I should know better

We have been making frequent visits to the vet these days. Fidget has very weepy eyes, (and when excited he weeps even more), and Ella has a nasal infection which involves a runny nose and lots of sneezing.

Fidget was quite sociable, as he usually is - until the vet let him sniff his hand. He read that like a book - a very scary one. This man did truly awful things to dogs, many of them involving needles and thermometers inserted where no glass tube has any right to go. His hackles rose and he backed off hard.

Ella was originally examined by one vet, but when brought in for her treatment she was received by a different one. She batted her eyelashes at him hopefully - surely those pockets were full of chicken? He stared at her, then at the case notes, then back.

"It says here nasal irrigation. But she hasn`t got a nose.! What exactly is she?"

Ella glared at him over her full two millimetres of muzzle, clearly seeing any hope of chicken receding rapidly. Here was a man who didn`t believe in Chin!

I explained what she was.

"There aren`t too many of these about, are there?" he asked hopefully.

However, the procedures were done eventually, and I brought my two resentful patients home for a really comforting meal and a cuddle, both rather damp from their respective ordeals.

We are united in hoping for no return visits.