Ashley showing off this week's bandage. Ash is being a bit spoiled now she is better enough to walk on her leg a bit. I am being a bit naughty, and letting her out of her cage - she's not doing much, so I figure she's not going to damage herself any more.
She decided the sofa is a much better place to sleep than a dog bed.


Looks pretty comfy doesn't she! It's great to see her comfy after all the pain she's gone through lately.


Last weeks bandage had Merry Christmas on it from the vet nurses at the hospital. :-)



Someone else still has to sleep on the dog bed. No room for two on a little sofa!


And these from Christmas Day, The boys were knackered, but Ashley wasn't because she couldn't come out of her crate and join in the festivities.
My sister took them. I love the head shot of Ash. :-)
Ashley

Dice

Quinn

Look how white Ashley's coat is. Wow. I had a white dog once his coat always reflected on what dirt there was around. Beautiful photos.

My poor Ashley hasn't had a chance to get dirty since July :-( She's been on cage rest or confined to the yard since she hurt her leg.
Dice on the other hand has had plenty of opportunities, but he doesn't do mud much, and he has a teflon coat!

ok i am going to be dumb here what happened to Ashley's leg. i also have Boo coming back to me with a broken front leg which was broken 1 week before she had her pups to quin, Boo had seven pups but 2 did not make it and of course it was the blue tri merles that past away and that left a red merle a solid black and 3 solid reds anyway Boo is a long story and not a nice one so i will skip that one my other bad new for the xmas break is my westie had her pups yesterday 7 all dead just like her last litter of 4 we tried to get her to the vets in time to save the last 3 but to late it seems that she can't have a natural birth as the pups detach to early and suffocate and as you know i have been away kennel sitting and i took all my dogs with me i am back home now but i only have dance and little gypsy with me the rest of my dogs are still down at toowoomba as i am moving out at the end of this week anyway i had 4 dog chains made up on very strong steel post with a big swivel so that they never got twisted up they were very good for the boys well last night old jeff dropped his dogs of for me to mind while he is away for a couple of days and as my boys are not here i went to put jeffs dogs onto these chains only to find that some low life has been here and stolen them and before xmas my mum and dad went away for 4 days and i have all my wire and star pickets for the new farm at their place and again some low life stole about half the star pickets for my dog yards that i have to build at tara so now i am up the creek with out the paddle i don't have enough star pickets to do the dogs yards or enough chains to put the dogs onto at tara and i can't leave the dogs running loose as i can't take the risk that the dogs won't get it into their heads to play with the horse's next door or my sheep or the sheep across the road.

Love the photos Penny... she looks so comfy on that couch.. you may not get it back from her
I also dont know what happened to Ashley's leg... i missed that one.

That is no good to hear about your westie Royalla.. poor thing. What happened to Boo's leg?

oh man royalla that sux :( wish i could help :( sad news about boo too, bet that has stuffed up you're christmas, well hope it didnt

yes Ash looks very comfy indeed haha poor little girl

Oh, didn't I get around to telling you guys. I usually don't say much about my welshies cos this is a koolie list, and I don't want to bore those who aren't interested.
Ashley injured her leg running in the rough bracken and scrub in one of her favorite parks, where she has run the whole 7 years of her life. Couldn't see what happened, but there was one almighty scream, and she came back on 3 legs. After four months of rest, she still wasn't sound, so I had surgery on the hock, had a bone chip removed, and a ligament stabilised with prolene sutures.

The next week, she went for a bandage change, and was in so much pain that she bit the vet badly, and screamed for about 3 minutes solid. 3 minutes is a long time to listen to your baby scream. She also peed all over the bandages and the table. It was just gut wrenching. I was holding her, so couldn't help the vet get Ash off her hand, and was trying to stop her thrashing about and hurting herself any worse, and as soon as she was off the vets hand, she promptly tried to bite me cos her leg was still hurting bad. Fortunately I was holding on to her collar really tight. as well as an arm under her belly.

This is a girl who has never even threatened to bite a person in her entire life.

The next week she was muzzled, (and screamed again but not as long) and it was found that in the stress of the week before the new bandage had been put on too tight, and she had now developed horrible pressure sores in 2 places, as well as an infection in the surgery site, which was presumably the cause of all the pain the week before.

It has taken weeks and weeks and stitches in one of the pressure sores, and one of them is still not properly healed.

Poor baby.

And then Sherry died.

Sounds like me and Royalla both had a crap christmas time.

So sorry to hear about Boo and Quinn's pups, and how awful for her to break a leg just before whelping. That would make being a good mum very hard. :-( And poor wee Annie.I guess motherhood is just not for her... :-(

Poor Ashley, she's really been in the wars with her leg. I hope it's healing nicely now and she'll be able to run around on it soon. She's really taken to couch duty too by the look of it!

Royalla, you've had a really rough time over Christmas. Poor Boo and poor Annie.

omg Penny thats horribly :( poor Ash :( i couldnt imagine the pain u must have been in when hearing you're baby crying like that :(

shes a trooper i hope she gets that cast off soon and can run and play again :(

OMG penny i would have chewed out on the vet as well as Ashley i could not bear to here one of my baby's scream like that they should have given her something for the pain first. yes i had a shitty xmas worrying about Boo as she was and is still with young luke and he was hell bent on shooting her when because of his stupidity Boo ended up with the broken leg i had to talk him out of shooting her and as they were to far away for me to go and have a look at her and then when she pupped it was the day before luke went home to his mums for xmas she had to travel with the pups for 5 hours plus the broken leg unchecked by a vet but it was bandaged at lest, luke did take her to the vet a few days after he got home i went out to his mums to have a look at her and the pups to make sure she was not in to much pain and she seemed happy but one of the pups was not doing well, i had to leave then to get back to the kennels and do melissa's dogs and luke was taking Boo to his vet he rang me later to let me know that Boo's leg could not be fixed and she would have to loose it and he did not have that kind of money so as soon as the pups were weaned he would have to put her down NO WAY was i going to let that happen so i had to try and talk luke into giving Boo back to me but he got on his high horse and said no but thank god for Enid Clark she talked him around and i went out and picked Boo up and took her to a vet in Toowoomba, Boo's leg can be saved and it can wait until after the pups are weaned thank god as luke will not let her go until then and he won't let me take the pups to melissa's place so that she can be cared for there with her pups and then to top it of 2 of melissa's rotties had a fight the day before melissa got home and one of them needed vet care and then Annie had her pups and as i had left to come back to joylands before she started labour i am not there to give her cuddles and try and make her feel better about her loss as she really does cry a lot about loosing her pups she cried for about a week last time it was very heart breaking.

omg royalla thats terrible!! what a crappy christmas, except im so glad to hear you can have Boo back, is Luke the kid who had that other dog that died last year? kinda recently? and he was doing well with her, or is luke someone different?

What kind of stupid person would prefer to put a dog down than give it to someone who cares? seriously!

I feel for Boo glad to hear her leg can be saved.
and i feel for Annie, give her cuddles from me, I hope she doesnt mourn too long :(

yes same boy he was as nice as pie to ruby and boo here a bit of a control freak with ruby and billy but i found billy a nice home with the help of kym and ruby was bitten by a snake and nothing could be done to save her as they did not no at the time that she had been bitten they just heard her yelp but from what i have heard from luke's mum ruby and billy are now in better place's i just feel sorry for luke's other dogs but i can't do anything for them......i will give Annie lots of cuddles when i get back down to her she is still in melissa's care at this time along with my other dogs

apart from being a psycho...does Luke hurt the dogs? what does he plan to do with the pups? I hope they get good homes

Poor Boo's really had it rough, I hope it doesn't impact on her pups too much. Glad she's going back to you. I hope you're picking the homes for these pups not Luke. It sounds like he needs someone to give him a good flick in the ear about looking after dogs, especially pregnant mums.

Poor Annie, it seems she is just not destined to be a mum.

i have no say in the pups apart from the one coming to me as he used quin over boo before he left here, i have no idea were the pups are going apart from one pup and it's not a very good home but luke don't care....yes luke is a bit of a psycho he seems to have two sides the one he shows people until he gets what he wants then the real luke comes out, he can be very loving to his dogs one minute and then cruel and unforgiving the next he is in my black book never to get a dog from me ever again this cruel control freak bit seems to come with sheep people here in queensland i have had a couple of sheep blokes ring me up wanting to buy tag they come right out and say if the dog don't work the way they like them to they shoot them Tag is still with me until i find the right working home for him.

Sounds like Luke has some real problems dealing with life not just dogs, I would say. I think it's been part of a way of life for so long in the bush that a dog had to earn its keep or be taken down the back paddock never to return. I know it's a generalisation and not everyone does it but it saddens me when I hear of it happening.

it saddens me to think that luke doesnt care what kind of torment he could possibly be giving those puppys by sending them into not so nice homes :( at least you can have/save one of the pups royalla. it must be hard being a breeder and selling pups, not knowing for sure if they are going to be loved and looked after propperly definately keep Tag till he is going to a loving home, he doesnt need that kind of torment

Wow!!! thanks to the dedication and care of people like yourselves that these dogs are cared for and on the mend now.

Hope all goes okay with the leg injuries, and hope for a brighter year for you both after all this is over.

Luke has a lot of growing up to do, or needs a swift boot up the proverbial. At least you got in there Royalla to get Boo back. Not all farmers are like this, the guy that put our fencing up here is a tuff nut of a man, but treats his dogs well. He actually gave one of his working dogs CPR, it worked. And Izzy liked him, it was the first time I saw Izzy run to a strange man and jump up on him to get a pat. My jaw dropped. So not all farmers have that reputation, there is a lot of good guys too.

Penny - when does Ashley get her cast off?

yesterday :-)

She's not very happy to have it off though. :-( the leg is obviously sore and she doesn't trust it enough to put it to the ground. she hurt it this morning, trying to get in the car in a hurry, and her elizabethen collar got caught and she fell back on it. It seems to hurt when flexed.

Hopefully it will settle down soon. At least the pressure sores can heal up properly now. It looks pretty awful still. Mostly healed, but about the size of a large coin on each side of her leg just above the paw. I think it will leave scars.

I met another agility dog who had an accident, at the vet hospital when Ashley was there. This dog had half her front foot lopped off by a lawnmower about 3 weeks before Ashley had her surgery. :-( she was walking on it as she left the hospital bandage-less. :-)
I doubt she will ever do agility again, but you never know, shame, she is only about two.

Luke got a lot of leeway and benefit of the doubt because of his age and sob story of his upbringing, but he has a mean cruel streak which isn't just inexperience. I'm glad janet is done with giving him dogs. It's one thing to put a dog down for legitimate reasons, but these old bastards in this day and age should use a bit more brains about rehoming dogs and that dogs are not robots but living beings with feelings.

Can you do any physio with Ashley's leg, like swimming? Just to help strengthen the leg up. I hope she recovers fully, at least she will have a story to tell with the scars.

Poor dog with the mower injury, very unlucky. I have my neighbour to thank for Ceejay staying away from the mower. Whilst I was in hospital when Ceejay was 7 - 10 months old the neighbour kindly mowed my lawn a few times with me. Ceejay was chasing the wheels, he went home got some poly pipe and every time she went near he wacked it down hard beside her. Least to say she doesn't go near the mower now. It is amazing how well dogs adjust to one less leg, or losing an eye etc they are incredible in how they cope, humans could learn from that. :)

Poor Ashley. Have you got any of those dog swimming hydrotherapy places near you? That'd probably be really good for her. Wading through water at the beach or even through the loose sand or walking up hills is good too. You probably know all that though! She may be a little depressed about it all too for a little while. Poor thing.
That's awful about the dog getting it's toes chopped off. Must've been awful for the owner. Dogs can get fixated with chasing lawnmowers just like they do with cars, skateboards. Unfortunately they often don't win.

Yes, I plan to do lots of physio with Ash, I know it works, I had only about 20 degrees of movement when I got my wrist out of a cast when I broke it rollerblading at the age of 21, <doh> and with lots of time spent doing exercises, I now have a full 90 deg of movement. when her leg stops hurting so much, I will do some exercises with her, manipulating the joint, and will take her to the beach just down the road, which has a gentle sand beach, and swim her. I also have a hydro physio therapist at the venue of one of my agility clubs who I went to before her surgery.

Poor girl is sick today. She has a stomach bug of some sort. Diarrhoea and vomiting. Not nice when you have a leg you don't want to touch to the ground.

Not nice to clean up first thing in the morning either. At least it is a weekend day not a work day! Thank goodness I have a tarp over the carpet in her play pen in the living room.

The dog who got her foot lawnmowered was apparently not chasing the lawnmower, although it's the kind of stupid thing her owner would let her dogs do. She was herding another one of the dogs in the family, and jumped onto a bank as the lawnmower came down it.

Hope Ash completly recovers Penny.
You guys are in 2010 now leave behind 2009 and look forward with hopefull, anticipating eyes and hearts for the many joys awaiting you both.

Royalla the faster you move in to Tarra the better for you and your dogs.
All the best guys

Yeah, I could do with a bit happy joyful things happening, what with Ash and then losing my beloved Sherry. It's about time something good happened to me.

Mind you, Dice is in fine fettle, fit as a buck rat and full of fizz. :-)
He did his very first intermediate class at a ribbon trial last weekend. It was a bit complicated for a baby dog, but we gave it a good shot, and he did some lovely bits...