January 2022 With Hannah, Little Alf & Friends

I can’t believe how quickly Christmas and the New year has flown by. Here in the Yorkshire Dales it feels like we’ve had lots of wintery weather especially last week, waking up with the temperature in the minuses has made me want to throw the duvet over my head and stay in bed for an extra hour. But I’m soon reminded that I have a 20 week puppy who needs lots of attention.

January to many is a month of being quiet after the busy festive season. I also didn’t seem to stop over Christmas with visiting family and keeping on top of the animals. It was nice to finally see more of the family after the last year but still being cautious of the Covid news and potential spikes.

January to me is all about reflection and focusing on goals for the year ahead. I’ve really been thinking of how things have grown in the last few years, and I can’t believe this year I turn 25 and have been in business 7 years this October. There have certainly been some challenges along the way, but through this journey I’ve not only learnt new skills and a lot about business, but I’ve also learnt more about myself in my personal life. That is one of the great things about life you never stop learning.

I’m lucky to have a great team of furry friends who continue to teach me new things each week.

This week I’ve had to give special care to Pip my new wire-haired dachshund puppy. (You can read about him in my last post).

I had an unexpected visit to the vets with him as for the last couple of days I noticed he wasn’t as playful as usual and didn’t want to eat his food and anything he did eat was causing sickness. As he is a puppy alarm bells started to ring. After a phone call to our local vet Becky, I took Pip straight away to her for a quick consultation which showed his stomach to be very hard, sore and swollen which wasn’t right.

He was sent in for an Xray and I started to panic knowing the risk of having him sedated. It’s never nice when one of the team is poorly and I find time goes very slowly when you're sat waiting for the news, but the staff at the vets reassured me all would be well.

After his Xray I was called in to view the results and it seemed Pip had eaten something like a stone which was sat in his stomach, and needed to be removed. Surgery wasn’t an option at this stage, so he went on some medication to help bring it out of his system.

After another check over from the vet and more injections he was allowed to come home for the evening if I kept checking him and made sure he was kept warm.

Luckily the next day he was back to his bouncy self and eating his food as usual which was a huge sigh of relief.

Today he is sat on my knee in the office watching me type and helping with paperwork. I will be keeping more of an eye on him in future to avoid another trip to the vets.