The Vets

“This won’t hurt, Lily”

Ouch! She lied.

Just as she did the last time I was here. And the time before that. And I won’t even go into the time I came here, had something sharp and pointy stuck in me, and then woke up hours later with a stupid green bandanna around my neck. There should be a law against such violation.

“There you go; that wasn’t so bad was it?”

Yes. It was.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t actually mind the Vets, in fact I usually quite enjoy the little excursions; a chance to sniff out new smells and I generally get quite a fuss from all the staff here. But today just seemed to be going from bad to worse.

Unusually quiet, Dad has gone a funny shade of bright red. He tugs sharply at my leash, and stares at me with an intensive frown as if he’s somehow trying to communicate to me telepathically.

“Lily, keep still” he mumbles, backing up his thought process.

Surmising that for some reason unknown only to himself that he wishes to keep the exchange between us private, I stare back and attempt to portray by the same telepathic method that I’ve just had a stranger stick something sharp in my bum, so my apologies if I flinched just a little bit just then. His blank stare tells me that he’s failed to pick up on my line of communication.

I break wind, guaranteeing that she’s unlikely to stick anything else sharp near my backside for a while now.

“Lileee!” He draws out my name, whilst turning an even brighter shade of red. This from someone that lets out a raucous laugh whenever he breaks wind and no one else is around. No one else of course, except me. He thinks I don’t notice.

It’s not as if I wanted to come here today. I was quite happy charging around the back field, picking up sticks, sniffing rabbit droppings. It wasn’t me that left that sharp object in the field. I couldn’t help but tread on it; of course I would have avoided it if I could. Sure there was some blood, but I don’t think it warranted a trip to the Vet. Certainly it didn’t warrant Dad’s gallant, albeit misplaced, mercy dash, me in arms, back to the house. The antics with his old sock “to stem the bleeding” was inspired but, equally pointless; my dog licks I’m sure, would have been a far more effective treatment.

And the incident with the scales in the reception just a few minutes earlier can not be blamed wholly on me. He wouldn’t ask Mum or indeed any woman to step up to be weighed in complete view of a full waiting area, so why he thought I’d be okay with it, I’ll never know. Anyway; you’d think that animal scales would be urine proof, wouldn’t you?

Dad untangles my leash that has become inexplicably entwined round the table leg and the Vet, and hurries me out of the treatment room.

“Sixty quid!” he exclaims as we leave the building. I don’t understand.

“Sixty blooming quid!” he repeats as I climb into the back of the car.

We turn out of the car park and head towards home. “Sixty quid!” I wonder if perhaps Dad now needs medical attention.

We reach home and I retire to my bed. I drop into a deep slumber; sore foot and a sore bum.

“Sixty quid!”

But mostly a sore head.