The next time I have to take Bessie Anne to the vet, I shall take along a mechanic's dolly or "creeper." She wasn't getting any better, so I made a quick appointment for her with Dr. Ric. Like any dog who's ever been to the doctor, Bessie doesn't like to go to The House of Pain. This time she staged a sit-down strike. There must be a bulldog in her very mixed heritage...she is very broad in the chest and, though not fat, weighs fifty pounds. She plunked down her butt at the entrance and said, "This is as far as I'm going." Lifting her across the threshold, she again sat...didn't fight me...just sat. It was fortunate that the floor was slick tiles and not carpet, so I simply got down and pushed her, still sitting, over to the chairs in the waiting area...and then over to the scales...and then into the examination room. It wasn't that Bess couldn't walk...she would not walk. Her passive but determined resistance certainly amused the other patients' "parents." X-rays and examination revealed that she has no broken bones (whew!), but a very stretched ligament in her knee. Dr. Ric gave her a shot of some heavy-duty pain meds and said "time and a kind word" would take care of the injury.
The waiting room at any veterinarian's office is a mixed bag of people and pets. Yesterday there was a very large man talking baby talk to the tiny, quivering Chihuahua in his arms. A well-dressed lady with curly hair sat next to her well-groomed, curly headed cocker spaniel. A tall man came in with a tabby cat big enough to completely fill the carrier; the cat's name was Oliver. It all reminded me of a time years and years ago when I was in a vet's office and in came the largest, blackest German shepherd I'd ever seen together with a tiny white poodle. I must have gasped as the shepherd, as we were waiting, would pick up the poodle in jaws with big gleaming teeth and move it from here to there, and keep it between its paws. The owner said, "We had to finally get him a toy that he wouldn't chew up." I wonder how the poodle felt about that.
Bessie Anne is snoring at my feet, sleeping off the rest of her drugs.
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Although you paint exquisite word-pictures, too bad you didn't hand a vet tech your phone and have her take a picture of the engine and caboose that was the Bessie-Bo train as you chugged along the waiting room floor. I am picturing you guys as an act on "Captain Kangaroo!" But the BEST part is the line about the "toy" poodle. Thanks for being so observant and bringing the waiting room to life for us.
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