Not just a gratuitous pet photo this time although it should be.

Poor Foster the dog is v poorly and staying at the vets for a while.

His history is not good and he's a walking ad for pet insurance but the house just isn't the same without him....

History so far:

we adopted Foster 2 years ago from some friends who he was a surrogate baby for. When the IVF worked, he became very jealous and is not good with small people (or small dogs). 2 months after being with us, he had to go to the vets because a blackthorn had gone inside his food and was working its way out of his knee, no complaints from the dog just a slight limp which the vets couldn't pinpoint until he was knocked out for an x-ray. closely followed by a backache (probably from chasing something somewhere he shouldn't) followed by another thorn in his paw causing an infection.

All was calm for a few weeks when he started wheezing and getting very short of breath.

another trip to the vets and general anaesthetic so they could do chest x-rays showed Bronchial pneumonia which was very touch and go for a while. He was taken to specialist vets who took him to Bedford Hospital overnight (apparently a lot of hospitals rent out their theatres/scanners etc overnight to vets) for heart/lung scans which showed a massive enlargement of his heart due to his breathing difficulties. Loads of antibiotics etc later and he was as right as rain for a while. We were very careful in the warm weather this summer and always took plenty of water for him on walks but being a Springer, you just can't tell him not to get too puffed out.(he does have an inhalor but I'm not sure it really works on dogs, although we try very hard to get him to breathe at the right time(how can you get a dog to breathe in when you want him to????)

This weekend, he's been off his food, not even interesterd in a bacon buttie on Sunday and went to the vets yesterday. They were really pleased to see him-it's actually been 10 months since his last visit-and he's very popular (and familiar) but not pleased at how poorly he is...

His temp is 106 deg so he's on IV antibiotics, antinflamatories and asthma treatment.

The vets have so far diagnosed a serious lung infection, low white blood cells and general anaemia and asked if he might have swallowed some kind of rat poison-trouble is, he runs around fields and in the woods where the gamekeepers put goodness knows what down-we can't pinpoint when he became sick since most infections take a couple of days to get into the system and he's not been noticeably poorly until Sunday(anyone who doesn't want a bacon buttie on Sunday morning must be ill or vegetarian or of a different faith).

Anyhow, the vets will phone during the night if he gets any worse and I'm going first thing tommorrow to see him, but the house just isn't the same without the tap dancing noises his claws make on the hard floors when he catches the post in his mouth before it even touches the doormat.

I miss my mutt and want him home, mucky paw prints and all.