Old Dogs and Children

One month ago was my last blog post. Time to rejoin the human race, having neglected spouse, family, friends, and critters for about 3 months while I worked on a consulting report. It is finally finished, 190 pages, 140 charts, 90 tables later. and 10's of thousands of pieces of data organized and manipulated. Haven't heard back from the client.  Likely crashed the server. Sunday and Monday I slept like the old dog I am. Today I will begin to catch up on things.

Volk is also an old dog, coming 11 years in January, but sometimes he thinks he is young. We let Volk and Kashtanka run out of their yard as long as Lucia's chickens are not free-ranging. Normally they take off running and come back in about an hour and hang around until feeding time then go back in their run. One day Volk didn't come back. At 5:00 pm the next day he showed up beaten and bloody. He had been in a fight over a female in heat. When his brother Bobik was alive, up to 6 years ago, the two of them would disappear for three days until one came crawling home. Not sure who beat up Volk this time.

Volk at almost 11 years

It might have been the neighbour's dog who was apparently out at the same time. They hate each other. If it was Ronald, Volk has had it coming for years as he has tormented him through the fence. One cold wet early December day maybe 5 years ago, I was coming home from walking the dogs and Ronald slipped out the gate in Lucia's yard. He would have killed Volk but I managed to get a collar in each hand and hold them apart. They did not bite me on purpose but in a fighting rage, they bite everything that goes by. I slipped and fell in a mudhole, couldn't get up but held on for dear life for 15 minutes until the neighbour came and got his dog. Tanya saw me but had the flu and couldn't come outside. The next day I was in bed with the flu also. We were both down for two weeks.

Speaking of which, Tanya and I got our flu shots last year for the first time in Regina. Trying to get them this year in Zhovti Vody was no easy task. The hospitals don't handle the vaccine, you have to order it through the pharmacies and then pay someone to inject you. We managed to get two doses after three weeks of trying and now to get a nurse to give them to us. In Moscow, they have kiosks in the subway stations and it is free.

Lucky, who is four+ months according to our vet, has had his problems. He has been growing like mad. Several weeks ago his back legs went out from under him, no pain, just weakness. His flanks jutted out from his body, his hocks were close together and he walked almost on his ankles. We took him to the vet and she put him on vitamins and some kind of shots and pills for a week and he improved somewhat. Last week he was well enough that we took him for his first set of shots.

He has been getting much better with time but still tires easily and while he can run and jump, he cannot jump up on anything. He and Kashtanka play together. Lucky wants to fight as puppies do and Kashtanka wants none of that so she runs and Lucky chases her. It snowed last night and Lucky thinks he has died and gone to heaven.  He is so big and has so much energy. He will be OK.

He outgrew his little house

Lucky's sweater from an old one of Dasha's