big company) so that is very very good and means my name gets noticed by the CEO etc. which is always a pretty good thing....at least I hope so

I've just been told I've got a pay rise following my excellent review Also get shares apparently but they are given over time so I'm not sure how that works or how long you have to stay, but still better than nowt! I've been told to keep it all quiet as not many people have got them.....

Thanks Guys. I'm trying to do my normal compartmentalising. There is nothing I can do about it right now, vet visit is Wednesday and we'll deal with whatever then. I'm sort of hoping (when I allow myself to think about it) that it is from his numerous escapes yesterday. He escaped from his harness twice, his collar once and between them he and Breck broke the bungee attaching them to the back of the van - perhaps that pinged back and clocked him. Between them and Syd peeing *in* a bag they did wonders for my dog trainer image

Found yet another lump on Talyn, this time a hard lump on a rib and the area is hot. Have appointment with vet on Wed anyway for the hard lump found on his scapula during his massage. Trying hard not to read too much into it until then...... bugger.

The sony reads like a normal book, you can't read it in darkness as it isn't backlit, but equally you can read it in direct sunlight like you would a normal book. If you would need a light to read a normal book you'll need one for the sony. Sony you do need to download books to your laptop and then transfer to your ereader, but I like that as it means I have the backup library. It allows you to upload many different formats. I get a lot of pdfs for work/college and it can handle those including most of the weird and wonderful graphs (it occasionally has a problem, but it's only been for some very odd formatting). Think I would always go for an ereader that doesn't restrict formats too much. I've got one of the early versions of the sony, PRS-505? Think they were cheaper when I was bought one, but the exchange rate has made them more expensive. Looking at the sony touch specs, it looks like they have attempted to address my biggest bugbear with it - you can search for specific terms within a book, which would help me when searching through the textbooks I have downloaded. You can also highlight text and write notes - again very useful for me. Very tempting to upgrade actually......

It's crappy santander who won't do instant transfer from my bank (smile) to them. But if I put in cash at santander it'll show up instantly so that's what we've done. I hate santander, it was ok when it was abbey but it's just got worse and worse. I want to move but OH can't be bothered.....

why do I have an OH who is completely inept at finances? apparently he has know for 3 days that we won't have the money to pay for the mortgage that goes out in a couple of days. It isn't his fault that he gets paid every four weeks which makes managing direct debits difficult, but why didn't he say something 3 days ago?! I now have to get cash out of my account to move to the joint account to cover it all, when I could have done it via the web 3 days ago.... he has also just cancelled direct debits to edf energy who we have just left, which means they know won't be able to refund our account directly, instead we'll have to wait for a cheque, then drive bloody 13 miles to put it in the bank, and then wait however many days for it to clear! I might have just shouted at him....

I love love love mine I got bought a sony ereader by my parents for my birthday over a year ago. I take it practically everywhere with me - it's become a bit like my ipod. I love the fact that if I go away with work or to college etc. I can take a load of books without having to take a load of books. I find it comfortable to read from, and I thought it would feel weird to hold but it really doesn't. I've also found free text books to download which has been useful for college, although it has to be said using reference books is less easy on the reader than a real book would be, but the money I've saved makes the hassle worth it. For normal reading it's great though.

Vena didn't give up because you didn't Happy Gotcha day beautiful

PMSL Billy that is classic! ETA: although somewhat worrying, but funny none the less

That didn't solve it, but I did figure out the problem and have just sent an email telling him how to sort it I also told him off for a lot of sloppy modelling and gridding..... Next case isn't non convergence really, more unrealistic expectations, but I've just got an out of office reply from him so I guess it can't be urgent then....

Ah well he's a git then! I'm definitely not like that even when I get fed up ......a lot of my support is via email due to the engineery typeness of it all and the need to give (well my need to give) long detailed explanations - in the hope that I am teaching users something rather than just fixing so that they can fix it for themselves next time. The users I get tired of are those that have used the software longer than I have, that I give the same long explanations to about why something happened, how to recognise the problem and how to fix it and they still come back time and time again for the same damn thing - mainly because I guess they can't be bothered to fix it. I now have a new tactic. I don't fix it for those people where I would normally send back the explanation along with the fixed model, instead I just give a step by step account of what they should do themselves. I do get fed up doing people's job for them though - I don't get paid their huge designer wage and yet they seem to think that software support means I will tell them how they can solve their thermal problem or how they should design their ventilation system. If they want that they should really be paying for the consultancy, but they get very stroppy when I forward them onto the relevant sales person.....

I try very hard not to be that kind of support person. Sometimes though I think I fail, 'specially when it's the same person asking the same thing over and over again - not that I think you are that kind of special customer, just that I've had a lot of them this week and would really rather it be Saturday about now. I'm currently trying to figure out why a particular model keeps diverging immediately. It must be something setup wrong as otherwise I would expect it to start solving normally and then have a fit when the maths goes squiffy in a grid cell. The model is huge, and I'm going through the tedious task of switching some things off and hitting solve to see whether it diverges or not with different things switched on and off. I'm booooored. It's boooooooring especially when the customer is more than capable of doing this kind of investigation himself - he just doesn't want to. Oh joy another case has just come in with non-convergence. It's obviously some kind of conspiracy....

Welcome home Maddison She looks a sweetie pie!

Trying to stay awake for when OH gets home in about 30mins or so, but think I'm failing. I'm going to sort the dogs out and go to bed and wait up for him there. Night all

Been busy this evening taking Talyn to the Galen centre for massage (new thread in dog chat) and then onto our first night at obedience class. Tal was a star at class, he even managed to settle down on his mat between exercises which is just a bit fab. I know it probably had a lot to do with the massage he had just had, but you know I'll take whatever I'm given! He wasn't freaked out at being in a new place, didn't freak at the new dogs or people either and only barked once at one of the other dogs barking, but was quiet as soon as I asked him, and didn't react again for the rest of the class - we may be making progress can't wait to start the agility pre beginners class with him in september. I really really hope he doesn't show me up at the Nadder Valley show on Sunday.......or Breckin for that matter

I took Talyn to see Julia Robertson at the Galen centre today. What a brilliant and lovely lady Talyn has been intermittently lame on his left leg since he arrived (last time was defintately his shoulder, I think the other times it was too, but can't be sure). The last time he went lame it was much worse than just a bit of a limp, he wouldn't put weight on it and screamed when he did it which he never has before. Vet said it was his shoulder, he went on anti inflammatories for 5 days which helped but it didn't go away for another few days. I made the appointment with Julia hoping that we would be able to come up with a plan that would allow us to do agility. Talyn needs something to do, and he is a very active dog, he really does need to be running, doing obedience just won't cut it. Obviously I was (am) worried that doing agility would mean he would be forever lame, and I don't want that. So off to Galen we went. Julia was so very patient with him as he is a nervous boy. So very gentle and always gave him an escape route if he wanted. She has found a hard lump on his left scapula which needs checking - slightly worried about this since this is the side he keeps going lame on, but I'm determined not to get obsessively worried about it until we've been to the vet. She concentrated mainly on his front shoulders and neck - he has been using his neck to propel himself (something a lot of dogs do apparently) as his back legs don't work so well due to his fused spine. She said his back end wasn't actually that bad - because his spine is fused he actually can't twist up his muscles like he can in the front end, but his lower leg muscles could do with some more treatment for sure. He actually closed his eyes and almost breathed a sigh of relief when she massaged his neck. I am now very hopeful that with TTouch, massage therapy, hydrotherapy and stretching exercises we will be able to keep Talyn as sound as possible for as long as possible so that he can enjoy a full life. Julia said that she thought much the same as me, we should be aiming for quality over quantity and that realistically doing agility may shorten his life expectancy but there are things we can do to make sure he can keep going for as long as possible. I can't begin to say how much of a relief it is to know that what I have been doing will have been of benefit to him, and that what we can continue to do will enable us to undertake an activity that I know he will love. I wish and hope that we'll have 10 years together, but know realistically it's going to be more like 5 or even less, but I'm determined that it'll be a fun packed few years. I can't recommend the place or Julia highly enough. Julia also says that some insurance companies will pay for treatments, so its certainly worth considering if you are near a therapist.

And having volunteered at a Dogs Trust branch I can tell you that the reason they have the luxury of "never put a healthy dog down" is because they get to pick and choose what dogs they take in in the first place! I'm not knocking the Dogs Trust at all, I think they are a progressive organisation that does a lot of behavioural work with their dogs but the fact is they have the privilege of being able to say to someone who want s hand over their staffie - no. And I heard and saw them do just that on a number of occasions, because they had finite space and already had a number of staffies that they couldn't rehome. By the way, healthy includes mental health - dogs have been put down for being aggressive. Not that I disagree with that either, but some people seem to think that the Dogs Trust take in dogs on the same basis as Battersea do and then never put a dog down - that's just not the case.

I haven't watched it yet, but thought I'd comment anyway.... There are a finite number of kennels that battersea has (spread over a number of site, but still a finite number). If they are taking in 1000 dogs a month (that's what I've seen a representative saying on DP), then that is 1000 dogs to house each month. If they are only re-homing 5000 a year, well that's a awful lot of surplus dogs. If a dog is dog aggressive then that means it needs a kennel to itself, quite probably needs to be exercised alone etc. Housing dogs together ultimately means you can keep more of them. I would think they simply can't afford the space necessary to keep that many dog aggressive dogs. I have a dog aggressive dog, he requires management and is a work in progress, he can live with other dogs (obviously since we have 5) but it takes a long time and careful management of situations and meetings for him to become ok. We've had Talyn for 4months now and there are still certain situations that I know have to be managed. Battersea just simply can't do that, the numbers are too big. With finite resources you can only help a finite number of dogs. And that's without considering how re-homable the dog may be. An aggressive dog (whether to people or other dogs or whatever) is a big commitment. At times it's exhausting, you just can't simply rock up anywhere with them, you have to consider the minutiae of details, because to them it isn't small or insignificant. Re-homing that type of dog is just as big a responsibility, and there are far fewer homes out there for an aggressive dog than for a non aggressive dog. At the end it comes down to a numbers game. You have this many spaces, fewer if dogs have to be housed alone, you have this many potential homes, a very small number who may be suitable for an aggressive dog. You have to choose the dogs that mean you can make the most use of the resources you have available.

Ooh you haven't got the Brooks Glycerin 8s have you? They are my new trainers and I do love them although they did give me a blister last weekend, but only because I did my right one up too tight as I was in a hurry to get to the start as I only just got there in time! Early October I'm at a TTouch course I'm afraid so no can do. Well that and the fact I'm not sure I'd manage a half marathon at the moment! My longest run at the moment is only around 10k....and that takes me aaages. I will definitely sponsor you though and gee you up with my latest tales of getting lost on early morning run because I was too busy trying to breathe rather than notice where I was going, or how running with dogs is a bit depressing when you reach a hill and they just bound up it while you struggle to keep your legs moving......

Rumpole Congrats on the new arrival I don't know how but Talyn has managed to de-stuff a kong in about 5mins. It was a huge XL one stuffed with naturediet type food and it's completely clean. My idea of keeping him somewhat occupied whilst getting him to put on some weight is no longer working, I will have to start freezing them. Pets at home were also selling some busy buddy toys reduced at the weekend so he also has some puzzle toys with kibble in to entertain him for a bit longer.....