Thursday, 15 August 2013
You just think
that things are going well, all the birds are flying well, all the young ones
are coming on nicely, the Falconry Weekend is getting organised well and things
are on track for that. The young Martial Eagle is lovely and settling nicely,
and we have been offered a male on breeding loan, and then something hits you
that you really don’t expect.
We lost Rush
today. I have been there for the deaths of 12 labradors, well 11 and orchestrated
one from the US and it never never gets any easier. Two days ago Rush started
to be very lame on and off, and he was crying loudly with pain. So I took him
straight to Eden Tanners, who looks after the dogs for us. We had a job to get
him out of the car and he was very quiet in the surgery. We could not find
anything that was blindingly obvious, but they had concerns about him and so
kept him in over-night. They did not have a peaceful night. He went through
bouts of pain that had him yelling very loudly. Drugs kept it under control,
and the following day he was X-rayed. This showed various problems with his
vertebrate, particularly in his neck.
I collected him early that evening and he
was gently crying, but seemed better when we got home. However by 11 pm he was
back to crying, I managed to stop him for a while, but by 3.00 am he cried for
the rest of the night, it was not a peaceful one for either of us. I took him
back to the vets the following morning and they gave him more injections for
pain, but over the day it was patently obvious that it was not working. If I or
someone he knew was with him it was bearable, but if on his own, he could not
cope. Sam Smith who is a great animal chiropractor looked at him as well and
said there was not a lot that could be done for him, particularly taking into
consideration his age.
The vets left,
we toasted Rush and then gave him a royal trip down to the woods in the Golf
Cart, which he would have loved. The ground was like rock needless to say, but
Jimmi, Holly, Angela and I dug away and we buried him next to his mother
Nettle. The other dogs sort of helped, although not exactly what we needed, and
we left him in the wood with his family. So never again will he take my mug
round the field early in the morning, or carry Angela’s keys, or refuse to get
off the sofa to go to bed, and I will miss him, as I miss them all.
So I weigh up
all the pros and cons, and it was just not fair to keep him going. Eden came
over with an assistant and Rush who had had as nice an afternoon as we could
give him – constant people, tidbits of beef, never left alone, eventually lying
in the sun (he had by this time started to collapse if he walked alone) was
moved into the library where we all sit in the evenings, Angela whom he adored
was there and we put him down………………….
The vets left,
we toasted Rush and then gave him a royal trip down to the woods in the Golf
Cart, which he would have loved. The ground was like rock needless to say, but
Jimmi, Holly, Angela and I dug away and we buried him next to his mother
Nettle. The other dogs sort of helped, although not exactly what we needed, and
we left him in the wood with his family. So never again will he take my mug
round the field early in the morning, or carry Angela’s keys, or refuse to get
off the sofa to go to bed, and I will miss him, as I miss them all.
Recently I phoned
the bank, now that to any of you will mean you understand why by the end of the
third time I had had to give my bank details, date of birth, inside leg
measurement, happiest day of my life and so on, why I wanted to feed the last person
I finally spoke to, and a miracle it was that it was a real human, because many
of the machines I spoke to were not!!! -
to my vultures.
All I wanted to
do was make sure that my identity number was OK, well it was compromised – I
have been compromised without even knowing it – well bugger! And if there was
some way we could see the business credit card stuff online. 22.5 minutes later
I finally gave up and could not face phoning the ‘direct line’ number they had
given me, because I know that line well and it wants to know everything about
your life including God knows what in the way of passwords etc, so I could not
face it any longer I had had enough and hung up, so much for internet banking
being easy and quite – I don’t think so. Although I did point out to the
Scottish lady who was the last of the three people I spoke to, having had to
give the same bloody details to a machine before everyone damn of them, that if
she shut up and listened she might be able to help me. This was of course a
hopeless thought, and none of them were even interested in helping. Lloyds
bank, you need to sort out the system and if you really were taping the calls,
I hope you got all my comments to your various machines, because they were not
exactly complimentary!!!!
We have been
very busy, at least I think we have, it seems like it anyway, the weather has
been generally wonderful, although it has cooled off a little. Mostly the
visitors have been really nice and fun to fly birds for. We have the occasional
day where we think we had better not fly the vulture in case they are dead
already, but mostly they have been a joy to have here. The gardens are looking
great, although the very dry weather has meant that we have lost about four
plants that I liked. And we have started the building of the new Hospital,
which is wonderful.
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