Crisis over

Such horrors since yesterday. Flossie went rapidly downhill during the night, and while I'll spare you the details of the continuous flow of bloody diarrhoea, the vomiting and the general signs of a very sick dog, I can tell you that a mercy dash by taxi to the faraway emergency animal hospital at 4 a.m. was just what was needed; five minutes after admission, even the vet was alarmed by her deterioration. A harrowing sleepless night, and one which convinced me, as I crawled back to bed at 5.30, that my lovely girl would undoubtedly die.

But the lovely girl decided otherwise. In true Flossie fashion, she bounced back, and at Flossie speed too. By lunchtime today, after a few hours of intravenous fluids, antibiotics, an anti-emetic, some soothing stomach-lining gloop akin to old-fashioned milk of magnesia, reassuring blood tests, and a transfer to our own vet, Flossie had picked up sufficiently to be allowed home on trial.

While she was being treated, the Lovely Son succeeded in his second attempt to get on a train, and lo! the train arrived on time, just in time, in fact, for him to accompany me to the faraway hospital to see her and pay the scary bill (thank goodness I insured the dear girl!), map reading for me as we got terribly lost.

Later, on the way home from our own vet, heads filled with instructions and what to look out for overnight, Flossie lay down quietly in the back of the car and sneakily removed the cannula in her leg, left in situ in case a hasty return was required. She had had enough of all this vet nonsense, she said.

The first vet she had seen called her condition "probably garbage guts" - which pretty much sums her up, really - with resulting food poisoning. She has lost 2 kg in the last few days.  If she continues to stay vomit-free tonight, she will stay at home, and go back to the vet first thing tomorrow morning. I am deemed to be a sensible owner who can be trusted to nurse my convalescent super-scavenger.

She's tired - Flossie hates losing sleep! - and a bit feeble, but delighted to be home and back in her own bed.

And so are we all.