miss - my dog ate my homework

The one eyed Rocket has been given the all clear by the vet. He managed to save the eye though it is unlikely he can see through it. 

 Unless we put a patch over it we can't tell if he can see through it but he can certainly see through the other one and is as mad and as wild as ever.

 He is a wriggly worm and doesn't keep still enough to look into that eye and he's only still when he's asleep when of course his eyes are shut. He's not one bit frightened of the perpetrator Pocket the cat.

This morning he got trapped inside a box (see below) and quite honestly nothing is safe from him as he's learnt how to jump.

 Pixie who is fed up with all this puppy talk asked if we could put some pictures up of her when she was a puppy. Pixie has obviously never been small but here she is a lot smaller than she is today.

This is when we first laid eyes on her in Scotland with her owner/breeder Fran

and this is when we brought her home at ten weeks. In all her eight and a half years she has never been ill and like some of her siblings is still going strong in spite of the average age for a wolfie being around 7 due to their magnificent size. She comes from a wonderful line that Fran and Bill have bred and long may she stay with us.

So her interesting fact this blog post is that pteronophobia is a fear of being killed by feathers.
I said good job I 'm not looking after any rooks at the moment. And clearly Pocket the cat doesn't have that fear what with all the birds he brings in which nine times out of ten we manage to liberate before their feathers kill him.

 And the naughty Pocket's bon mot which she says is hers but I know was said by Anais Nin is
It is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar." And I said "so you're insecure?" And he snarled at me and said he wasn't. And I said well why did you bite our guest then?
He ignored me.

 I'm still volunteering at the wildlife hospital where these owls were, (photo by them - the hospital not the owls). I am actually looking after two hedgehogs myself at home - brought to me by a neighbour - which I am over wintering. They eat like horses but at the moment under weight so would not survive a hibernation. They are in the stable - may be that's why they eat like horses.

The Beasts

By Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

I THINK I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d; I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition; They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins; They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;         5 Not one is dissatisfied—not one is demented with the mania of owning things; Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago; Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.