Could it be our boy's done something rash?
Thing One: Sunday.
My utility room door is broken, so that I have to bash it hard with my hips while holding the handle down to get it open. I'm getting the dog food out of the fridge in there; Spike who was velcroing around my legs in typical bordercollie fashion, managed to eel himself between me and the door just when I was thumping it open. So I bashed his damn head between me and the door.
He showed no sign of noticing or caring about it, except for worrying about my panicky scream; but I think he took another ten years off my life.
Thing Two: Monday.
There's a little patch of grass just outside our building. It's off the road, and while I've never taken the dogs there specifically for offleash romping, sometimes when I walk round the block and Spike happens to find a plastic bottle, I'll let him loose there for a quick game of bottle-fetch. I've done this occasionally for like six years and nothing ever went wrong, which is probably why I never realised how dumb I was being till yesterday.
There's a big brindle squareheaded bulldog-mastiffy dog that lives right there and gets walked across that grass patch regularly. Spike sees him out of the window and has HYSTERICS OF RAGE every time.
You already know where I'm going with this, right? Brindle dog appears round the corner while Spike is offleash. Spike goes KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN and piles in. Chaos and fuckery ensue.
To be fair, I can normally trust Spike to come when called even if there IS a big dog right there that he wants to teach a lesson. I wouldn't let him offleash anywhere if this weren't the case. But this grasspatch is too small; the dog was already well inside his comfort zone when it appeared. Also he's a bit punchy and underexercised since I've been sick, and has a HUGE GRUDGE against this particular dog from seeing him out of the window every day.
So he didn't, and I'm left with a hysterical Squish in one hand, trying to grab the fucker by his harness when he REALLY doesn't want to be grabbed and is putting angry!brindle!dog between himself and me like a fucking pro, and I'm thinking ANY SECOND NOW this dog's owner is going to lose her grip on him and he's going to crush Spike like a fucking ant.
Fortunately none of this happened. I've apologised profusely and repeatedly to brindle dog's owner (she was amazingly gracious about it too, which almost made me feel worse; but we do have to keep living next door to each other so it's just as well) I've also assured her Spike won't EVER be offleash in that area again. It was spectacularly idiotic of me to have ever done it at all. No one was hurt, which is the only good thing about the entire stupid mess.
Thing Three: Also Monday.
Squish puked up a little pool of yellow bile and grass blades just outside the kitchen; so far so normal. I didn't discover it till I fucking slipped in it, twisted my ankle and one knee and landed flat on my arse in dog puke. Spent the evening with a pack of frozen vegetables strapped to my ankle and wondering why I ever had dogs. They're clearly out to kill me.