I’m going to blame @DelBoy1203. He was giving me some crap about not updating this blog, and I said I didn’t have much happening. We have lots going on in the garden, which I document at Lottie’s Lot, but with more IVF happening than geocaching there’s not much to say in this space. In the back of my mind I thought the one interesting thing I do do regularly is take Lottie to the beach each weekend were we have fun with her friend Felix and my friends Petra and Astrid. Maybe I could write about that – dogs and beach are great to photograph. But I’m going to blame @DelBoy for taunting fates into making our weekly trip to the dog beach blogworthy.
Lottie and Felix on Howrah Beach
Somehow even in a day of appalling weather our weekly trip to the beach seems to take place in a window of sunshine. Today was no exception: it was warm and sunny. I made sure to park the car in shade. Lottie and Felix were having their usual fun. We walk the length of Bellerive and Howrah beaches. Lottie and Felix alternate between playing with each other, running randomly, investigating things to pee on (Felix) and investigating other dogs. Petra and I chat, and her daughter Astrid (who was due the day after Blobby) usually falls asleep once we get walking.
About halfway along Howrah Beach we saw a man watching 2 children playing in the sand and holding the lead of a Staffy. He didn’t say anything as Lottie and Felix went up his dog, but his dog suddenly turned on Lottie, who never is very good at just getting out of the way when she’s attacked. We called Lottie and Felix away and continued on. Lottie wasn’t acting any differently, so we assumed all was well.
Lottie has only recently developed an interest in balls, so it was rather exciting when Felix found a good ball at the far end of Howrah Beach. He and Lottie had a great time playing with it – Lottie looks quite silly playing with balls. She plays with them like a puppy – sort of clumsily because she doesn’t really understand how they move or how to intercept them yet. But she even caught a few!
Lottie Catches a Ball
Petra Kicking the Ball
It was when we were at the far end of the beach, a few kilometres from the car, when I noticed Lottie had red blood on her throat. She was much more interested in playing than letting me check out what might be wrong. It was hard to tell, but it didn’t look like there was a huge gash, so I just let her play on. And worried, because I’m my Mor Mor’s granddaughter. Lottie was still happy playing with other dogs and running and playing, so it couldn’t be that bad.
Close to the bluff that divides Bellerive from Howrah Beach we found seahorse:
He didn’t seem like he’d been dead long, so we decided to put him into a rock pool rather than let dogs mess with him. Slowing down near the rock pool meant I was about to examine Lottie a bit better and saw a definite hole in her check. EEK! There was nothing for it but to get back to the car, and as Lottie didn’t seem distressed we just went at the normal pace, letting Lottie and Felix have fun along the way. They chased a blue tongued lizard, played with other dogs, etc.
When we got to the car park I headed off fairly quickly rather than the usual dawdling with Astrid. I had Scott meet me at the vet as I’d left my wallet at home. Ingrid the vet saw Lottie fairly quickly. She shaved off the area around the puncture wounds, cleaned it out with diluted Betadine, and gave Lottie an antibiotic shot and an anti-inflammatory/pain shot. The vet thought Lottie would be fine – although there was a large void around the lower puncture she was able to get it well cleaned out and we’d gotten to the vet fairly quickly. She reassured me that letting Lottie play on the beach instead of immediately running to the car and getting her to the vet was a good thing; the permanent damage to Lottie’s socialisation if she’d been traumatised by the attack wouldn’t have been good. Instead it was just one moment in an otherwise fun walk. Lottie wasn’t impressed by the trip to the vet, but she was very brave and very good. Much braver than me!
So we’ve been cleaning out the wounds with betadine solution and giving her antibiotics. Not that there’s ever a good time for your dog to be attacked, but of course this had to happen just before we’re going to be leaving for a few days on the mainland. I’ve been playing with different ways to give Lottie her antibiotics so she’ll just eat them without them having to be forced down her throat; coating the antibiotic in peanut butter and using it like a glue to attach it to a bit of dried kangaroo seems the winner. Naomi, who runs Fort Bryan (Lottie’s holiday abode), is good at getting drugs into dogs, but I want it as less stressful for both of them.
Poor princess!
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