Picture: taken 10/02/2008
Picture: taken 10/02/2008
Picture: taken 10/02/2008
Picture: taken 29/08/2005
Picture: taken 01/04/2004
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Picture: taken 01/04/2004
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Picture: taken 01/04/2004
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Truffle is doing well. I have been making videos of her which are on You Tube. She is fit and feisty. She can still drive us nuts with her barking at times.
Truffle was four years old on the 22nd December. She has been doing well and has settled down quite a lot. She gets about one and a quarter hours of walks most days. She is still active but has slowed down a bit. She does not run around so much as she used to when she meets other dogs though she will still chase after squirrels. Her health has been good. She did have a flea infestation on the area near her tail a couple of months ago which turned into dermatitis. It persisted after the fleas had gone so I took her to the vet who gave her an anti-biotic injection and sold me some anti-bacterial shampoo. It seems to be clearing up now. She still loves attention and likes to be made a fuss of. People, especially children often think she is still a puppy.
Visited the vet again this month as she had chewed off a lump of fur on her back in front of her tail. This time the fleas had got to her. She had been on a six month course of tablets during the summer which sterilise the fleas apparently, so I naively did not expect them to be there especially as I had been told they were effective with other dogs. She was given an injection and it cleared up but I check her regularly with a flea comb now and also have some spray on stuff to use when necessary.
The skin problem cleared up quickly but reoccurred after less than three months and in April she needed to have her glands emptied again. This time she was given an injection.
Truffle is now two years old. She has been scratching and chewing at the area on her back above her tail so that her fur has come out where the skin which is hard and crusty and sore has become exposed. She has been to the vet and he combed her fur and said she seemed to be free of fleas. He then squeezed her anal glands, also known as scent glands to empty them and gave me a month's supply of steroid tablets to give to her. It should clear up within a month he said.
"Truffle" the Patterdale Terrier was born on December 22nd 2002. Other names she is called have included Trufflepie, Trufflepuff, Muttley, Feist, feisty mutt and Mrs Mutt. She is the first pet dog I personally have ever had, and if my seven year old son had not kept demanding a dog we wouldn't have got her. So she was aquired at the behest of my younger male progeny. Don't worry, I don't actually talk like this, it only happens when I write. She came to live with us at nine weeks old. She came complete with a metal cage which we kept her in briefly to prevent her pooing all over the place and chewing everything up. She soon made it clear that she didn't like the cage so we stopped putting her in it, but it took a few more weeks more before she became house trained. We tied her to the fence in the garden a few times but she kept barking and dug a very big hole. She showed she is an excellent digger so I can see why they are used to dig animals like foxes out of holes.
She is a feisty and affectionate dog who always likes to have her tummy tickled. When she was twelve weeks old and I let her off the lead for the first time in the local park she ferociously launched an attack on my ankles. She probably only weighed about 8lbs at the time. One of her less attractive habits when still a puppy was that she would sometimes eat poo that she picked up in the park which freaked me out a bit when it first happened. Nobody had told me that dogs can do this. Please excuse my ignorance. I was told this is a not uncommon puppy problem and is because of an imbalance in the acid to alkali ratio in her diet and that the ratio of non-meat food should be increased. She also had a phase in her first year where she would roll in the stuff so I had to keep bathing her and then I kept her on the lead for a while. It could be fox poo as people tell me dogs do this. She has settled down a lot since she was a puppy and is relaxed most of the time indoors. However if she sees or hears a cat outside she becomes excited, or if someone comes to the door or even if someone makes a noise outside. She has a very piercing bark. She is given a short walk in the morning in Pymmes Park, Edmonton, London and often later in the day when there is time she is taken for an hour-long (three mile) walk to Firs Lane Fields and let off the lead so she can have a run. She loves to run especially with other dogs and true to breed she never seems to get tired. Outdoors she is a bundle of energy. She is not the most obedient dog in the world, though she is much better than she was. Basically nowadays she will obey me if she has nothing more interesting to do. She has to be kept well away from roads when off the lead. She stays closer to me when off the lead than she used to when she was younger. As a puppy she would bark at traffic that passed close by and pull on the lead. If I had let go of the lead she would have tried to attack the traffic and doubtless got run over doing so. When off the lead she loves to chase squirrels. In the back garden, if the pet rabbits are in the rabbit run she tries to bite them through the mesh. I only take her out in the garden to do her business now and I put her lead on. Previously she would jump over the garden fence probably in pursuit of one of the many local cats. On one occasion she even jumped on the back of a cat. She is friendly with most dogs when she is off the lead. On the lead she is sometimes aggressive towards other dogs. At the end of the street there is a very good pet shop and where I can buy her doggy food including her favourites, pig snouts that she really goes wild for. When I present her with a pig snout she becomes very excited. I usually get her to jump up several times before I let her take one out of my hand. Then she retreats under a chair as if she believes I would snatch it back from her. Our other household pets include three Netherland Dwarf Rabbits and a white budgie.
This breed of dog is native to the Lake District of Cumbria in North West England. (I have added photos to pages on "Mickledore", "Wastwater" and "Scafell Pike" on "Wikipedia".) The name Patterdale refers to a village a little south of Ullswater and a few miles east of Helvellyn, England's third highest mountain. The border country of northern England including Cumbria and southern Scotland is an area where working terriers have long been bred. At one time individual villages would have their own named breeds of terrier. Cumbria or more specifically the Lake District National Park is home to England's highest and most rugged hills. The highest rainfall in England is recorded here and though subject to the Gulf Stream near the coast, once on the hills even in summer the wind chill can be quite high. In this harsh environment unable to sustain agriculture and too hilly in the main for cattle, sheep farming is the dominant farming activity. Sure-footed rugged Hardwick sheep are the favoured breed. Patterdale terriers are tough feisty little dogs bred to be suited to this kind of terrain. Foxes being predatory on sheep necessitated fox hunting and the Patterdale would run with the hounds during the foxhunt and if the fox went to earth the Patterdale being an excellent digger would dig it out. They would also enthusiastically catch rabbits and keep down any rats. They have great stamina as Truffle demonstrates and can keep running for ages. Indoors they are relaxed and friendly and good as pets. They have been exported abroad notably to the States where they seem to be used mostly for hunting.
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