Little Poppy's 4th Birthday

Received a lovely email earlier from Julie who has Poppy. Poppy is from Reggie's first ever litter of pups and her Mother is Dolly. Poppy was born the 29th October 2011, so it is Poppy's 4th Birthday today.

Poppy

'Dear Jane

I'm still following and enjoying your blog so I feel I know what you  are up to, and thought I'd email a couple of pictures of Poppy (who is  four today!).

As I type this she is as usual snuggled up to me on the sofa.  She is doing great and is more loved with every year - I can't believe she is  four already.  We still get stopped with people commenting on how  pretty and good natured she is.  Even on the tube where, as you know,  people NEVER speak to each other, complete strangers will start  
chatting and wanting to say hello to her.

Poppy was assessed a little while ago for a Pets As Therapy dog and for the last year we have been going into a school on the Read2Dogs scheme. She is so good, even with children who haven't been taught  either how to behave around dogs or how to stroke a dog, she is very calm and gentle.  Hopefully we've given the children these skills too  as well as helping them learn to read.

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Poppy

As it was her birthday I tried to give her a perfect doggy day - two  really longs walks, yummy treats and lots of attention.  Unfortunately she blew it by rolling in the remains of a very smelly rat and was dunked in the bath on our return.  She definitely hasn't got the water loving poodle part in her.  She really doesn't like water and as yet has not attempted to swim.  I've taken her for walks with water loving dogs and she's watched them dive in after balls and sticks but so far she has not been in further than her knees (if dogs had knees that is).

The pictures were both taken today - the one with the cat shows her waiting for our eldest cat to move so she can try and chase her.  She gets on with both our cats and the two of them had been sleeping side by side quite happily minutes before this was taken but she can't resist running after them when they go downstairs.

​Hope this email finds you and your family well.

Julie  xxx'

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Bone structure of a dogs hindleg

Thanks Julie and as always it is lovely to hear from you and that Poppy is such a loved family member. Great to hear how she is helping children as a therapy dog. I just emailed Julie back and told her that dogs do actually have knees on their hindlegs. Just like humans they have a patella, which is the knee cap. The condition called Luxating patella in dogs is the knee cap dislocating. Most mammals have the same bones, just modified to the way they/we use them. If you take a real close look at skeletons, you really start to understand the theory of evolution and how it works over millions of years. Anatomy really is a big interest to me, especially the muscular and ligature structure, which with the skeleton is the most amazing pulley system. 
Anyway I won't go on, because Poppy has seven litter siblings that are also four years old today. So a Big Happy 4th Birthday to Poppy and her litter siblings Betsy, Alfie, Edward, Chilli, Luna, Bella and Cyril. I hope you all had a lovely day and that you are all happy and healthy.

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And here is Dolly with Poppy around 12 hours old and her seven litter siblings back in October 2011