Poor JD has been sadly and badly neglected while Lola has been ill. Every time DM takes Lola to the vet, he “tricks” JD into staying in the house while he pops out of the door with Lola. As they go down the path, his heart is breaking with the sound of JD’s miserable howl. You see, in the same way that our girl can’t tell us where it hurts, we can’t tell him why everyone is deserting him and leaving him on his own all day.

He doesn’t realise that each time this happens, Lola suffers just as much misery as he does. She has to endure a trip in the car, which she hates, then she has the indignity of a thermometer up her bottom and a jab along with a range of other despicable acts by cold-hearted vets. Apparently, she’s getting wise to the thermometer now and is ready with teeth bared when the moment comes.

In the last ten days she’s eaten almost nothing and today, when she was weighed, she’d lost 12 % of her body weight since last Wednesday and then she was already three days into this illness. We still have no idea what is wrong. The vets keep ruling things out but they can’t identify the problem. On top of the worry about her, it’s a deeply unsatisfactory situation. Today’s verdict was that the problem must be an infection because the alternative (a blockage) would put her at death’s door by now. Basically this means that she’s been put on another cocktail of drugs – three different types of antibiotic and we’ve been told to “just keep trying” to get her to eat.

Guilt, misery and the feeling that we’re rubbish dog-parents for neglecting JD meant we got his raggy out and allowed him to spend the evening shredding it to bits all over the sitting room floor. At least it’s brought a smile to his face.

I’ll let you into a little secret…he’s actually been having a wonderful diet of tempting treats that Lola has been offered and refused to eat – tonight tuna fish and rice, yesterday coley poached in milk, the day before chicken and rice…you see what I mean. He thinks we’re being vile and yet he’s getting so many goodies! I’m sure he’d happily trade the goodies for a return to normal service in our home though.