Pilau's morning.

[DanaC]

Pilau got up this morning and was most surprised and delighted when, not half an hour after we'd awakened, I was putting on my coat and gathering up his lead. Now this, he thought, was a good start to the day. All skippy and full of beans, he assisted me down the path with his most enthusiastic pulling. Even more exciting, was the fact that Ma's car was waiting on the street for us, with Ma and Dan in it. Oh this was bound to be good. Must be a trip to the park or something equally exciting.

Things went slightly downhill from that point.

We arrived at the vets and he knew this was not going to be fun. He did his level best to stay in the car and communicate to me just how much of a betrayal this was and that really we should just drive away now to the park. Having been pulled unceremoniously from the car he tried to persuade me to walk down the road away from the vets but being the heartless betrayer that I am I ignored his pleas.

The waiting room was clear and we'd barely been in there two minutes when the nice vet came out and invited us into the exam room. Again Pilau's pleas were ignored. Its at this point that the nice vet began to torture Pilau. He lifted up his ear to look at the little growth that had so worried me. The fact that Pilau hates anyone looking in his ear didn't seem to be a matter of concern to anybody but him. Then the nice vet listened to his breathing and his heart and made him bend his legs back and forth to check his joints, none of which was any fun at all.

Pilau tried his best to disappear through the floor of the exam room, but only managed to flatten himself onto it. The floor stubbornly refused to let him through and he was unable to prevent the next round of nastiness: the dental examination. Being a proud dog with a strong sense of what's right and wrong, he made damn sure it required both me and the vet to keep his mouth open whilst the vet looked. Even with two of us holding his jaws,, he was able to writhe his tongue around and tried his best to obscure the view, as any red-blooded dog would do.

There was a lull in the proceedings whilst I and the vet talked about incomprehensible things, occasionally using important and relevant words like 'food', 'biscuits' 'bones' and 'walks', but mainly a lot of irrelevant words like 'mild heart murmur', 'nothing sinister', 'non steroidal anti-inflammatory' and 'glucosmine hydcrochloride'.

Thing were clearly starting to calm down and looked good for a speedy exit when the door opened. Unfortunately his escape was blocked by the appearance of the nice veterinary nurse who arrived holding a needle. Just when he'd started to really hope that the nightmare was over, he was being clamped in place by me and the nurse whilst the nice vet used the needle to steal some of his blood. Oh the caninity!

The journey out should have been swift, but I needlessly dawdled by the desk near the exit doing irrelevant things with a small plastic card that I had in my purse. None of this resulted in biscuits and has since been expunged from his memory.

He had a brief moment to say hello to a small dog in a cage who was howling mournfully and then he was allowed to escape.

That is not a good start to anybody's day.