and today i have mostly been...

[steve_earwig]

Yoghurt and bread, it's what we fed the retards when they were puppies. Yesterday they all got home-made sausages and rice, the lucky bastards

[Welly]

They're great pictures, looks like Scooter has settled in well, I bet he's so pleased you took him in and gave him care, I'm no expert but I surmise some dogs kinda know how good you've been to them and are extra rewarding as a result?

I'm sloping off work today, got the Funeral tomorrow and then I'm off work for 2 weeks I may not be here so much but best wishes to ya........well to everyone reading really.

Welly

[highlander]

Yoghurt and bread, it's what we fed the retards when they were puppies. Yesterday they all got home-made sausages and rice, the lucky bastards

Isn't cow's milk bad for dogs & cats? Something to do with lactose?

When I were a lad, I gave our cocker spaniel a bowl of milk one morning, and I got a row for it as the poor bugger had a bad case of the runs not long afterwards.

Cats have special low/no-lactose milk available too (Whiskas sells it in little cardboard cartons).

Our last dog, a Scottish terrier, had a particular fondness for prawn crackers from the local Chinese carry-out - the NOISE he made when eating them was indescribable CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH

[steve_earwig]

Not that I've ever heard of and the vet said it was ok, I think there's something about not being able to digest it if they never had it before but I gather humans are the same - it's an ability mammals have as babies that they're designed to loose when they stop drinking milk. He's mad for goat's milk too.

Not sure about prawn crackers though...

Where's Lozz?

They're great pictures, looks like Scooter has settled in well, I bet he's so pleased you took him in and gave him care, I'm no expert but I surmise some dogs kinda know how good you've been to them and are extra rewarding as a result?

Betty is ok with him mostly, the girls growl a lot when he bites their ankles but they're getting the hang of him. Srečko's been amazing (maybe no one told him he was a cat?) but the other cats hate him, which unfortunately only makes them more interesting... I don't actually think dogs know any different, they just reflect the way they're brought up - if you treat them like poo you'll end up with a messed up dog. He'll never realise how lucky he is, lots of other dogs round here spend their entire lives chained up in the yard and get kitchen scraps - the dog across the road from my house escaped once but didn't get far because he'd spent his whole life going round and round on the end of a chain and didn't actually know how to run in a straight line

[lozz]

Im here,


Milk bad for dogs?


Vets wouid say its bad for dogs , but i disagree, possible some dogs can be lactose in,tolerant,
Irekon its good for em, milks good for our teeth & bones, so whats the differnce with a dog

and in all honesty if adog eats or drinks something that dont agree with it the dog will let you know,
it will go and eat some grass, oh wait hang on, Dogs eat grass anyway there Herbivores just like a cow so if milk was bad for them why do they love eating grass, (Food for thaught)


next daft question, what came first the chicken or the egg

[steve_earwig]

Grass is an emetic, which basically means it makes most animals throw up. Apart from animals that are designed to eat it of course. And cats, apparently. Dogs usually eat it if they feel sick, although some dogs eat anything

Easy, there were eggs about for millions of years before chickens existed. "But Steve, they weren't chicken eggs!" I hear you decry, to which I'd reply I've never seen a chicken's egg with "contents: 1 baby chicken" written on it.

[lozz]

Thats what ithought about dogs eating grass,
but iwas shocked to see its not true, dogs dont eat grass to be sick,

My dog will spend upto 2o mins mowing the lawn and he wont throw up, he only throws up if the grass sticks in his throat,
just watch how quick adog will go for some grass after its been raining its very sweet smelling for a dog,


http://www.wisegeek.com/why-do-dogs-eat-grass.htm

[steve_earwig]

This morning I had to clear the link pipe that goes between the wood burning boiler for the central heating here and the chimney, it's a meter long 6" stainless pipe and this morning was completely full of soot - there was less than 2" left for the smoke to get through. Now the chimney sweep, who made this chimney, told me that I shouldn't have to take the link pipe off but there is no other way of cleaning it. Yeah, ok, he has a brush on a stick which obviously does feck all We only called him in because I'm not up to cleaning it myself because we long since realised he was full of s...oot.

And now the chimney is blocked Christmas eve, temperature hovering around zero and all we have is a little 1kw fan heater Obviously I can't do anything about it, we have a 1Kg weight to chuck down it (not the first time this has happened) but it does rather involve getting the ladder out - yeah right Hopefully we have a neighbour coming round later...


Thursday evening I went with Goran to his bike club in Karlovac. On the way there we saw an Escort van upside-down in a ditch, lying behind it was a pallet truck which had burst through the back doors so I suppose the diver was lucky it hadn't burst through the windscreen. The cops were there directing traffic - when will they realise that if they shine a bright light at oncoming cars and direct traffic from behind it no-one can see them?

On the way back we saw another accident, we had to stop because there were cars everywhere and the road was completely blocked. Goran saw the ambulance turn up and recognised the driver so he got out to see what happened, leaving me sitting in his car wondering what the hell was going on. I didn't want to go and rubberneck, I wouldn't be any use with my back and didn't want to see anything that might keep me awake but eventually curiosity got the better of me so I got out the car. I could hear someone screaming, I could see people looking down into the ditch at the side but couldn't see a car down there so I got a bit closer and now I could see Goran and the ambulance driver carrying a gurney down into the ditch and some nurses around a body, obviously female by the clothes, which they lifted onto the gurney. There was a young guy there, obviously in hysterics. I didn't want to see anything else so went back to sit in the car. After a few minutes Goran came back, the road cleared and he said he wanted to get out of there before the police started asking stupid questions and kept us up half the night.

Goran said it was a young couple walking along the road presumably coming back from a bar or something (there's no pavement there and not much lighting so perhaps a bit daft). The girl is pregnant. A car had hit the girl and driven off, and she'd ended up in the ditch. When he'd got there the ambulance driver was asking for someone to help him with the gurney but the ditch had about a foot of water in it, it's -6 and no-one wanted to get their feet wet, they'd rather just stand there watching So that's why Goran was in the ditch when I got there. He says the girl was in quite a mess and he's pretty sure her back was broken as he could hear the bones grinding as they got her onto the gurney.

I've been scanning the news but it doesn't seem to have been important enough, so I'd guess that's any chance of the police finding who did it out the window ("my neighbour's car has some new dents...")

That's my faith in Croatian charity destroyed

[steve_earwig]

Chimney clear There's a bucket full of clinker come out of it and the neighbour had to drop the weight down it quite a few times, as well as prod it around with a pole (aka the clothes prop, sorry dear ) but it went through in the end. He even managed to get the brush down it. Just waiting for the heat to build up now, I'm typing this still wearing my woolly hat

[Welly]

Sounds like a bad accident steve

Glad you got the chimney clear, you feel responsible for these things even if you can't physically do them at the time

[steve_earwig]

It's extremely frustrating, my mind thinks I'll just go and do so-and-so but my body has other plans. I'm not very comfortable with getting other people to do stuff for me either - I've always done everything I can myself and it just doesn't come naturally.


The wife's just had her first go at driving the Toytractor and it wasn't anything like as scary as I was expecting
Times stalled - 12 (I think, I kind of lost count)
of which because the handbrake was still on - 5
curbs bounced off - 1
She's also been programmed to keep to her side of the road no matter how much crap or how many pot holes It's a good job these tyres are only 200 quid each

[steve_earwig]

Time for an update? Well, I dunno, I kind of got a bit embarrassed about blowing my own trumpet here but I'm bored and looking for something to occupy myself. Because my head feels like an hourglass with my brains running out of it. It's actually rather hard to think of anything, apart from the fact that I would actually kill for a fag. But I can't, nope, never again. For you see I've given up smoking and this is day 2.

Cold turkey.

No help for me here, all the quack can do is dispatch me to the chemists for gum (which I can't chew because my jaw will dislocate) and patches (which I tried before and do precisely bugger all for me). I did get some sort of anti-smoking spray (it says Nicorette on the label) when we were in GB which I thought might be a good idea but I almost went mental trying to open the thing yesterday - it seems to be specifically designed to thwart the hard-of-thinking and makes me wonder how many end up stamped into the floor by desperate nicotine-starved addicts. Anyway, I managed to get it open despite the instructions Then it says to spray it into your gob but not to breathe it. Ok, spray into mouth and...ARGH!! It burns!! IT BURNS!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! *Gag, breathe it in, choke, cough cough cough lie on floor turning purple...

If it's not hurting it's not working

Meanwhile the back is gradually improving, it still regularly reminds me but nothing like the agony of before. I've started going to the gym (ok swimming would be much better but it's a fair old treck while this is local) but with almost everything set as low as it goes. So far the only thing that's caused me any pain was the bike. Oh, and one of the leg machines but that was because I tripped over it I've also started seeing a faith healer (I think that's what it is - candles, wavy hands, that sort of thing). I've known the guy a few years and I knew he did this sort of thing but I've not taken any of it seriously because hey, if you can't scratch a window with it... Anyway, what happened was I was with him round a mate's house, she had a headache and he did the waive hands thing and she said her headache had gone (no reason to disbelieve her as I know her much better than I do him) so I said (hur hur hur) does that work for backs? Of course it does. So he's done the handy wavy thing, then he stood behind me and put his hands either side of my spine bellow my neck, then on my hips and then on my calves. The thing is when he put his hands on my hips the pain went. No bullshit, some days I have some pain, some days I have none but it never goes from one to another in an instant, ever. I know what you're thinking but so far it's cost me a couple of brandys.

Meanwhile, now my back's on the mend my body has moved on to the next problem. Which is, of course, it just had to be - myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy PROSTATE!!! Yay!!! I'm getting kind of used to ignoring it now but I've had a basic urnine test which says there's a lot of bugs and stuff so they're doing a follow up on that for more specifics. I've also had a blood test done at the oncology department of the big hospatle in ZG. Yes, that's right, oncology, which means I was sitting outside with a load of guys with spanking short hairstyles and ladies with either preposterous coloured hair or tight curls. "Oh, they're just testing for some hormone" says the wife reassuringly. Yes dearrrrrrrrrrr..... The results back today, it's not cancer. Well, I didn't think it was but it's nice to know. The results for the second urine tests will be back tgomorrow, then they should know which pills to put me on.

Scooter seems to have done about all the growing he's going to. And what is he? Staffy? Hur hur hur hur hur - we couldn't have been more wrong. Scooter is a....








a....









a....



fecking...






dachshund

Oh ffs Obviously he's not 100% sausage dog, he must have something else in there too, probably a vacuum cleaner.

On the subject of dogs, the last 3 nights we've had a rather large stray dog trying to get in the garden and play with our girls and Scoot, who just goes mental when he sees him. Large dog? Yep, large, as in I thought he was a St Bernard when I saw his head but realised he wasn't when I saw the rest of him. I've been trying to get a snap to show him to the vets here but he's rather shy and legs it every time I come out with the camera and usually runs from one end of the house to the other and either barks or howls. The howling is pretty scary, you expect Holmes and Watson to appear. ANyway I got a quick snap of him last night:

Apologies for the crapness. The dog this side is our old retriever Betty, who probably weighs about 50Kg. I emailed that pic to the vet earlier and they know all about him - he's a stray (possibly abandoned) tornjak, which is a kind of Bosnian sheepdog bred to defend sheep from PACKS OF FRICKING WOLVES

WikI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornjak Sounds like a nice dog, I hope they don't shoot him

[lozz]

dachshund?

He looked like a staffie as pup,

ah well what ever breed it is he looks lovely, looks like the cat loves him


As of the stray dog, send it me , it might do well on a Flapping track


Ciggs, ive tried quitting them patches/gum sprays are a waste of time, its all down to willpower aspose,

ive been using these new Electric ciggies, there pretty good,

[Welly]

Thanks for the update steve, I missed it before.

Sounds like things are going ok, I'm glad as you've been kinda quiet on here (although there's not been that much going on).

All the best mate

[steve_earwig]

Update? I was hoping not to be too boring (how many pages now? )

Well the giving up smoking thing turned into a complete pile of poo, I know I'm normally not exaclty Mr Tollerant but the wife bursting into tears was a bit of a give-away. Obviously this isn't the best time when the weather's turned to sh"t and everyone's under stress. 5 and a half days? It seems a bit of a waste but if my wife is bearing the brunt of it then I'll have to think of something else.

Also on the health front the tests on my wee came back ok, I've no idea what they were doing with the preliminary (sounds rather like they confused my micturations with someone else's) so I'll be doing more tests in Zagreb on Thursday. Something to do with ultrasound and needing a full bladder. This is going to be interesting, perhaps I should take a change of trousers... I've just been to see the physio who is once more pleased with my progress. I then mentioned I was seeing a faith healer and we got into a bit of an argument Ffs, I don't believe in it either, but it's hard to believe it was one big coincidence.

More dogs in the snow pics (so I don't clutter up the other thread):





Please take me with you!













Also, I left the toy otter out the front yesterday afternoon because I was expecting to have to go pick up the wife and at about 4 I thought I should try and clear some of the snow from around it. Just as it was getting dark the tornjak reappeared - he is enormous!! Very handsome too. Our dogs were going bananas but he was as friendly as anything to me and didn't seem at all aggressive towards our dogs - he even managed to lick Scooter's face through the gate. I managed to get through the gate and stuck Scooter inside and came back out with some dog biscuits which I planned to lure him away with but the poor guy is obviously starving and nearly knocked me flying. Ok, you have them there then. Ffs, standing on his back legs he's taller than I am! (I'm 5' 11" btw) This is when he got aggressive, snapping at the retards when they came near the gate. Food gone he then decided to see what else I had and then things got rather too friendly (do not laugh!) and I was wondering what the Croat was for "Jesus f&cking H Christ help me - the Hound of the Baskervilles is trying to hump my leg!" (I told you not to laugh ) Fortunately I managed to slip past him, dragged the dogs all inside and when my wife appeared he'd scarpered. Phew.

While all this was going on I was lamenting not having the fore site to bring my camera back out with me when I remembered I had my mobile. Unfortunately I've not used it much and the first shot of his head turned out to be a nice shot of some snow There are the others:




I'll try to do better if he comes back again. Obviously from this side of the fence...