I survived today but my not all of my family have come out of the day well. I got home to find DM in his coat looking miserable and JD looking positively sorry for himself. They’d just got back from a trip to the vet and JD has to return there tomorrow to go under the knife!

DM was doing the vacuuming when he noticed a strange dark patch on the carpet. When he tried to vacuum it up, it spread. He didn’t twig what it was straight away until he found more patches that also spread as he tried to clean them up at which point he realised he was clearing up blood. The nelly thought “I’m bleeding” so checked himself over!!!Then he realised that JD was leaving a trail of blood and on inspection had a wound on the upper part of his leg. A quick call to the vet and a mercy dash down the hill declared JD to be in need of surgery to clean and stitch the wound without risk to JD or the vet!

Sadly for our precarious finances, it also lightened his wallet by £50 and will result in another £300 gone tomorrow when the boy gets picked up from the vet. DM tells me he joked with JD “how are you going to repay us?” and he was rewarded with the saddest but cutest little look he’d ever seen. I think his heart melted at that moment. We don’t (obviously) begrudge a penny to keep both of our dogs safe and well but we have no idea whatsoever how he got injured. We’ve combed the house looking for something he could have punctured himself on but to no avail. He’d not been out into the field before the discovery, nor, as far as DM can recall, had he even been into the garden so we are absolutely at a loss to understand how whatever happened, happened.

One thing is for sure – he’s very, very sorry for himself and he’s obviously very sore because he won’t put his foot down at all. The worst bit is that this happened once before, not long after we got him and then we were as baffled as now. The trouble is that if we can’t find the cause, we can’t remove it from being dangerous again. Maybe we’ll have to fit him with a collar cam?