Peggy's Blog

Peggy dog was a faithful and loyal part of our family for 8 and a half years. She was given to her mum (Gill) by her dad (Michael) as a birthday present and that’s where our journey began…

She was a nervous dog from day one, but with some guidance and lots of love from us, she slowly adjusted to her new home.

She came with us on all our holidays (even our honeymoon) and we took just as much pleasure from seeing her enjoy the vast array of beaches and forests as she did exploring them.

It’s fair to say that she caused us a few traumas too, lets not forget her going through a glass door and her getting caught in a trap in the woods!!

She’s been on the front page of the local paper as well as being the “Blue Peter dog in the North”, but to us, she was our little girl, our baby.

It was a privilege to care for such a lovely dog as Peggy and I know she left the world a much better place, just because she was in it. We were just heartbroken to let her go and it has left us bereft.

We will miss her so very much.

This was Peggy’s blog, a true celebration of her life and now her memorial. She was the best dog in the world.

Love you P-dog

Your Mum & Dad (a.k.a. Gill & Michael Lysons)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The End.

Hello everyone, I just thought I would borrow Peggy’s blog to tell you what is going on with Peggy. If you have been following a little bit what has been happening over the last 12 months or so, you will know that Peggy has been poorly intermittently throughout this time. We have taken her to more appointments at the vets that we can count and have spent more money on medication and tests than we thought possible.

There was a time last year where she was diagnosed with Cushings Disease and then Pancreatitus and then of course she had a cancerous tumor removed in January. The current thinking is that she had either gone senile or had got various (as yet undiagnosed tumors).  However, Peggy’s main problem throughout is that she had become increasingly unhappy, unsettled and agitated.

Her day to day life is now not a happy one as she just pants constantly, paces around the house and spends no time at all with Michael and I. She has become uninterested in any real social activity with us, and after a brief ear tickle from either of us, she now just wants to be on her own. She had had a couple of accidents in the house recently, but thankfully, that hasn’t been too much of a problem. However, she does easily bang into things and we have been getting the impression that her back legs are becoming weaker as she sits with them out to the side as if certain positions are uncomfortable. She’s basically, not a happy little pooch.

It is with all this in mind, that Michael and I took Peggy to the vets last night and after some discussion with our vet, have made the very very sad decision to have Peggy put to sleep on Friday. It’s hard to convey just how hard this decision was to make as Anna (the vet) pointed out to us, that is is a final decision and one that cannot be reversed. However, Peggy just isn’t the dog that we know and we are agreed that she has had a very poor quality of life now and for the last few months really. The only time she doesn’t seem distressed is when she is asleep, and that can’t be nice. In fact that must be horrible.

Michael and I are simply heartbroken, but we are going to enjoy our last few days with “our little girl” and try to put some modicum of joy in the time she has left.

We love that dog ♥ She is of course, the best dog in the world.

Love

Gill (Peggy’s Mum) xxx

Loving Life!!!

Hello everyone, how is your Sunday going? Mine is going a little better than expected as I am feeling a little happier than I have been doing.

I got the feeling earlier in the week that mum & dad were very very sad as I was feeling so very poorly and just seemed to be having the worst time possible. Mum said that when Great Grandma Jessie was really poorly last year she felt really awful the whole time and she  felt like she just wanted to close her eyes and go to sleep…. this is kind of how I have been feeling.. 

Mum and dad are doing everything they can to look after me, but I know there will come a point when they will run out of ideas and Anna the vet will run out of drugs that will help me.

Ok, I know this is quite heavy and sad subject, but I am an old dog and I have had a wonderful life. I may have a good couple of years left in me year who knows?!?!?! I mean today, I have been out to Three Sisters where was a lovely lake for me to walk around with mum & dad. I met some great doggies and had a good old sniff. Brilliant.

You only have to look at my adventure map to see everywhere I’ve been – I have quite rightly earned my nickname “Peggy the Stunt Dog”.  I’m just going to take each day as it comes and hope that can still remember to pee outside and take all ear tickles when they are offered.

I am a very lucky dog xxxx

Hello everyone, I thought I better pop onto my blog and give you a little update on how I am doing. As I posted the other day, I went to see my lovely vet Anna as I really haven’t been feeling very well at all. Mum and dad are still very worried about me but at least I have some (sort of) good news.

It seems that my brain might be the problems as it can’t quite work out what is going on with me and that it was is making me so unsettled and distressed. Humans can get something similar when they get old and lose some of their mental health.  

However Anna the vet has put me on some medication which should increase the oxygen to my brain and hopefully this might make me feel better. I really couldn’t feel any worse……..

Also, another stressy thing this week is that dad’s operation to fix his dicky ticker was cancelled this week as his doctor was poorly. We are all gutted as we had got ourselves all psyched up!! However, we are hoping it should be soon and he will be all sorted.

ALSO, mum is starting her new job on Monday at the Princes Trust in Salford and she is very very excited. Bring it on xxx

Peggy

Well, it’s fair to say that I’ve been a bit quiet haven’t I. That’s because I haven’t been very well. Mum and dad are very very worried about me as I just can’t seem to settle and I am just very very agitated all the time. Not a happy pup.

I get really anxious every time either mum or dad leave the house and this morning I was hysterical when dad left. *whimpers*. I also am having trouble eating as I keep being sick after I have eaten anything.    :-(

We are all a little scared that I might have something a bit scary and a bit serious wrong with me because I  have already the cancer and at 14 I am quite an old dog.

However, I am going to see Anna my lovely vet tonight to see what she says. Hope it’s something good….

Love Peggy xx

Chilling

Hello everyone, how are you doing? I am pretty good thank you for asking

I have a somewhat quiet week after my little drama last Monday, so I personally haven’t got a great deal to tell you about me. The only eventful thing was that I had a visit from Grandma & Grandad Dixon on Saturday night and even though they all had salmon for tea, I didn’t even get a single morsel. Pft!!

The other couple of things to tell you are firstly about my mum, but then more importantly about my dad…

Firstly, my mum has only got a couple of weeks in her job at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. She took the job as Charity Officer there last May (2012) as she had been out of work for 6 months after she was made redundant. As she was only covering someone’s maternity cover, her contract is coming to an end on the 15th February.

However, the good news is that she has got herself a new job working for The Princes Trust in Salford where she will be a “Contracts Executive”!! She starts on the 18th Feb and we are all VERY excited. How la de da is that eh? Woof Woof.

Secondly, I have something to tell you about my daddy. You might not remember, but in 2010 my dad had to spend some time in hospital as he had a problem with his heart and since then he has been in hospital a couple of times with the same thing.

Well, a week today my dad is going into hospital to have a procedure so that the doctors can fix his dicky ticker. He told me today that he isn’t going to be asleep for the operation, but he will have something called conscious sedation which means he will feel quite relaxed whilst they fix him. He will also have to stay in Hospital overnight which means I will have to look after mum whilst we are on our own and then look after dad when he comes home.

We are a little nervous about dad going into hospital but we also trust dad’s doctor to look after him and mum said that everyone at Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital that they have met have been aces.

Oo and before any of that, my gorgeous little cousin Lola-Mai is 7 years old… how exciting… I can remember when Lola was born….. doesn’t time fly xxxx

So I have something of a tale to tell you as you might have guessed from the post title, I was attacked last night by another dog. 

Mum and dad and I all went out for a walk to the big chemist in West End Road and on our way back along Clipsley Lane, we noticed that a Staffordshire Bull Terrier (Staffie), was coming toward us on the pavement with no lead and in fact no owner.

Dad immediately told mum to pick me up as I think he could tell that the dog wasn’t friendly, but  as it turned out she didn’t have time. Before we knew it the dog was right up to us and in fact it attacked me by trying to bite me on the back of my neck. My mum was really scared, so she kicked the dog twice as hard as she could and this did get the Staffie off me. Dad said the dog yelped after mum struck it and then he (dad) went absolutely mental shouting and screaming at the dog to get it to leave us all alone.

However, the dog didn’t seem to want to go away, despite dad going all shouty and doing his very best to scare it away. There were some lovely ladies who let mum and I into their front garden so that the dog couldn’t come after me. After what seemed like ages but was probably a couple of minutes, dad got the dog to calm down and then it actually seemed submissive and was wagging it’s tail – but I didn’t care, at this point I just wanted to go home.

Anyway, dad did manage to lead the dog away from us and mum took me as far away as possible in the opposite direction.

I wasn’t actually hurt at all as mum and dad managed to fight off the horrible creature, but we were all pretty shaken up.

You see, there are 3 things here:

No 1) Staffies get a bad reputation as some idiot dog owners train them to be aggressive and think its “cool” to have a very strong dog off the lead and ready to attack. I have met lots of staffies that were very good natured.

No2) ALL dogs have the ability to bite and/or attack. My experience is that it is usually dogs with owners who don’t know how to look after their dogs responsibly that are fighty.

No3) I have lived in Haydock with mum & dad for 8½ years and whilst I have been nipped by a Greyhound and had a couple of other small run-ins with grumpy dogs and their owners, I have NEVER EVER been properly attacked. EVER.

So that was an eventful Monday night and in case you were wondering what happened to the Staffie…. the truth is we don’t know. Dad led it away from us and then just left it to roam the streets. This is something my mum & dad would never normally do as they have rescued many stray dogs before, (see Holly’s Story) and I can attest that they are genuine dog lovers. But in this particular circumstance they just wanted to protect me as they are my pack and just couldn’t make sure this Staffie was OK in case it wanted to bite my head off again.

Thanks mum & dad… you saved my life (again). Is it any wonder my Grandad D calls me “Peggy the Stunt Dog”. xxx

So it’s just a normal Friday night and I am getting lots of cuddles from mum as I decide to have what she likes to call “a mad 5 minutes!” This basically means that I like to burn some energy run in circles around the house – love it!!!

But then, it got SUPER exciting as mum and dad started to get their winter coats on and when mum opened the front door it was SNOWING LIKE MADDDDDDDD…. I couldn’t wait to get outside and go for a walk in it.

We just walked up Clipsley Lane to the Huntsman and back and it was AMAZING… we threw snowballs and mum & dad had to keep dusting snow off my back and off themselves. It was blimmin fantastic…. and when we got home, I was SO giddy that I liked all the ice and snow off the carpet… lush xxxxxxxxx

We have had a pretty great day today as we decided to go out and frolic in the snow!! It started to snow yesterday afternoon and went on quite late into the night. Woo Hoooooooo

Times have changed a little as I am a little deaf and so can’t go completely mental running around like I used to do. However, I do still have a pretty great walk on my 8 ft expanding lead and I have learned that as long as I walk on mum’s left hand side I never get too tangled up. Yippeeeeeeee I didn’t eat too much snow today as I was just loving running and skipping around and I even met lots of human pups on sleds and a very lovely Rottweiler who loved to go between people’s legs!!

It doesn’t look like the snow might be sticking around as I think it was even raining a bit today, so we thought we might as well play in it as much as we can whilst we had the chance.

Right then….. I am up for a bit of chillaxing now, who fancies tickling my ear??? (You know you want to).

I have decided that there are definitely 3 differnt kinds of walks:

1. Basic – this is the kind of walk where I just have to trot along next to either mum or dad and my only job really is to keep up with them. I don’t really get to sniff very much (if at all), and my only really chance to chill is if I need a wee!!! I love this walk none-the-less
2. Standard – this is the walk that I do the most often and it’s the one where I get a nice mix of a bit of sniffing, a bit of walking and sometimes even an ear tickle from a human if we stop to talk to anyone. I love this type of walk
3. Luxury – this is a very rare type of walk as it’s the only one I sort-of feel in charge of. I only get these walks if either mum or dad or I have been poorly and we haven’t been out for a while. I then get to sniff as much as I like and mum doesn’t pull me away from an interesting smelling lamp post, even if I am really taking my time to sniff the WHOLE thing…. I LOVE this type of walk the most.

I have to say that walking is one of my most favourite things to do and considering my recent diagnosis, I am going to make the most of every one xxx