Disappearing tricks and operations

Lurcher No.1 has had me with my heart in my mouth twice today.

Firstly, she pulled a disappearing trick on our morning walk. She's too damn clever by half this dog and, if she sees me taking a particular path, she'll sometimes take either a parallel path or cut diagonally across and meet me further down the path I'm on. This morning she was right behind me and, when my attention was on Lurcher No. 2 and some labradors up ahead (he doesn't like labradors much and has a tendency to launch himself at them), took herself off through the woods to meet me further on down the path. But I didn't see her go and went from having a lovely walk to flat out panic in about 60 seconds when she didn't respond to my call. After 10 minutes and still no sign of her, I hysterically called OH to come and help me find her.

Fortunately I met another dog walker coming up the path who had seen her further down in the woods where she was completely unfazed and was apparently just carrying on enjoying her walk! 10 minutes later she decided she didn't want to be on her own anymore and came running back to my frantic calls wondering what all the fuss was about.

As my mate Lisa had to point out to me, it was all my fault because Lurcher No. 1 wasn't lost at all, she knew exactly where she was going and if I'd just stuck to my planned walk, there wouldn't have been a problem. Lisa's such a good pal!

The second reason for worry was that Lurcher No.1 had to go into the vet for an operation this morning. If you have dogs, or any pets, with perhaps the exception of goldfish, you'll know that having them go under a general anaesthetic is always worrying. She had to have a small lump removed from her neck which we think is just a histio cytoma, because the gals at Greyhound Gap know these things, whereas my vet wasn't diagnosing anything until the lump was off and biopsies done.

At 1pm came the usual phone call "She's fine but could you come and get her, PLEASE!!?" As soon as she comes round she starts rooing and barking, disturbing all the other patients in recovery and driving them generally round the wall! So she's home now and lying on her bed gently whimpering and feeling sorry for herself. She really doesn't do poorly terribly well.