Today, Mother did a favour for one of her nurses. The nurse has regularly brought in her families pets for check over and vaccines and neuters. Her brother has a one year old cocker spaniel who was staying with her for the weekend, and apparently the brother still hasn’t managed to get it registered with a vet in London where they live. A lot of vets are under staffed and so incredibly busy they’ve closed their books, meaning they wont take on new clients. Mothers work have closed their books recently too.
Anyway, the nurse was expressing concern at getting the vaccines done as she’s pregnant, and that limits things. Pregnant staff cant touch or handle certain drugs, including the Kennel Cough Vaccine, so the nurse was unable to be in the room while it was being given. She also can’t handle certain pain relief injections, which one of her cats has once a month.
So Mother offered to go over and give all the check overs and injections needed in the house, and tie it in to our day plans for our usual Saturday parkrun.
At 8am it was confirmed that all our local parkruns were cancelled on account of all the floods. So Mother and I headed straight over to the nurses house instead, which is opposite one of the local nature reserves we often walk through.
Mother was happy to leave me in the car while she did the favour, since there would be four dogs and two cats in the house, as well as a toddler.
As you may have gathered by now I am an incredibly noisy barky excitable dog. I love children, but they don’t always love me, since I’m so loud and bouncy. Also, not all dogs like me for the same reasons, and I’m worse in a confined space.
I’d met two of the dogs before, but the spaniel I hadn’t met, and there was a one year old miniature poodle too.
The nurse encouraged Mother to bring me into the house. She loves spaniels, and knows me very well, so she knew to expect chaos but she was happy for it.
What proceeded was about an 90minutes of chaos while we ran around each other and Mother did her veterinary duties.
Anyway, the spaniel, Woody, was a bit more submissive than me, but after about 30minutes we figured each other out. Then we were doing sooo much zooming. There was a small trampoline in the room, as well as a sofa, for us to bound around. I did run into a dining chair a couple times, but I’m okay don’t worry.
Roly the poodle was less than impressed. He barked the most. He warmed up to me a bit in the end, but I don’t think he quite knew how I was trying to play. Mother says he doesn’t like other dogs much, besides the ones he lives with. So we think he just didn’t understand my intentions. He had a surprising loud bark for a little dog, louder than me.
The toddler in the room didn’t like our barking, and Mothers friend had to put noise cancelling headphones on him while we finished up. He was fine after that, and he laughed at our antics!
By the time we we’re ready to go, Woody and I were good friends. Woody liked to dig in the water bowl and make a large flood! Apparently he does it every time he visits the house. Mother was mostly worried I’d try to copy, but I’m a good boy so I so far haven’t done that. I think Roly and I had come to an understanding, and if we do future visits we’ll be okay (after a short period of time while we remember each other again). The other two dogs were little chihuahua types, called Tim and Ava. I have met them before at work. Ava is top dog, and likes to put Tim and Roly in their place. Mothers friend said Ava doesn’t really know how to play. But she played with me. Where I played chase with Roly and Woody. Ava liked to rag. Ragging is common in small terrier types, but I like to rag too sometimes. It’s when you grab and bite at the skin at the neck of the other animal. It can look very viscous but when it’s part of play then we rarely bite down fully. Ava tried to rag my neck when I ran past her playing chase with the others.
After our 90minute doggy play session, Mother and I went to the nature reserve for a walk. It was very flooded, and some of it Mother couldn’t get to cause her wellies weren’t tall enough. We saw a lovely couple, with a toddler in a snow suit and wellies, who had crossed the flooded area. When they got closer to us, Mother could see that they’d walked through the flood, in sandals and shorts! Mother didn’t want to invest in the walk quite that much, so after a good splash and semi-swim in the flood for me, we turned around. We continued through the rest of the reserve, for another hour or so.
It was a lovely morning. We were home by midday, and I was tired out from all the play and the splashing and the walk.
Mother was very proud of my interactions with the other dogs. Not only was I not the noisiest, that title went to Roly, at one point I did lie down at her feet for a rest of my own accord. I barked to be let out for a toilet break, where I went out into their garden, then came back in when called and had my feet dried. I was generally just very well behaved overall.
I think Mother is realising I am no longer a teenager. I’m generally better behaved these days than I used to be, although I’m still definitely a crazy spaniel. People are noticing now too! Mother gets comments regularly now about how much better behaved I am now these days.