Holiday season has begun. This week Scary Boss Lady was off for her summer break. Just in case we were thinking of having a wild party with the Dechra rep who had made an appointment to come and tell us about their range of skin products, she left her daughters Ena and Sara in charge. Tornado Tawse was also presiding over the nursing duties and therefore the whole clinic was a hive of efficiency. Four pallets of pet food arrived at lunchtime on Thursday and within about ten seconds, the entire delivery had been redistributed onto the shelves. Before I knew it on Thursday, all the rooms had been cleaned. Luckily Gerd and Irene had booked me in some cases to see, otherwise I might actually have been at something of a loss for what to do.

One of the cases was desperately sad. A cat had been attacked by a dog and its injuries were serious enough that it had to be put to sleep. There was a little girl there. It is so difficult watching a child having to say goodbye to a loved pet. At the other end of the spectrum, Magne and I performed surgery on a lovely Cavalier King Charles spaniel for pyometra (infection in the uterus). Without our intervention, she would very likely have died. It was a pleasuritself to operate with Magne. This is the second time we have worked together on an uncomplicated pyometra and everything just clicked into place both times. It’s a delicate operation that requires nimble fingers and great care and the process itself was intensely satisfying, but the end result, when the dog comes round safely and greets its owner is the best feeling there is.

Due to the efficiency drive I mentioned above, I did have time to pop in and out of the dental room where Wivek and then Jan-Arne were working. Wivek was enormously helpful with the injured cat and so I was keen to do all I could to help her in return. Obviously she is much better than me at the actual work, but I was able to fetch things that she wanted. Jan-Arne was on good form as usual, telling me how simple Norwegian was. After all, he explained, there were very few words and some of them sounded exactly the same as each other. Prayers, beans and farmers are all pronounced in the same way, he said. At this point, he was about to set to with the ultrasonic descaler. His foot, he thought was not quite on the floor-pedal that operates it and so he reached out with his toe to pull it towards him. It was only when the instrument sent a jet of water right into my mouth that he realised that actually his foot had been on it the whole time. At least that was his excuse anyway. Personally I think it’s odd that that jet was pointed so accurately at my face. If I now come down with some awful cat-tooth disease, I know who is to blame.

The Dechra rep I mentioned at the beginning turned up late. He was meant to arrive at two thirty with lunch and so by two thirty five, everyone in the clinic was sitting in the staff room with bright expectant faces. For some reason, he had called into the clinic in the morning with boxes of sweets for everyone and as the clock ticked onwards, it seemed more and more likely that we were actually going to lunch on forty eight chocolate hearts and seven slightly-worse-for-wear grapes that someone had found lurking at the back of the fridge. However, at three pm, he finally arrived clutching a bag of seven enormous sandwiches to be split between the eight of us who were present. Looking around the table for someone to deal with this delicate situation, Gerd, officially recognising my superior surgical skills asked me if I could dissect each baguette into two. Sadly nobody had thought to tell the rep that Jacqueline was vegetarian and so she was left removing pieces of chicken to leave her with a lettuce and dressing salad. Hungry as ever, Jan-Arne demanded that she hand over the meat. Oddly though, when we later offered him the massed bits of cucumber, mayonnaise and chicken that had fallen from Ena’s sandwich and the slice of lemon that I had removed from mine, he seemed strangely to have lost his appetite.

The afternoon ended with Jaqueline delightedly swapping her Toffifee pack for a box of Sara’s chocolate hearts. Rarely have I seen such a pleased look on her face. Magne had to make do with the enormous pile of leaflets and pamphlets that the Dechra rep had left. For some reason, when I suggested he could take them home for a bit of light holiday reading, he seemed less enthusiastic. Anyone watching might easily have been fooled into thinking that really we clinic staff were actually more interested in the food than in the important information about what drugs the man was trying to sell. As if we were both hungry AND shallow people. Obviously though, as all of you kind people that read my blog know only too well, that could never be the case. Thanks for reading.

Today’s photo is Billy, who was in to see Wivek for some blood tests.