Tag Archives: bichon frise

Grooms for the girls

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The girls usually have a haircut every 6 to 8 weeks. The last time they were groomed was in Siena at the end of October – 10 weeks ago. Jean had given them the occasional trim along the way but they were pretty shaggy so their first groom in the UK was quite extreme. Poppie survived relatively unscathed but poor old Daisy ended up with the Bichon equivalent of a number 1.

The only redeeming feature is that her coat will grow back – and in an English winter quite quickly we hope.

Keeping the girls warm this winter – warning cute alert!

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Winter means warm clothes. That means both us and the girls. So when we made the last visit to our dog groomer in Siena we did some winter coat shopping for the girls. The buying criteria was two-fold. Firstly, warmth for the girls on cold winter days and secondly, out-right cuteness.

In Troyes it was cold enough for the girls’ coats to be used and after a walk in the brisk 4 degree temperature we all adjourned to the bar for drinks.

Girls on patrol

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Villa Greta has a resident family of cats that live a little further along the property. Four cats and a kitten to be precise. You get the impression that they usually spend quite a bit of time at the villa entertaining the guests and generally doing what cats do best.

Poppie spots a cat

With the arrival of our girls everything has changed.

The moment a cat comes down looking for some attention, or their dinner, Poppie goes onto full alert. After 5 weeks you think there would be some kind of truce but no, one cat sitting on the steps outside the gate is still more than enough to wind Poppie up. Daisy, as you would expect, is a little more circumspect about the whole thing.

The traditional Villa Greta greeting

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Every time we arrive back at Villa Greta we are met by Daisy and Poppie. They are so pleased to see us and it doesn’t matter how many times we come and go we always get the same rapturous welcome. For those of you who don’t know them Daisy, being nearly 15 years old, is the slower one. Poppie is the one with her favourite toy in her mouth.

It’s officially home

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You can always tell when the girls feel at home.  They start barking at everyone walking past and go nuts when anyone visits.  Based on this, as of last Wednesday Villa Greta became “our place”.  For the next few weeks anyway.

Pups on tour – a feeble excuse for yet another cheesy dog photo

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With space at a premium on the drive to Positano, we had to find room for the girls in amongst the vast quantity of luggage we had filled the car with. Daisy travelled in style in the back seat on a stack of blankets and pillows which raised her to around window height.  Great for her as she had a view of every person, car or bike we passed, but bad for us as she barked at every person, car or bike we passed.

Poppie travelled in the front on the knee of the lucky passenger.  Poppie has eaten well in Italy and her current weight of 7.2kgs does, after a few kilometers become quite heavy.  This necessitated regular stops to allow the poor passenger to regain some degree of feeling in their lower legs.

Oh the glamour of travel.

It’s a dog’s life

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Morning in the cottage means chores – dishes, bed making, vacuuming, all the usual stuff.  Recently the girls have started watching this happen from the safety of the couch.  Neither Jean nor I can make a move without two sets of eyes tracking us.

If we show any sign of deviating from the routine, all hell breaks loose.

Poppie relaxing

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Poppie was sitting on Jean’s knee this morning as the sun was streaming in through the window.  For Poppie this is about as good as it gets.

About Daisy – Part 3

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Our girl has shown a steady recovery over the last week. She’s gone from not being able to walk without falling over to something close to her usual waddle. She is still wobbly and when she tries to shake herself ends up flat on her stomach with legs splayed.

Her revised heart medicine has also kicked in and, touchwood, she hasn’t had a seizure in over a week. Mind you with Jean and I running around after her every need there hasn’t been a lot of stress on her heart anyway.

One thing that has fully returned is Daisy’s attitude. She’s almost back to her cantakerous old self, and seems ready to take on the world, or more likely, other dogs, children, anyone who dares to come near the cottage, anyone who looks at the cottage, anyone who comes near the car, you get the idea.

The movie started out as some footage to show the team at our Italian vet clinic her improvement over the last week but it got a bit out of hand. We have nothing else much to do, really.

About Daisy – Part 2

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It’s Friday evening and Daisy has had her ECG and there’s more wrong with her heart than right.  Having said that, the cardiologist has altered her medicine to best suit her condition so there’s a bit of life in the old dog yet.

Pictures of Daisy's big heart at work

When we arrived back at our vet, Julia had talked to the cardiologist and apparently he agreed that Daisy was a medical miracle.

Her inability to walk without falling over has been diagnosed as Idiopathic Vestibular Syndrome and not anything to do with her heart.  It means a loss of balance and co-ordination – a lot like a big night out on the town by the sound of it.

Best Google it for details but it’s something that just needs to work it’s way through her system with some assistance from medication.  Some drugs that they usually prescribe for this syndrome would be bad for her heart so they’re off the list.  That means there’s no quick fix and she will gradually improve over the next month or so.

Until she recovers she will need to be carried everywhere – and I mean everywhere.  For up to a month?

About Daisy

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The more observant of you may have noticed that there have been very few posts over the last few days. That’s because we have been busy looking after Daisy. She is not well and it seems her old age is catching up with her.

Last week she had two seizures in the space of 24 hours where she collapsed and did her best impersonation of a dead dog. Both times she recovered, picked herself up and soldiered on in her own unique way but it gave us a huge fright and she was off to the vet in record time.

Daisy has a heart problem and takes medication to manage it. Julia our vet thinks the medication needs to be changed so Daisy has had a thorough check-up, X-rays and now is booked in for an ECG this afternoon at a cardiologist in Florence. (We didn’t know there were dog cardiologists but apparently there are.)

Sick Daisy and friend

To complicate things in the last 24 hours she has started to fall down a lot when walking (or even just standing) which meant another rushed trip to the vet and further discussions in a mix of English and Italian and occasional arm waving.

It seems that the falling down is probably not related to her heart and is something else – most likely a neurological infection that is affecting her balance. The catch 22 is that we can’t treat the infection until we know what state her heart is in as that will affect the medication used to fight the infection. So we are waiting for the ECG to be done this afternoon. It is a long wait.

Daisy of course doesn’t know all this medical stuff and just thinks life is miserable. She has to be carried everywhere as she has given up walking. And her favourite treats and even Jean’s famous roast chicken dinner won’t cheer her up. Right now she is asleep in the bed next to me with her head buried as far under the pillows as possible.

If I were her I would do the same.

More photographs

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Gentle readers, I have just updated our photo album with all the latest shots used on the blog and a bunch more.  Click here to see them.

36 hours in Slovenia – an in-depth report*

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After all our visitors had headed off – Gill, Andre and the kids to Venice and Slovenia and Mike, Charmaine and James to Nice – it was time to get back to normal life in the cottage. For a week at least as we are driving to Nice to swap our lease cars over in early August and to catch up with Mike, Charmaine and young James.

It was a beautiful afternoon and we were sitting by the pool – as you do – when a text arrived from Gill. They had arrived in the capital of Slovenia – Ljubljana pronounced Lubiana – and were getting ready to celebrate young Jordan’s 6th birthday the following day. The text effectively said “am I being silly but what about you coming to Slovenia for Jordan’s birthday?”

Initially we dismissed the idea out of hand, let’s face it we didn’t know exactly where Slovenia was anyway – but then we got to thinking. How long would the drive be? Around a six hour drive – easily do-able. Can the dogs travel to Slovenia? It’s part of the EU so they can. Can the mighty Peugeot go to Slovenia? It’s on the list of eligible countries. Can we find our way around? TomTom maps for Eastern Europe are available and downloadable. Where could we stay for a couple of nights? Booking.com have a list of 23 hotels in Lubiana. Did we have anything else to do? Not really.

Within an hour we had all the answers – and we were off to Slovenia the next morning!

Driving from Italy into Slovenia you notice two things. Firstly the terrain goes from the dry, yellow/brown and hot Italian plains to the mountainous and green Slovakian hills and mountains. Secondly the architecture changes from Italian villas to Austrian style mountain houses. This isn’t surprising considering Sovenia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918.

We had booked a boutique hotel in the centre of the old part of Lubiana. An area overshadowed by the historic castle on the hill which dominates the capital city. Sadly our recently purchased (24 hours earlier) Eastern Europe TomTom maps didn’t take account of the fact that the heart of the city was largely a pedestrian area and blocked off to traffic other than that of residents. This caused problems as we circled the city centre trying to find a way in to our hotel and getting more frustrated by the minute. Eventually the good old “get out and walk approach” did the trick and we located the hotel who kindly provided access for our car to off load us, the dogs and the bags.

Our hotel was in a restored historic residence. We had booked a suite and it turned out to be a complete apartment with kitchen, dining room, lounge, bedroom and terrace. At 100sq metres it was about 3 times the size of our tuscan cottage. The dogs loved the space and intially did laps exploring, sliding across the parquet floors, and generally enjoying the freedom to run around.

We met the Mays at a nearby restaurant and celebrated Jordan’s birthday in style. The food, wine and service were superb. Apparently horse meat is a local delicacy and Andre, sticking to his mantra of trying anything once, had “Black Beauty” as a main. The rest of us did not.

Lubiana is a pretty city which has put time and effort into making the “old city” a tourist friendly place to be. A river runs through the city and the banks are lined with restaurants, cafes and shops. The river has been named 7 times due it’s habit of diassapearing for a period of time and then reappearing. Over time it has been called the Trbuhovica, Obrh, Stržen, Rak, Pivka, Unica and Ljubljanica.

Although the official language is Slovene, English was spoken by pretty much everyone we encountered so communication is easy. Prices are also cheap compared to Western Europe so your Euro goes that bit further.

The temperature was around 25 – 28 degrees although we were greeted at the Slovenian/Italian border with thunder storms, torrential rain and a 12 degree drop in temperature. For the next two days, however, it was warm, sunny and settled as we explored the cities sights, cafe’s and bars.

We left Slovenia with fond memories. This is definitely somewhere to add to your next European holiday – ideally for a little longer than 36 hours.

*This great title is borrowed and adapted from P J O’Rourke and one of the stories in his book “Holidays from Hell”.

Roman Holiday

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After the departure of Gill, Andre, Josh and Jordan to Venice and Slovenia, the remaining team headed south along the A1 to Rome.  We arrived on Saturday and drove around Rome (scary) dropping Mike and Charmaine at their apartment, their rental car at the Hertz depot and then finding our hotel.  We had discovered a place to stay – Hotel Barocco – online.  It is located on Piazza Barberini and, importantly for us, it welcomed dogs (unlike the hotel we usually stay at in Rome – Barberini).

The temperature over the weekend was around 29 degrees so the girls could come along on our walks.  They got to see the sights and, more importantly, for them sample the smells of Rome.

The first night we left the girls in our hotel room when we went out for dinner, thinking they would sleep after the drive south.  We arrived back at about 11pm and were informed by a slightly disturbed front desk clerk that the girls had barked and kept other guests awake all evening.  We were in danger of being evicted.

Barking struck us as unusual as the girls are normally quiet unless disturbed.  It turned out that a poor housemaid had gone into our room to turn down the bed and was met by a barrage of barking, growling and general dogginess.  She left the room in double quick time but the damage had been done and girls kept on barking.

Suffice it to say from that point on we made extensive use of the “do not disturb” sign when they were in the room and in the evenings the girls came along with us to experience dinner in some of Romes most popular restaurants.