Missing Missy

I started writing about losing Missy so many times since she died. I wrote a detailed account of how we took her to the emergency vet on Easter Monday, our hope that maybe just maybe it wouldn't be the last vet visit, what her last moments were like and how it felt for her to go limp on my lap and leave her spent little body there to be cremated.

I compiled a collection of the dozens of things every day that would jar my heart with longing for her.

There were lists of all the "remember when" things we comforted ourselves with by talking about in the days and weeks after and how it made us laugh and cry. I considered how in some ways it was worse than losing my dad last year almost to the day. I'm sure some people will be shocked when I compare losing a father with losing "just a dog". I know I can justify it, I rationalised it all out in detail but I won't foist my rambling verbiage on you. It all got rather personal and I'd rather keep it to myself.

But none of the handful of blog entries I started got finished, I couldn't actually see the screen for crying and none were really right, they became too mawkish or I knew nothing I could write would be good enough and so the effort was abandoned ... time and time again.

Today I almost abandoned it again but I have got to a position where I feel I cannot continue with my blog unless I address her loss. It was such a big thing to me that I can't tell my blog all the other things that are happening until her absence is addressed. So deep breath and here's the latest effort.

Today I almost wrote that you can replace a dog. As I continued, I came to realise that is incorrect - replacement is impossible but you can welcome another dog into your home and it will help - that's what we've done but it still reams out the jaggy edged hole in my heart whenever something reminds me of her. A few weeks after Missy left us, we couldn't bear not having a dog any more and we now have another Manchester Terrier called Bongo. Bongo has a different personality and some of his little ways are very different to Missy. He has done a lot to heal us but I will write more about Bongo soon. Today is about Missy and my dad.

I can't welcome another dad into my life to help ease that pain, I still miss him so much and that's the big difference between the two and why it's worse when you lose a parent than a pet. When a parent is gone, all the things you relied on them for, shared and enjoyed with them, there's just no-one else that will do.

My dad was very ill with stomach cancer at the end of his life. In his final days he asked me if there was a way of speeding it up "I wish there was a way we could hurry it along". He also asked his GP and the McMillan nurse if there was an off switch. But there wasn't. He had had enough when he was too weak to get out of bed and there was nothing I could do except be there.

Missy was also very poorly with kidney failure and a heart murmur. When she'd had enough, almost to the same day a year later, she couldn't ask me in words but I knew she too had had enough. At the emergency vets, we all knew. There was a way I could help her that I couldn't help my dad. When I was murmuring in her ear what a good dog she was and how glad we were to have her in our lives as the injection took effect, many of my tears were for my dad too. I was able to help my dog in a way I couldn't help my dad and I felt guilty I didn't do more for him. I am so sorry for that dad.

I miss you both.

Feeding a dog with renal problems

Three different doggy meals, all destined for the bin.

Missy has been doing pretty well up to today, she's been taking up a lot of my time cooking and feeding her but I really don't mind that. She was even starting to feel a little heavier when I lift her onto the bed (bless her, she still hasn't got the hang of using the useless pouffe).

Initially we got two different types of renal food from the vet. From day one, she wouldn't eat the wet pouch type food but for three days, she could be persuaded to eat the dried version, provided I rolled it around a bit in a few slices of cooked chicken.

Chicken is too high in protein to be fed on its own to a dog with renal problems so we were really pleased to be getting quite a bit of the dried food into her. With it being so low in protein, it doesn't overload her kidneys.

On day four, she won't eat the dried renal food. I tried rolling it in scrambled eggs, pressing slivers of cheese into it, wetting it with water, wetting it with chicken stock, covering it in gravy. Nothing worked, except she would still eat the chicken - but only its own. Finally I scrabbled around in the cupboard to find the lowest protein pouch food I could find. When her appetite first started getting iffy, we bought loads of different brands to try to get her to eat. I am not exaggerating when I say my cupboards have more dog food in them than human foods, they're even spilling out onto the work surfaces. There is no food we won't buy if we think she would eat it.

Encore in jelly food is relatively low in protein, quite a high percentage is just moisture from the jelly and mixing the dried renal food in that worked quite nicely.

On day five she wouldn't eat Encore in jelly or the dried renal food. I turned to the internet for low protein dog food recipes and found this homemade one which is cooked mince, hard boiled eggs, cooked rice and breadcrumbs, the recipe recommends a chemical to be added to it too, I didn't have it so I missed that off. I remember when Guinness was ill with kidney and liver problems, our vet told me all of these foods were fine for dogs with renal failure to have. So I cooked a big batch up with high hopes and Missy loved it, she was even making her cute little equivalent of "nom nom" noises which she used to do when eating her favourite foods. I was so glad.

The next day, she had it again but then, nope, don't want that any more. Encore in jelly came to the rescue again when I mixed the home made food half and half. For a couple more days all was well but today nothing is working.

This morning I have made up my own recipe of mashed potatoes with a small quantity of cheese grated into it and then mixed it with canned tuna. This is the type of food she would've thought was brilliant before she got ill, she had a mouthful or two and now she just resolutely turns her head away when I try to give it to her.

She wouldn't even eat chicken. I tried cooking some fresh to see if the smell of would get her appetite going and it did but but that is all she has had today (some this morning and another freshly cooked one this evening) along with a couple of dried venison treat sticks, these are both high protein foods and so neither are good for her kidneys.

I was daring to hope we could stabilise her with a low protein diet and she would be OK but on days like today, when all she wants to eat is protein, I feel very close to losing her. She's next to me now on the sofa, her head on my lap. I stroke her side trying to imbue my hands with healing powers, bathing her kidneys in rejuvenating light. Please be well, Missy.

EDITED 3 MARCH WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Since writing the above, I have looked at many, many different low protein home cooked diets on-line. What most have in common is to dilute the amount of protein (meat) with other items such as grains, pasta, vegetables, eggs and small amounts of liver and kidney.

With Missy I have had success by varying the recipe I linked to above by replacing beef mince with pork mince, including 2-3 oz of cooked liver and substituting cooked macaroni for the rice.

I have acquired some calcium carbonate which some recipes recommend, however I wanted to ask the vet about it so I waited til we went to see her on 2 March. She said Missy's blood work showed her calcium levels were fine and she would get calcium from the meat in the home made recipe. Adding more calcium risked bladder stones so she wouldn't recommend its inclusion; I'm glad I went with my instincts on that one and omitted it.

Link to Feeding a dog with renal problems - part 2

The useless pouffe

Missy, our little Manchester Terrier is getting on a bit now. She's a grand old lady of eleven and a half, that's close to 80 in doggy years. In the last few months she's found it harder to jump up onto the sofa as she used to. Her "spring" has gone a bit. She hasn't been able to get into the car unaided for some time, so we've been lifting her up onto the seat whenever we have to go anywhere.

To avoid her hurting herself by falling back down when her jump up goes a bit wrong in the house we bought this pouffe and placed it inbetween the chair where she quite often settles down when she's on her own and the sofa where she joins me if I'm in the lounge. We've shown her how to get up onto it encouraging her up and down it with treats. Does she use it?  Of course not!

Even though we've shown her the way, she still struggles up on her own, if I notice her about to jump, I lift her up onto the pouffe by way of further encouragement but she still isn't getting it, bless her.

At the same time as we got the useless pouffe, we realised she was also struggling with getting back up onto the last step down onto the grass, it's a little higher than the ones further up so we bought a non-slip outdoor ramp (which can also be used for the car - it folds up). Does she use it? Of course not!

We've got this lovely safe, stable, smart black ramp especially designed to make it easy for her. Again with the training and treats ... but she was still bewildered and struggling. So alongside the ramp, we've piled up these tatty old paving and coping stones which were waiting for us to hire a skip to thrown them out. Does she use it? Of course she does!

The last couple of weeks her health has been declining in other more worrying ways. When she had her jabs last year the vet detected a slight heart murmur. It wasn't necesarry to treat it as she wasn't symptomatic. But lately, her appetite has been very hit and miss, last week she was vomiting and she wasn't keen to go out on her walks. The most alarming day was Wednesday when she coughed up some blood.

The vet has taken some blood and sent it off for testing, yesterday we took a sample of urine in. We should have all the results back on Monday.

In the meantime, the pouffe is being used as a footstool and we're hoping whatever is wrong is something that's easily fixable perhaps with tablets. Would anyone reading this please send positive thoughts and prayers for Missy to have a happy outcome. We don't want to lose her just yet.

Back to work ... or is it?

Like many people do, I tagged on a few extra days to the Easter bank holiday and was lucky with some really lovely weather to do some gardening tidying up. I managed to catch some kind of cold lurgy which took the edge off it a bit but now MTM has caught it, I've recovered! Get well soon dear!

But this week I'm back to work, beadmaking in my studio. Here's the view from my "office", bird feeding stations with sunflower seeds, thistle seeds and peanuts. The robins, chaffinchs, thrushes, blackbirds and tits all visit regularly and I love to watch them.

I got the radio tuned to Planet Rock and I sing along to the tunes I know, it has to be said that sometimes this does scare the birds off.

On nice days, Missy keeps me company outdoors, she has a cushion outside the studio which she lays on when she's feeling lazy, sometimes she has a chew, but quite often she goes exploring in the garden, sniffing the sniffs and chasing off squirrels and pigeons.

I don't think this can really be classed as work but as people pay me money for the beads I make, I've come to realise, I am a very lucky lady!

There's a dog under there somewhere

I'm crocheting a blanket using Lucy from Attic24's Ripple Blanket Pattern,

It's nowhere near finished yet as it's going to be quite big. Missy has decided it's already just the right size for her!

So what now?

Last Sunday was dreadful, awful and so we decided to just get away from everything and let the Landlord and his Agents spin.  We got a last minute booking at a self-catering cottage in our favouritest place - Bamburgh in Northumberland. We left on Monday and got back on Friday evening. Here's a picture of Missy next to the beach at White Sands just up the road

We also had a quick visit into Scotland (an hour's drive) to celebrate Andy Murray's achievement, he won his first Grand Slam tournament in the US Open whilst we were away. (I couldn't watch it on TV so I listened to it on 5Live). Here's a few pictures of the harbour and town at Dunbar (not Dunblane, I know but it was the furthest we wanted to go!) Very very lovely ladies public loos, I wish I'd taken a photograph - they're all decked out with fresh flowers, by far and away the nicest public lavatory I've ever visited!

There were TWO galleries in the town, this one Bass Rock Framing which does framing on the premises and sells mainly framed fine art artwork, they also stock bought in Scottish/seaside themed items. The second was called the Found Gallery, which was selling framed and unframed prints (don't think they do it themselves) and a wonderful mix of British made artisan created goods. If you combine the two businesses together, taking out any mass produced items, this is what we want to do with galleryRAUXA ... but oh, yes, I was forgetting, we have no premises!

We left it with our lawyer that he would e-mail DH if he heard anything but just to wait for the other side to get back to us (if ever). We were adamant we would not agree to any changes to the original Heads of Agreement.

DH can pick up e-mails on his Blueberry phone (it's a Blackberry really, he just calls it that). Reception is intermittent though so we only turned it on once a day when we were in areas where we knew we could receive e-mails

Thoughts of the disappointment were never too far away and we tried to formalise what we were going to do in the future, lots of ideas cropped up, the more wine we had, the crazier they got ...!

Checking his phone when we stopped for lunch on the way back on Friday, we heard that the Landlord had had a change of heart and decided that the Heads of Agreement could stay where they were, they signed the lease last Wednesday and want to complete as soon as possible now.

It's quite a big shift to go back into it, we've lost over a week and we have messed around our workmen to the point that I'm quite surprised they took our phone calls asking if they were free for yet another revised start date. As well as that, there's the issue of whether we trust the Landlords and their Agents.

The previous tenant tells us he never had any problems with the Landlords at all, pay the rent and they totally leave you to it until he told them he was vacating. A similar tale has been told to us by one of the neighbouring shops who has the same Landlord, pay the rent to the Agents and you never hear anything from them, she's only had one inspection in 10 years.

Apparently it's a religious holiday for the Landlord and their solicitors on Monday and Tuesday so we're aiming for a Wednesday completion ... we're both hoping all this fuss wasn't the universe hinting that we shouldn't go ahead with it! We've made the decision that we will carry on with our plans for a picture framing Gallery today and there's a new moon, so we're taking that as a sign that a new beginning will be kindly looked upon.

-o0o-

Thank you for the kind messages received here, e-mail, phone calls and on my Facebook page, it makes all the difference to be reminded that the majority of people are really really lovely!

Why am I so tired?!

Might have something to do with this little madam demanding breakfast and her walk at 6am. Dogs do not understand the concept of a Sunday lie in!

Sunny Friday in Cambridge - photos of my stall/booth

I've often been asked to put some photographs of my stall (or booth as my transatlantic friends call it) where I sell my jewellery every Saturday in Cambridge. As I'll soon be giving up my stall after nine years, I thought I'd better get round to it before the opportunity is gone! The Art & Craft market is open on Fridays too during the summer. There are usually fewer stallholders there as it's a bit quieter so last Friday, I took my camera along and took a few snaps. I've posted them as a Facebook album but for non-Facebookers, here are a few of the bestest ones

This is my view looking to the left

From outside looking in

Peeking round the side to the left. In bad weather I have tarpaulins keeping out the rain on the sides of the stall as well as on the top. That's the side of Trinity College in the background. The tower in the middle of All Saints Garden is a memorial to the founders who raised the money to build the church that once occupied this site. The church has gone but the memorial (and some gravestones) are still here ...

Missy is usually snuggled down on her "stall bed" which is brought specially for her and it's underneath the table behind me. When it's sunny, we put her bed in the sunshine as she loves sunning herself. She has a water bowl which is kept topped up all the time. Often people notice her (rather than my jewellery!!) In colder weather, she has blankets to keep her warm. Sometimes she jumps up onto my lap and tries to charm my customers into buying something! Her eye looks a bit runny in this picture, she's got a case of conjunctivitis. We're treating it with antibiotic eyedrops twice a day but its on the mend! Whilst I'm setting up (takes about an hour and a half) she gets a long walk down by the backs and the river with her Daddy, that tends to tire her out for most of the rest of the day!

And here's a picture of the whole thing from a short distance, I put the top tarpaulin is on even in good weather as there are often pigeons in the trees ....!

That's a big 'un

My family came to inspect our new home on Sunday. They came for lunch (soup and a sandwich, I'm not confident of the oven yet to do a full roast for 8). It was super to see everyone but just look at the size of the chew bone that sister, Sandy bought for Missy!

And trust Sandy to take the next picture (it looks VERY rude!)

There's still loads of it left!
This is the best pic in my opinion but it's a bit blurry

Why do we have dogs?

I have just spent 20 minutes sorting this tangled mess out.

It's was a tension square I was knitting to check my gauge prior to knitting up a new project. I quite often eat my lunch with the news on the TV in order to get the weather forecast. After my sandwich but before the forecast, I thought I could get a couple of rows done. I left it there this afternoon and I've just come back to carry on and found it on the floor ... Missy had a rather guiltily sheepish look when I picked it up in puzzlement ...

Why do we have dogs? Because it's a laugh! :-) Bless her.

Say Hi to Horace

This is Horace

He lives at Stoke Rochford, a village that's a 3-4 mile drive from our home. Every couple of weeks or so, we like to walk Missy somewhere different to give her a bit of a change. This morning, we both took the morning off (oh, the joys of self-employment!) :-) I have quite alot on at the moment but nice weather doesn't come along that often at this time of year and DH persuaded me that this would make up for the umpteen bank holiday Mondays that we have simply ignored and worked through.

Horace lives by this bridge

I always take along some stale bread for him, he's named Horace after Laura Sparling's hothead torch (she has names for everything!) because he sounds a bit like a Hothead (used to make beads) whenever he hisses to let me know that I'm not dishing the bread out quick enough!

Horace shares the vicinity with these creatures:


Missy wants to chase them all (but isn't allowed to!)

There are loads of leaves, they were just dry enough to crackle when we walked over them :-)

The walk is a mixture of river, weir, mill buildings converted into business units, quiet country lanes, farmland,  a golf course and lots of old stone cottages

We pass by two war memorials which are particularly poignant at this time of year. My dad was a gunner on Lancasters in the Second World War so I find the Canadian one especially moving (look at the ages of the crew that died near here). Every year, the Canadian Air Force and RAF leave wreaths on memorial day.


Stoke Rochford Hall itself is impressive, currently home to the National Union of Teachers and you can hire the place for conferences etc. There's also an impressive monument to Newton, who was born in nearby Woolsthorpe Manor.


Over the small bridge, round the corner by the Church and we're almost back to the car


We got home just before it started to rain but we had a lovely morning.

Two cute photos

My cardigan was folded up and left neatly over the arm of the chair .... she looks too comfy to shift!

Have you ever tried to purchase some of Laura Sparling's lampwork beads? They go virtually as soon as she adds them to her website or Etsy store. It was therefore with mixed feelings when I got an e-mail from Sandy asking me to make her something with these:

Aren't they beautiful? I can see why Sandy liked them but ..... on the one hand I can't wait to get my mitts on them but on the other .... oi!! It's hard enough trying to get hold of Laura's beads without non-jewellery-designers buying them as well!