Phew, long week – I’m going to be glad tomorrow evening when it’s over and I’m relaxing with a tasty beverage on the back deck.

It’s actually not that long – took Monday (and the preceding Friday) off, and had a 4-day weekend up at the cabin with Fil, Jenny, Mauro, Robyn and Lindsey. Tons of good food (literally), about a case of wine knocked back, and of course the mutt was the centre of attention for the weekend! But we hightailed it back down the hill on Monday after a furious morning of cleaning. Thursday night, our puppy trainer took us aside and mentioned that she thought he had ringworm, and to take him to the vet – since if he did have it, he’d have to be banned from the class until I cleared up. So we got him into the quacks on Monday afternoon, and turns out it’s not ringworm – he’s got demodicosis, otherwise known as red mange. It’s not actually mange – apparently all dogs have these wee thingies called demodex mites living in their hair follicles, which can’t be passed on, but “in predisposed individuals the mites increase in number causing clinical disease.” So the poor little fecker is itchy, and starting to lose small patches of fur where he’s been scratching. The vet put him on some crap called ivermectin, but he had a bad reaction to it, so will have to resort to plan B – Mitiban. Otherwise known as foul-smelling, disgusting assed crap he needs to be bathed in every week for a couple of months. Sigh. Well, whatever we have to do.