Belka

My family loves me

Has Belka hit the jackpot or have we? Bulgaria has been cracking down on the number of stray dogs on the streets there. The particularly dangerous ones are destroyed and the others are castrated to prevent a further increase, then returned to their hard life on the street. Belka's life has changed drastically since January and we hope that she feels that she's better off.

For our part, we certainly feel better off. It's funny getting woken up in the morning by the noise she makes when she wags her tail and hits the bannister. Watching her trot purposefully up a mountain and then scurry down it again is a joy. Seeing her learn tricks with Lucy and also work out how to get at the treats in her intelligence games is fascinating.

And we worry about her as if she were a child. She yelped with pain on Saturday evening after a walk in the mountains, so we dashed to the pet clinic. At first we thought she'd been stung, but she seems to have strained one of her paws, so has had to rest up for a couple of days. She's dying to go out for a proper walk, but she's still hobbling a bit. Tomorrow she should be right again, though.