:: a very trying week

Have you ever read Why Cats Paint? Well Bertie took a leaf out of that particular book last week, only he gave it a twist -- he used body fluids.

In the bedroom: Jackson Pollock, on one of the walls as well as across the floor. In the spare room: a Daliesque touch -- melting clocks, in a variety of colours and media. And for the hallway -- Hockney's A Bigger Splash, what else. The earlier works, created in the livingroom, kitchen and diningroom, employed an impasto technique, giving a rugged, painterly effect. The later works weren't as flamboyant, due to a shortage of materials, but were perhaps more subtle and detailed. The addition of specks of blood to the final works hinted at the artist's pain.

Yeah, that was a real good surprise for me at 1:30am. Thanks Bertie. I wasn't cross with him though, because he'd obviously been through hell (and back, a couple of times), and I think he was quite distressed at having made such a huge mess. It took me two hours to clean it up after work on Tuesday night, and there was a fresh splatter on Wednesday morning -- on a previously unmarked stretch of carpet of course.

So anyway I dragged him off to the vet in the morning and spent £30 on antibiotics and special dogfood. Leaking car: £20; leaking dog: £30. Something wrong somewhere.

In case of further problems, he spent the next few nights imprisoned in the livingroom, with the (shit-stained) Persian carpet removed and the sofa pushed against the door that doesn't close. He had also crapped on both his sheepskins, but not on his actual bed, so at least he had somewhere clean to sleep. He wasn't allowed to eat anything for 24 hours, which he found deeply unsettling. He was mightily relieved to get a few spoonfuls of the dietetic delight the vet supplied -- it seemed to be mostly rice -- and even more relieved to finally get back to normal feeding, including treats.

However, it hasn't stopped him trying to eat shit -- which is what I think caused the whole gut-explosion drama in the first place. Apparently when it's frozen it's mighty tasty; he's even going for it now the thaw's set in. There's one little dried-up scrape of poo on the footpath that he always tries to gnaw off, every day. I've left it there as a training aid, but so far he's learned nothing. The vet says it's not uncommon, and she also says dogs don't seem to make the connection between eating rotten, foul food and gut-ache.

So anyway, after all the horror of scrubbing doggie-do and vomit out of the carpets and getting up early for the vet and early/difficult shifts at work, by the end of the week I was knackered. Yesterday I did yet more loads of laundry and hoovered everything in the house, including Bertie (I used the upholstery brush; he didn't seem to mind too much). The carpets upstairs still look pretty bad, I'll have to get them professionally cleaned.

Otherwise, everything is fine.