Pudding is our 13 year old cream coloured Labrador. When my girlfriend, Seiko,  moved from Hokkaido to live with me in Okinawa  she brought Pudding with her.  Pudding’s favorite thing about Okinawa is getting to go in the ocean regularly. In summer, both Pudding and I could go for a swim together  although this tended to result in me being covered in scratches. 

Playing fetch with Pudding

Over the last year Pudding has being sleeping more and more. She is quite happy to relax on the sofa all day while Bear explores the house / sink  / trash cans / laundry basket.  A few months ago we found a lump on her elbow. For a while we didn’t have it removed to avoid an operation on an elderly dog, but when the lump had grown to the size of an egg, it was excised and diagnosed as Synovial sarcoma. Pudding has recovered from the operation and after a few weeks was back to her normal sleepy self. 

On around the 30th of December, Pudding seemed to get very old very quickly. She didn’t want to walk and was sometimes panting or shaking. The vets were all closed on the 31st and it was a worrying day watching her acting strangely. When the new year arrived Seiko and I were both pleased that Pudding had made it into 2009. Happily, Pudding slowly began to recover. On the 3rd the vet gave her some medicine and suggested that she’d had a bad reaction to a shot she’d been given a few days before. One week later Pudding seems to have made a full recovery.  On the next warm day, hopefully she will get to go for her first swim of 2009.