A busy day - opened the hens, back to pick up Oscar and take him to the vets to get a lantern! He is just chewing his bandage and pulling out the dressing! The nurse checked his dew claw and said it was healing nicely so that was a relief. Time for a bite to eat and then off to see a potential respite home for Oscar!
 I booked to go to the Port Eliot Festival with Vegan Jo before I had any idea I would be getting Oscar. We decided to get a ticket for the whole 4 days...but what to do with Oscar?! The Exile may be in France and she is the only person I would trust looking after him. My sister was going to come and dog sit but no way could she take him for a walk. She loves him but is not confident with dogs and Oscar is a lot of dog! 
When out in the woods with Oscar a week ago I bumped into a nurse who lives in the village and used to work in the residential side of our school. She toild me of the marvellous place she uses. The woman lives in the middle of nowhere and takes up to 4 dogs at a time and they live in the house with her! So today was the day to check her out! Oh my! She lives surrounded by fields and has horses she rescues. Well Oscar so wanted to join the horses! She did a dog whispering hanf gesture and noise and he would sit - only to then lunge once more with me valiantly trying to control him! In retrospect I should have asked if we could chat somewhere else. I find the effort taken to hold him back renders me speechless, unable to give him a clear command or think sensibly! I was feeling a right failure in my inability to stop him. Things got worse when one of the horses got taken for a ride and the one left behing went capering round the field whineying and kicking his legs in the air! Oscar nearly went demented in his efforts to join it! As the woman was obviously not going to show me where he would sleep I decided to leave! I did find out she takes the dogs for a run in a nearby field - oh my! I told her Oscar can jump fences and asked if he would be taken there on a lead - she said yes so that was some small comfort! She was a very chatty woman but obviously takes no nonsense from dogs or their overanxious owners! She told me she has never lost a dog yet! I will try him for a few hours  next week so he gets used to being there before he spends a whole weekend. I think I will be a nervous wreck thinking of him leaping fences, chasing horses, or trying to find his way back to me! 
Come the eve it was cooking dinner for The Exile and then dog sitting Ginger as she went for a practise sing - she is performing in the village with her choir on Saturday! They are performing popular songs like Moonriver - which she sang to me and the dogs as we took them for their last walk of the evening on her return!