It's one thing after another with Tia and Duggie, Tia's turn today to up my stress levels even further than usual.
We went to a loch near us after I finished work at 1pm, there were loads of swans, geese and ducks congregated on the left hand side as we went in, so we went to the far right of the car park before I let the dogs off, where there wasn't a bird in sight. Duggie immediately did the toilet, and as I am still awaiting the arrival of the stone (now stones, he did it again!) that he swallowed, I was checking through it. I glanced around and Tia wasn't beside us, I looked up and she was in the middle of the ice, running back towards the birds!
I quickly tried to grab Duggie, who thought it was a game, and begun to dodge me, I finally got him on lead, and raced back across the car park, calling on Tia. A man in a car shouted that she was round the other side of the pillar on the loch, but when I got there she was nowhere in sight - her head then appeared out of the water, where she tried to grab onto the ice, then went under again. She was about 10-12 feet away maybe, and completely surrounded by ice, I just didn't know what to do and shouted for someone to help her. Two men jumped out of their cars, one jumped over the barrier, and the other ran to see if the golf club office was open so he could get a rope. Tia was by now trying to swim towards me, but the ice was in her way, and she kept slipping under. The other man came back without a rope, as the office was shut, but he had a hook thing that he had in his car. They both lay flat on the ground, and stretched in as far as possible, urging Tia to come towards them, the ice was melting, and she managed to push forward bit by bit, until she was close enough for them to hook her. They finally got a good hold of her collar just as she was disappearing under again, and hauled her out.
She was shivering and had a glazed look, one of the men ran back to his car, grabbed a towel and vigourously rubbed her with it, then carried her to my car, put her in the front seat and told me to turn the heaters on full. I drove her home, checked her gums, which were totally white, and phoned the vet, she told me to warm her up gradually and give her something to eat, or some sugar water, keep her quiet and as stress-free as possible. I put her fleece jumper on, the heating on and cuddled her until she heated up a little, then gave her some warm food. She was then walking around wagging her tail, and I was finally able to stop shaking a little and burst into tears.
I think, between them, Duggie and Tia are going to give me heart failure, so far Tia has been run over, chased two deer into me (that's another story) and almost drowned, Duggie has been hit by a cylist, been ill with a bad bug, and swallowed stones - and I got these two dogs to help me feel better when I was ill, and after losing Gari.
