It's a Vet's Life Read online

  A dog throws up in Kennels.

  ‘Sick?’ I finish for her. I can hear Izzy, our head nurse, moving around, clearing up. I think it must be the English setter who’s in to have a wart removed from his eyelid. The pre-med must have disagreed with him.

  ‘Maz, you are so cynical sometimes,’ Emma says.

  I know what she means and I feel a twinge of guilt at not being able to express how I really feel, because it sounds soft and silly. I go on, ‘No, that’s really sweet, Em. Romantic …’

  ‘We could call ourselves Mr and Mrs at last. And the whole event was beautiful. It was truly the happiest day of my life, and, when the going gets tough, I cherish those memories and remind myself of what we promised each other.’

  I admire Emma’s conviction of the existence of everlasting love, but she’s always known where she’s going: husband, her own practice and children. It’s all happened, except for the last part, the family.

  I would have been content with what Emma has. Having children was never on my agenda, and yet, with all my training and the fact that a considerable part of my job involves advising owners on different forms of contraception, Alex and I still managed to have a happy little accident in George.

  ‘What about the dress, Maz? Have you thought about the dress?’

  ‘I can’t say that it’s been uppermost in my mind,’ I say drily. ‘George was giving me the runaround this morning.’

  ‘You have to have the most amazing dress. It’s your big day.’

  ‘That sounds expensive to me. I’d like a nice dress, but I can’t see the point of spending a fortune on something you wear only once.’

  ‘You can’t skimp on it. You’re beginning to sound like a Fox-Gifford already, if you don’t mind me saying,’ Emma teases. ‘If you think you’re walking down that aisle in sacking tied up with baling twine, you’re very much mistaken. I’m coming shopping with you. We can park in the city centre, shop and stop for lunch.’

  ‘A day out? It’s tempting but, what about—’

  ‘George will be at nursery, and Will can cover. That’s what he’s here for.’

  ‘Will he cope?’

  ‘Of course. We’ll give him some time to acclimatise first. Izzy will be here to supervise.’ Emma lowers her voice. ‘It’ll do him good. That, or he’ll have a nervous breakdown.’

  ‘Or Izzy will.’

  ‘You only get married once, so you have to make the most of it,’ Emma rushes on. ‘What about bridesmaids? You have to have bridesmaids.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want all this fuss,’ I confess. This is all about me being with Alex for the rest of our lives, side by side, hand in hand.

  Unexpected tears prick my eyes and my heart aches with yearning.

  Before I met Alex, I didn’t want to get married. Finding a husband, and having a big fat wedding, wasn’t on my ‘to do’ list, probably because of the way my own father abandoned me, my brother and my mother when I was twelve years old. It’s why I’ve worked so hard to escape my roots in the city estate where I was brought up, to have an amazing career doing something I love, and now to provide my son with everything I never had.

  ‘Don’t be upset, Maz,’ Emma says.

  ‘I was thinking about my mother.’ I picture her in her flat in Battersea, dressed in one of her revealing outfits, her nails varnished and chipped, and her skin like a dried-out tangerine.

  ‘You are going to invite her?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ My heart shrinks with regret though that she won’t be involved in the preparations for the wedding. She’s visited us a couple of times to see George, but we’ve never been close, not like Emma was with her mum. ‘I’m not sure how this wedding is ever going to happen. Alex and I are both so busy,’ I continue.

  ‘Well, it is happening,’ Emma says adamantly. ‘I’ll help you organise everything. You’ll need a planner. I can probably print one off the Internet.’

  ‘Thanks, Em.’

  ‘That’s what friends are for.’ She grins. ‘Now I’m here, I’d better make a start on the ops. I didn’t even have time to pick up doughnuts on the way in.’

  ‘I’ll get them later.’ It’s the least I can do. Emma’s always helping me out and I do what I can for her.

  ‘Actually, could you buy iced buns instead?’

  ‘Are you okay?’ I reach out and touch her forehead. ‘You aren’t sickening for something?’

  ‘No, I fancy a change, that’s all.’ She takes a step away. ‘Don’t worry about me, Maz. You have more than enough to keep you occupied.’

  I’m still thinking about Emma’s offer of help when I get home later, having collected George from nursery. He’s been having too much of a good time. He toddles about in the Barn, trying to run away from me and tripping over his own feet, when I’m wanting to lift him into the highchair for pasta.

  ‘George, come and have your tea,’ I say as sternly as I can.

  ‘No,’ he says, cruising around the sofa.

  ‘Please, George.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay then, don’t come here for tea.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, you mean yes,’ I say, and although he doesn’t understand the concept of double negatives just yet, he falls down onto his bottom, laughing. I can’t help laughing too. It doesn’t matter what kind of day I’ve had, George always cheers me up, and I wish Emma could have that too. My dearest wish is that I could make her dream of having a baby, a family of her own, come true.

  Chapter Three

  To Have and to Hold

  IT’S WILL’S FIRST day. He’s pink-skinned as if he’s been scrubbing his face, and he bears a throat-tingling scent of aftershave and mint toothpaste. He has a price tag dangling from the collar of his shirt, and he’s even shined his shoes.

  ‘Morning, Will,’ I say, when I find him hanging around in Kennels, squatting down and stroking Tripod, the practice’s three-legged black and white cat, who’s purring and rubbing around Will’s legs in ecstasy at having some one-to-one attention. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. I’m looking forward to getting started. I think,’ he adds.

  I can remember how tense I felt just before I walked into the first paid consultation of my career. I was so nervous, I forgot to charge the client.

  ‘Um, Will, you’ve left the label in your new shirt.’ I pick up a pair of curved scissors from the prep bench – clean ones, I hasten to add. ‘Would you like me to …?’ I hope Will doesn’t mind, but I feel as though I’m talking to George.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says, rubbing the back of his neck as he stands up to let me snip the tag off.

  ‘Good luck for today,’ I say. ‘Remember that Emma and I have every faith in you.’

  Will glances at the clock. ‘I’d better go and see if anyone’s waiting.’

  ‘All right.’ I smile to myself – there are twenty minutes to go until the first appointment.

  As he leaves, Will holds the door open for Izzy who’s turned up with a basket of clean drapes ready to be folded and sterilised later on.

  ‘Of course,’ Izzy says, when I ask her to keep an eye on our new vet. Her complexion is freckled and her hair grizzled like a Border terrier’s. She’s in her early forties, but looks younger, being slim and fit from dog training and helping out on the farm at home. ‘I’m up for a bit of handholding.’

  ‘And you a married woman,’ I tease. When I first met Izzy, I wasn’t sure I would get along with her, but she’s a dedicated nurse and loves the animals. She can also be very funny and deeply sarcastic at times.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ I add.

  ‘I can show him how I like things done around here,’ Izzy smiles. ‘My way.’

  Will’s first patient is a cockatiel, called … You’ve guessed it, Cocky.

  Emma and I hover in the corridor outside the consulting room, Emma looking somewhat pale-faced.

  ‘I don’t think we should worry so much, do you?’ I say apprehensively. ‘He has Izzy with him. He�
�ll be fine. Won’t he?’

  ‘He probably knows far more than we do, than we ever did, but …’

  But, I muse. That’s the trouble. Emma and I are both remembering our mistakes, the ones we made when we first went into practice.

  ‘Let’s leave him to it,’ I say. ‘I’ve got plenty to do until Bridget comes in at ten.’ Bridget is Shannon’s mother. Shannon is our trainee vet nurse.

  ‘Shannon’s really worried about Daisy, so I thought it best for her to see one of us.’

  ‘She’ll have to get used to seeing Will,’ Emma says. ‘I’m planning on him staying here for a long time.’

  Will’s presence at Otter House Vets is intended to make our lives easier, but I’m not so sure that’s going to happen, because there’s a sudden fracas on the other side of the door: a yelp of ‘Ouch,’ and Izzy’s voice, alternately strident and apologetic, telling Will to check both doors are locked, and the owner of the cockatiel not to worry, we’ll catch him.

  I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Will’s very first patient, and he’s let it go.

  I wait for a few minutes, listening to the odd thud and clatter, and muffled conversation, then decide I can’t wait any longer and head for the office to deal with some paperwork, organising a couple of referrals before taking Will’s next couple of clients through to the prep area in Kennels to treat their animals. Soon, Bridget arrives with Daisy, but Will hasn’t vacated the consulting room yet, and Emma is operating now, and I don’t want to get in her way.

  ‘Have you any idea what’s going on in there?’ I ask Frances. ‘I thought he’d have finished by now.’ We booked him every alternate appointment, deliberately leaving the others free to give him plenty of time.

  ‘He’s still in there with the cockatiel,’ says Frances.

  ‘No?’

  ‘I offered to help, but Izzy won’t let anyone in or out of the consulting room.’

  ‘Great,’ I sigh. ‘What am I going to do now?’

  ‘You’ll have to see Daisy in the staffroom.’

  ‘It’s too untidy,’ I say, ‘and Tripod and Miff are sharing the sofa.’ Miff, a Border terrier, belongs to Emma. ‘I wonder if I can take Daisy into the office.’

  ‘When needs must,’ says Frances, but there’s no need to find an alternative venue because the consulting room door slides open. The client, Peter the greengrocer, a short, chubby man with a whiskery moustache and a crown of black hair around a shiny bald spot that reminds me of a case of ringworm, emerges from the darkened room with the cockatiel safely in his cage.

  ‘He got him in the end,’ he says, beaming. ‘You did give that young man the runaround, didn’t you, Cocky?’

  ‘I’d call it a fly-around,’ says Izzy, smiling ruefully as she walks out with Will following behind her, high colour in his cheeks, hair rumpled and a bashful grin on his face. He has a plaster on one finger too.

  ‘Cocky bit me,’ he says.

  ‘He drew blood,’ Peter cuts in. He has a broad Devon accent that can be difficult for someone who has not tuned in to it yet to understand. ‘I can tell he’s a practising vet, not a real one like you, Maz. And he definitely needs more practice. You should have got Cocky’s head between your fingers so he couldn’t turn on you.’

  ‘I should have asked you to hold on to him for me,’ Will says.

  ‘Oh, no way. He’d have my finger off.’

  Will glances in my direction. I roll my eyes in sympathy. He’ll learn.

  I look towards Bridget who’s waiting patiently with Daisy, a hefty tan and white British bulldog. They say that dogs look like their owners, and to me, there is some resemblance here in the shape of the jaw and the set of the eyes, and the fact they’re both hugely overweight.

  ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,’ I say, noting Bridget’s frizzy blonde hair and tatty green sweatshirt with the Petals logo on it. ‘I hope you’ve got someone to mind the shop.’ She owns the florist’s in Market Square, just up the road from Otter House.

  ‘I’ve put a note on the door.’ Bridget drags a reluctant Daisy behind her. Daisy doesn’t walk. She waddles, panting and stopping for breath every couple of strides. She reminds me of a table with a leg at each corner, not some delicate Chippendale design, but a solid farmhouse affair.

  ‘Come on through.’ I close the consulting room door behind her. ‘What can I do for Daisy?’

  ‘She’s become so lazy,’ Bridget says. ‘I have to take her down to the Green in the car to get her out for a walk, and when it’s hot like this, all she does is sit down. I told Shannon I was worried about her heart, and she suggested I made the appointment.’

  I remember Shannon mentioning it – she said she was ashamed of the state Daisy was in.

  ‘Is she better when the weather’s cooler?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know, to be honest. I haven’t taken her out at all for a few days now – I didn’t think it was fair to keep making her go for walks. She has an allergy to exercise, like me.’ Bridget smiles weakly, as if trying to make light of the situation. ‘That’s my excuse anyway.’

  ‘Let’s get her weighed first, then I’ll check her over.’ It’s a struggle, because it means going back out into the waiting area and persuading Daisy to stand on the scales. Her weight flashes up on the display.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ Bridget says, frowning, and to prove that it is, I move Daisy off and reset the scales, before weighing her again.

  ‘It is right,’ I say. ‘Look at that.’

  I let the figure sink in. Bridget appears shocked. I run my finger down the laminated chart displayed on the wall, and read out what a Bulldog bitch should weigh.

  ‘So Shannon was right,’ Bridget says.

  ‘You don’t have to weigh her to see she’s overweight. In fact, she’s more than that. She’s obese,’ I point out.

  ‘She can’t be …’ Bridget hesitates. ‘She’s big-boned.’

  ‘Trust me, her bones aren’t exceptional. She has a pretty average frame.’

  Bridget glares at me, radiating scepticism, disbelief and denial.

  ‘I can’t feel her ribs, let alone see them, and look at these rolls of fat,’ I exclaim.

  ‘They’re folds of skin,’ Bridget insists. ‘All Bulldogs have them.’

  My heart sinks. This isn’t going too well. Obesity in dogs is a growing problem for us vets, even in a country practice, and it’s difficult to do anything about it when the client is overweight too. It’s a sensitive subject, and I can only guess how Bridget is feeling: guilty for letting her dog get into such a state, embarrassed and painfully aware of her own weight problem.

  ‘Let’s check her over,’ I say, and, between us, Bridget and I lift her onto the table where I listen to her chest and examine her joints. Her lungs sound crackly – as if someone’s inside her chest popping packing bubbles – and I wonder if she has some fluid in there. She growls when I move her left elbow and both hips. She also has a skin infection.

  I hang my stethoscope around my neck, and go through Daisy’s problems with Bridget.

  ‘There’s no point in merely treating the symptoms. We have to address the root cause which is Daisy’s weight problem. It’s up to you,’ I go on. ‘I can advise you. I can’t make you do anything about it, but, if Daisy carries on as she is, she’ll end up crippled with arthritis and hardly able to breathe. It’ll shorten her life.’

  ‘You mean, she could die from it?’

  ‘Yes, she could.’ We stand in silence for a moment, listening to Daisy’s harsh panting as she sits slumped on her haunches, on the table. I would kiss her, but, unlike most of my patients, she’s rather offputting with all the scabs around her face and ears.

  ‘Do you do gastric bands for dogs,’ Bridget asks eventually, ‘or liposuction?’

  ‘It’s much simpler than that. Daisy needs fewer calories and more exercise. If the energy going in as food is less than the energy going out through moving around, she’ll lose weight. She doesn’t need a treadmill,
or hydrotherapy pool, or a doggy gym. All she needs is more walking. Doesn’t she go out with Seven?’ Seven, Shannon’s dog, isn’t overweight.

  ‘She can’t keep up with him,’ Bridget says. ‘I told Shannon not to bother to take her.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want Daisy to overdo it at first. She should have two fifteen-minute walks a day to begin with. We’ll put her on a strict regime of a measured amount of diet food twice a day, nothing else.’

  ‘No gravy?’

  ‘No gravy,’ I confirm.

  ‘What about her biscuits at bedtime?’ Bridget answers the question herself. ‘No … What about Seven? Can he have the diet food?’

  ‘It would be better to feed them separately.’

  ‘What about carrots? I read somewhere that you can give carrots as treats to dogs.’

  ‘No carrots,’ I say firmly, although I’m rapidly losing the will to live. ‘Carrots equal extra calories, not as many as a cream cake, but enough.’

  ‘I’ll start her on the diet on Monday then, and give her the weekend to get used to the idea.’

  You mean, to let you get used to the idea, I muse.

  ‘She can have all her favourite things before she ends up on rabbit food,’ Bridget continues.

  ‘It is dog food, I can assure you,’ I say. ‘Now, is it possible for you to leave Daisy here for a few hours, so I can get an X-ray of her chest, and Shannon can give her a bath?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Shannon can take her home at the end of her shift.’

  ‘Thanks, Maz. I’m glad I brought her along.’

  ‘No problem,’ I say. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’

  ‘Absolutely no extras?’ Bridget checks on the way out, having handed Daisy over to me. ‘It’s all right for her to have her breakfast milk?’

  ‘No extras. No milk. Just the diet, and water to drink. Nothing else is to pass her lips.’ I smile. ‘Remember, I’ll know about it when we weigh her next time. I’d like to see her in a week.’ Izzy runs a slimming clinic for our fatties – dogs and cats – every fortnight, but I prefer to monitor Daisy myself until I’m happy that she’s on the right track.