I think it is lucky for her that she lives in a safe environment. Because her vision is so poor, she does get surprised, for example she got spooked when Ian was carrying Bobbins as he was a different shape. She also doesn’t see things from certain angles or in certain light conditions. I think this could be very unsettling for her and I think that life would be impossible for her in an open environment.
Millie is odd in her own little way, not least how she runs around the table. She gets such a speed up, it’s amazing to watch her. The trouble is, we have to catch her mid run and picking her up is like picking up a little squirmey thing!
Bobbins is also quite high up on the oddness table. She gets lost at night and barks to be rescued. Of course, Wilbur and Queenie have also gone through this so it’s not really a surprise, particularly given that she’s a lot smaller. We stopped putting her away at night when she had diarrhea and for some reason she was then unable to go through the night, so she takes herself out and then forgets how to get back in. Her physique means that she’s never going to be good at jumping or climbing. She sometimes tries to get on the bed, but that entails her just running at the bed. She is looking very pretty at the moment (but remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder), the eye lid on her big eye didn’t form properly (or didn’t open properly) and she has both the top and bottom eyelashes along the bottom of her eye. This is giving her a rather splendid look with long lashes sweeping out from under her eye, however I think the vet will be removing this as it could be uncomfortable for her. Bobbins also runs round in circles, but only at tea time. I think that when they run round in circles they are only doing normal doggy behaviour, but instead of being able to run around freely, they run in circles because once they’ve done the first circle they know there’s nothing in the way.
And I can’t write about odd animals without including Larry. He often falls off his perch – do they do this in the wild? We here a flutter and then a squark as he drops to the floor of his cage. His breed is described as being the ‘clown of the parrot world’ which from our experience seems very apt. I wonder if the cliffs of Patagonia are full of Patagonian Conures tumbling to the ground and then looking round with a ‘I meant to do that’ expression.
Petal is still perky, but I think she is deteriorating quite quickly. She’s eating very well and still walks around with her tail wagging, but I’ve also seen her standing still with her tail down looking dejected. She has a lump growing around her eye which I think will start to bother her soon and I think at that might be what we need to watch. She stopped eating dry food and I think that the pressure of crunching on the biscuits was uncomfortable for her. But she’s tucking into canned dog food so she still has her appetite. We were thinking in terms of weeks, however I think that we should probably now be thinking in terms of days. It’s so sad, but we’ll know when the time is right to say good bye.