Meet Gino, my mother’s beloved doggie that she’d adopted while holidaying in Limnos a few summers back when Gino was a tiny puppy. Dad has now inherited him from her, and I play Mummy for this canine darling. Living next door, makes it a pleasure to do. Dad walks Gino and gives him his main meals, and I pet him, play with him, and arrange for his trips to the vet. I also treat him daily to a handful of cat food, which I deliver same time every evening. His tail goes wagging like crazy as he sees me coming. The tiny cat food pellets are a delicacy he always devours in seconds!

A couple weeks ago, though, Gino’s happy life was disrupted by a terrible accident.

I was working on my computer when, suddenly, I heard harrowing howls of pain, clearly from a dog. I rushed outside like a madwoman, not knowing what to think. I had no idea it was Gino, but thought perhaps a dog outside had been attacked by other strays – as it occasionally happens in our semi-rural area.

To my shock, I found a Jeep parked in the middle of the street. Two strangers and my father were standing behind it, all looking down at Gino, who was crying. As it turned out, my father had left the gate open and the dog had rushed outside just as the Jeep was driving past the house. By sheer luck, it didn’t run him over and only hit his front paw.

The vet determined readily that the bone wasn’t broken, but it was cracked. She bandaged his paw and placed a cone around his neck to stop him from chewing it. A couple of jabs and a lot of reassuring petting later, he was ready to go back home and I was handed antibiotics and painkillers to administer in the next seven days.

Gino was grumpy in the first two days, growling at us as we tried to keep him comfortable and warm. Gino has always had a weird character, though he is better now than he used to be. In the past, he’s bitten my dad’s hand many times, for example, if he put his hand near his mouth while he was eating, or simply, if he wasn’t in the mood.

So I knew to leave him alone every time he began to growl these first two days when he was still in a lot of pain. From the third day onwards, he began to perk up and walk without limping, and we saw him lie down on the ground again for the first time since the accident. The first two days, he kept sitting on his back legs and looking at us forlornly, bless his little heart.

There is a silver lining to his unfortunate accident and misfortune, though, and that is the fact that as I nursed him back to good health we bonded like never before. He couldn’t drink from his bucket of water at all with the cone, for example, so I had to check with him a few times a day, offering him to drink from my hand, which he seemed to enjoy. And he didn’t bite, of course, LOL. Andy thought I was crazy, since he once nearly got bitten by him too, when he was close to him while he was eating. But I knew Gino wouldn’t bite me. He is a clever boy, despite his crankiness. He knew I was only trying to help.

I don’t know if Gino couldn’t eat from his bowl either, or if he thought it was more fun to have me around to feed him, but I wound up having to throw food on the ground for him to eat too. And, again, Dad thought I was nuts because as he ate the pellets, I kept pushing them towards his mouth because the cone made it hard for him to reach them. My fingers would brush against his lips, and he never did as much as growl, let alone bite me. Another silver lining – I think Gino is done minding company when he eats now, yippee!

It took Gino a while to work out he had to move around to get the pellets from the floor. At first, he’d look at them through the transparent plastic of the cone, and kept trying to get them through the plastic, LOL

On the 10th day, his mood improved drastically as soon I removed the cone. Boy, did he dance around or what! And he ate like he hadn’t eaten in days, eating and drinking like a mad thing.

And what surprise! He didn’t try to bite the bandage at all, and never did, until it was time to remove that too, five days later. That day, to be honest, he did growl at me as I used a small scissors to remove the sticky bandage. I insisted, despite him pointing his snout at my fingers and growling, and suddenly, he swirled around in a flash, then growled at me loudly, baring his teeth as he stared at me. Shocked, I told him off and he rushed into the dog house, a long strip of sticky bandage trailing behind him as it was still half-wrapped around his leg. I returned ten minutes later and he walked out of the dog house, tail wagging, as if nothing had happened.

I told you he’s weird, haha. Plus, his leg was bandage-free this time. He had chewed off the remnants. Phew! I can’t believe I survived being his nurse for two weeks without a single bite mark on my hands, LOL!

Last silver lining here – Dad has learned his lesson, because he had been quite naughty all this time. Being a typical, stubborn Greek elderly man, he never listened to reason (or yours truly!). I kept advising him to keep the gate closed at all times and to only walk the dog with the lead. He ignored me on both counts. Now, he swears “Never again!”. He does use the lead now every time he takes Gino out.

Bad, bad Dad!!!! But Gino is such a sweetheart, despite his nasty mood swings! I bet he has forgiven him already.

Last week, Athens was hit by a snowstorm that its people won’t forget any time soon! Snow covered every street and every corner, and the government had to declare the two days that followed official days off work for the whole of Attica. Which was a good idea, seeing that we were all stuck inside our homes, unwilling and unable to walk outside anywhere, let alone drive. Cars had been half-buried under snow in all the side roads all over the place, and many were abandoned, even on the highways, their drivers walking home for kilometres.

Undoubtedly, the snowstorm affected people the worst in the private highway of Attiki Odos, where 5,000 drivers  got stranded for hours in the cold on the first day of the snowstorm from midday onwards until the army came to the rescue in the wee hours of the morning! According to witnesses, by the time darkness came, even the men were desperate inside their cars, convinced they would not survive the night. The first person who sued the highway company for compensation is an elderly man with a heart problem who got stranded in a taxi for 20 hours without food, water or his meds. Many more are expected to follow suit…

Read more about the snowstorm in my latest newsletter. You’ll find many FREE kindle books in there too! ENJOY!

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