In between writing terribly bad poetry today, I have taken Rosie to see the vet.
This is not because there is anything the matter with her, she is in the peak of bouncing, snuffling canine wellness, but because she sloped off the other day and Mark had to retrieve her from the vet.
This necessitated a great deal of shuffling through the paperwork with which she arrived, and the discovery that she had not, in fact, got any vaccination forms. Hence the claims to the contrary of the people who had so enthusiastically disposed of her were very likely to be a complete fib.
I rang the vet, incidentally, when she got lost, to see if she had turned up. I have lost a small, black, very ugly dog, I said. Have you got her?
Yes, said the vet, without hesitation.
Today’s vet was the vet’s wife, as opposed to the vet’s son or the vet himself, and she had not met Rosie before.
Rosie recognised the veterinary surgery as being the scene of her previous terrible incarceration, and refused to go in. When she did go in she did a wee all over the floor. Then she did a wee on the scales, and finally all over the vet’s table. The vet provided a sort of dog-nappy, and Rosie trembled in such terror that her little legs would hardly hold her up.
This was resolved when she realised that the vet did not only have needles, but a bag full of edible dog-sweeties, and she cheered up immediately. Rosie has a passion for eating that I have seldom seen rivalled even in American branches of MacDonalds, and she thought she might like being at the vet’s after all.
The vet said that poor Rosie was in perfect health, but so hideously ugly and generally mis-shapen that we should on no account breed from her. Not only has she got a hernia where she parted company from her umbilical cord, but she has got teeth all over her mouth, in two rows at the bottom, and then dotted around fairly randomly over the rest of her mouth. The vet said that we need not worry too much about this. She explained that it was painless because her bottom jaw jutted out so far that it was not ever likely to be a problem but did nothing for her aesthetics.
In fact, ‘abomination’ was the word that she used, and laughed. I laughed too, because it was a perfect description of poor ugly Rosie. Rosie did not laugh, because fortunately she does not speak that much English, or she might have felt defeated and sad, which she didn’t, and in any case she probably wasn’t listening. Her hearing only really works when you are rustling a packet of Chocolate Buttons.
Rosie got down from the table and did another wee on the floor. The vet sighed and I paid the bill, and we departed, Rosie’s claws skittering on the floor as she made the hastiest exit possible under the circumstances.
The other dogs were so pleased to see her when she got back that they almost got off the sofa. Obviously it was only Rosie, so they didn’t, quite, but they stood up and wagged their relief. Then they sniffed her all over to find out where she had been, before settling down again with contented sighs, and Rosie curled warmly in between them, where she snored and snorted contentedly until Mark came home.
Rosie has to have Mark’s tool box left on the floor in order to get on the sofa. I do not know what she will do when he has finished the central heating and I have tidied up.
Fortunately the other dogs love her even if she is not beautiful.
Love is blind. What good fortune for poor Rosie.
