While poor Beanie’s convalescing at home, it’s now Biggles’ turn to have fun in the park. Yesterday morning I took him along to have a little play with Beanie’s pals. The “puppy field” is a short distance away from the car park so my plan was to carry him there, taking the most direct route. Of course I’d forgotten how hard it is to go anywhere at a decent pace when you’ve got a Beagle pup in your arms – you get the “aww” reaction from absolutely everyone you meet. Twenty minutes and countless introductions later I finally made it to the field and unleashed my wriggling, excited little bundle of a Beagle.

He ran around saying hello to everyone, whether they had four legs or only two, and was quickly accepted as one of the gang.

Beanie’s chums Kirby, Zak and Amber all came over to see him, but I think he was just too young to hold their interest for long. He was welcomed very warmly by the other Beagles though. He’d already had a play session with Tess and her two pups Tara and Clara of course, so I fully expected him to play well with them:

What surprised me though was how well he got on with Beanie’s sister Bella. The two hit it it off almost instantly.

For a time he followed her around like a shadow – even when there were interesting things going on elsewhere:

In return she took him under her wing and helped introduce him to other park regulars.

I really think they felt a connection to one another. They both have the same dad so Bella is Biggles’ half-sister. Maybe he saw her as a surrogate Beanie!

Biggles quickly learned that good things can be had from the human types, if you look cute and sit nicely:

though it doesn’t work every time!

He seemed more interested in sniffing and investigating things than Beanie was on her first few outings..

..but just like Beanie, his recall was pretty good, even though he didn’t always run to the right person!

I’m right here Biggles! Er… Biggles…

I also noticed that he’s not as inclined to get into wrestling matches with the other pups as Beanie was at his age. This is I think a good thing, although it was very funny to see Beanie get much, much bigger dogs on their backs.

I kept the outing quite short but Biggles still had a great time.

Hopefully it made up for some of the play sessions he can’t have at home until Beanie’s fully recovered.

Our little invalid is recovering nicely, but true to form is milking it for everything it’s worth!

To avoid strain on her stomach she’s getting a few meals a day. Home cooked chicken and rice, fresh pink salmon, lamb, rice and veg – only the best for our little princess.

We’ve made her a comfy little bed beside the radiator. It’s made up of piles of nice soft duvets and the pillows off our bed – she likes the smell of them. At night when we’re not able to keep an eye on her we have to put her Elizabethan collar on and pop her in her crate. This didn’t go down well last night. She wanted to get into bed with us, but we were afraid to allow this in case she tried to jump down during the night. After listening to her whine pitifully for a couple of hours I eventually relented, took her collar off and went downstairs with her to sleep on her little bed by the radiator. She was in her element and slept peacefully, snuggled in closely to me until 9am. We’re going to have to put a stop to this very soon or I’ll never get to sleep in my own bed again!

Paul has ordered an inflatable colar. Sophie’s mum Hazel told us about them and I have to say it does look much more comfy. That comes tomorrow, so I’ll probably sleep with her again tonight and then we’ll put our foot down. Or at least….we’ll try.

EDIT: I took the dressing off this morning and saw the scar for the first time. Poor little thing – maybe I’ll sleep with her for a couple more nights!

Let this be a warning to all the naughty chewers and swallowers out there…..

What an unlucky little girl though. I really don’t think she’s swallowed anything before – certainly we’ve never seen anything come out the other end! The first time she swallows something and it has to be something that reacts with her stomach acid and turns solid!

The surgeon from the vet school telephoned this morning. He was very happy with Beanie’s recovery and told us we could collect her whenever we liked. We jumped in the car right away.

Despite being quite heavily sedated she managed a wag of her tail and wiggle of her bum when she saw us. We were also handed a little package with the offending items in it:

It was quite a relief to see that the ‘gray plastic guttering’ that they’d told us about was in fact the soft plastic material from the ball she’d been playing with in the park. For some reason the acid in her stomach had hardened the soft, fabric like pieces of material and turned them into large, sharp pieces of plastic. This explained why it didn’t just work it’s way through her system. It’s still a concern that she’s started swallowing things, but at least we know when this happened and can stop her from playing chases with unknown objects in future.

Ah – you found my favourite toy!

He did tell us that we are very lucky that we got it checked out so early. He said that she’d have been in real trouble if any of the pieces had made their way into her intestines. I think we might well have missed it if she didn’t sleep in our room.

I’m pleased to say that little Beanie hasn’t lost her appetite. While we were talking to the surgeon one of the little bits of plastic that had been retrieved from Beanie’s tummy fell out of the bag Paul was holding. There was a mad scramble as Paul, me and Beanie all dived for it at once. If it hadn’t been for the sedating effect of that pain killer I think Beanie might have reclaimed her prize!!

Incidently, I asked the surgeon which chew toys or bones he considered safest based upon his experiences of pulling foreign objects out of dog’s stomachs. He said that he thought both rawhide chews and certain raw bones are fine. The best bones are either big marrow bones or chicken wings and necks. The big bones are too hard and large to be swallowed and the chicken wings and necks will simply disolve in the dog’s stomach. So there you go – the idea that chicken wings are a no-no for dogs is a myth. And they’re great for cleaning their teeth. Just make sure you feed them raw!