Birthday Bingley

Bingley is one year old today!

It’s been 10 months since he came to live with us and although the time seems to have flown by it also feels like he’s been here for much longer than that. In fact it’s difficult to imagine him not being here, and even when he’s driving us to distraction I don’t think that either of us would want to be without him.

His birthday week hasn’t been one without trouble however! We’ve been up to the vet not once, but twice this week (I’m now on first name terms with most of the staff!). On Tuesday it was time for him to go and visit Rachel so that we could discuss what to do next in the ongoing search to find the cause of his allergies. Before then though, on Monday he had another day of vomiting. A thorough examination on Tuesday didn’t reveal anything too alarming, but it turned out that he was running a high temperature and required an injection of antibiotics. He’s also lost a bit of weight and has quickly become a skinny Bing.

We were up there again on Wednesday morning to see if his temperature had returned to normal; it hadn’t quite, but it’s getting better and another week on antibiotics should sort him out. Meanwhile we’re going to have to make a supreme effort to keep him away from nasty edibles, though I’m not certain if that’s going to be possible. On the way back from the vet I thought I’d take a short cut through Horsey Field (I know, I know – what was I thinking?!) but despite my vigilance, and even though I didn’t let him off lead, when I looked down I found him proudly clasping in his jaws a huge clod of horse manure. As I removed it I tried to explain to him that we’d just been to the vet because of stuff like this, but he just gave me a look as if to say ‘I’m not sharing any of this with you’.

Looking through our archive of Bingley photos it feels like only last week that we were going round to Brian and Julie’s to be introduced to Bingley for the first time. We were greeted by a river of puppies led, I can now easily imagine, by the ever enthusiastic Bing! He hasn’t changed that much: he’s just a bigger version now, and looking at the pictures of that tiny puppy we can very clearly see Bingley looking back at us.

Bingley’s Blog has also grown quickly: initially it was just going to be a little photo album to share with friends and family. But now it’s become a story which we both enjoy telling.

Making lots of new friends has been one of the loveliest consequences resulting from the arrival of Bingley and his blog. Over the past year so many people have sent gifts for Bing and shared their own wonderful dog stories with us. It’s been an absolute delight and one which we wouldn’t want to be without. I’m sure that if Bingley could talk he’d want to join us in saying a huge thank you to all of you.