Day of the Dogs

So yesterday started off as a pretty normal day. I woke up at 8:30am, dressed in impeccable timing, and dashed off to work in the car, arriving at precisely 9am. Work was highly uneventful. Living in a seaside resort that is impossibly overcrowded tthroughout the summer, only to be sinisterly cold and ghost like throughout the winter, has its flaws. And the fact that I work in a mobility shop that gets most of its business during the warmer months of the year has its drawbacks. Like spending 9am-4pm sat a desk, completely freezing, willing for more customers to arrive and playing endless games of Minesweeper, whilst drinking unlimited cups of sweet tea, and attempting to bat away an irritating blue bottle with a large red folder for the millionth time that day. Thankfully on this particular day I finished at 12:30pm, and was positively brimming with excitement at the prospect of venturing into town to buy some much needed black tights. I had already made holes and ladders in every pair of tights I owned, and had moved on to the enlightening task of sabotaging my mum's numerous (rather more pricey than my own 5 pairs for £3) pairs of tights.

Anyway not to get sidetracked. So, at 12:34 exactly I headed into town, bought my tights, and got back into the safety of my car to drive home for more cups of tea, maybe a nice film, chocolate, and maybe, just maybe, to partake in a little light revision for my upcoming January exams.

I got home quickly - living a five minute walk away from where I work removes all justification for driving to work, except that yes, I am lazy - and was immediately preyed upon by three over excited, much needing to be walked, and rather smelly dogs. Actually, this in itself is untrue. I do have three dogs, but the oldest one, Disney, who is 16years old, blind, deaf, and treated like an angelic baby by my eccentric mother, cannot really pass as a proper dog. More like some sort of ever-sleeping humanesque beast. He can positively do no wrong in the eyes of my mother. The other two however are a different kettle of fish. Saphy is a young black Labrador who we took in from some friends who were emigrating to Australia, and forgot to mention she was a neurotic, over-sexed, over-energetic, and possessed creature. I swear to this day she has a personality disorder, ranging from sweet, puppy like, adoring baby, to psychotic, killer, teeth baring maniac, then to crazed, hormonal, rampant sex fiend. Yes she is a crotch sniffer of a dog, and despite being female, will mount any poor unsuspecting victim any chance she gets, usually when a bit of tummy flesh is shown, or if the innocent victim bends over in any way.

Then there is Rosie. Rosie is a sweet little Springer Spaniel (who used to be called Patsy?!) who we rescued from a mad farmer who wanted to shoot her as she refused to work, and would not retrieve the dead animals he shot down. However, I have my doubts about this story, as since we have owned her, she has managed to bring me on her walks, 4 dead pigeons, one live pigeon, uncountable numbers of crabs, a half eaten fish, a large rotting rat, a pineapple, and a large squirrel rigid with rigor mortis. The squirrel incident was terrible in itself, the only way to get rid of it without Rosie bringing me it again, was for me to put it in the park bin. Naturally, I had no intentions of touching the thing, so found some large sticks and made a kind of pincer device which I used to carry the squirrel into the bin. Dropping it on its head twice, glassy brown eyes staring at me, I finally got it into the bin, only to turn round and see an entire family picnicking in disgust as some crazed animal girl evidently performed some kind of morbid squirrel massacre ritual. I did not look good.

Anyway, I finally pushed two of the three lunatic dogs off me, and made my way into the kitchen towards the kettle. Strolling into the kitchen, I felt something spiky under my foot, and before I could do anything, I was hurdling backwards onto the floor. Arghh! Bloody dogs had chewed something up and left it as some sort of mindless trap for me to lay victim to, knowing I would end up laying on my back in the hall in a prime position for them attacking me with slobber and intentions of mounting me to my protest. I was not impressed. However, no attack occurred, and I looked up to see Rosie stood looking smug with a lemon in her mouth, whilst Saphy chewed a lime. Damn creatures had been at the fruit bowl again. Struggling with both dogs simultaneously, I somehow managed to grab the slobbery citrus remains, and promptly put them in the bin, slamming it shut with anger. The dogs however took this as a sign of playtime and ran over to scratch and bark at me. Disney, the old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, had spent this entire time snoring loudly in his basket.

"Come on then, let's go for a walk." Without hesitation, the two younger dogs were whisking me towards the door, eyeing up the dog biscuit jar, and snubbing the leads I was attempting to get on them. A further 15 minutes later, I was finally out of the door, and somehow managed to single-handedly get all three beasts of burden into the car and set off towards the mere for what I expected to me a leisurely stroll. What I should mention at this point, is that normally my mum would walk them, or we'd go together, but she was in Leicester all day, taking my brother home after the Christmas holidays. So today was purely me and the dogs.

Once at the mere, I released the dogs from their leads, watching as they ran freely through the grass, Rosie seeking out moles to stalk, Saphy rolling in badger poo, and Disney, well, Disney never really leaves my side on his walks for fear of getting lost forever in the wilderness with no king size bed to sleep in.

All was going well.... until suddenly I had a vital realisation. That thing! That terrible spiky thing that I had slipped on in the hallway, what was that? Hadn't it been...? Yes it was. A pill bottle. A small, white pill bottle with a child proof lid that had been shredded to pieces by the vicious mouths of the dogs! But which dog! And what pills? And how many tablets had there been?! Without further ado, I pulled out my mobile phone and rang my mum. No answer. Typical. Next, I rang my brother, hoping he was still with my mum... yes! "Put mum on quick!" I wailed in my most serious, yet slightly over dramatic voice.

"Mum!! The dogs have eaten some tablets!" I shrieked, hand on forehead, true melodrama style.

"What tablets have you eaten now and why?" Was the response I received.

"Nooo not me! The dogs, they've eaten some tablets, I found a chewed up pill box with a chewed up lid, and I slipped on it, and I don't what what the tablets are or who've eaten them, and they seem fine now but they might die at any minute and I don't know what to do!" I screeched, at a hundred words a minute.

"Disney's heart tablets! Right, ring the vet straight away and let me know what's going on." Yes, ring the vet, must ring the vet. Dogs. Right. Disney; by my side eager to get home to bed. Saphy; bounding towards the car, probably about to run off and leap in the pond to the dismay of about thirty fisherman. Rosie; erm..... oh god there she was about three hundred metres away starting intensely at a molehill.

"ROSIE!! SAPHY!!" I screamed, and to my surprise, my two usually completely ignorant dogs came bounding over at once. "Right, in the car everyone!" After racing home at speeds very much illegal, I found the vet number and punched out the numbers quickly. "You have reached the answerphone of...." Damn! It was a Saturday! The surgery was closed! I noted down the emergency number and rang at once. I was soon connected to a dim sounding boy, who obviously had no animal or veterinary experience, and couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.

"Look! My dogs... probably both of them have eaten a whole load of my other dog's heart tablets, completely overdosed, and I need a vet now, because they're probably about to drop dead this very instant."

"You ate some of your dog's heart tablets?" Arghhhh!

"Can you just get the on call vet to ring me?" Finally, after what seemed like hours of pacing around, checking the dogs were still breathing and checking I myself was still breathing and not dying of stress induced shock, the vet rung me.

"Right then Miss Smith, bring the dog in to the vets' at once, I'll meet you there." He said.

"But which one? I mean, I don't know which dog ate the bloody tablets!" I said in a too-high voice.

"Jesus Christ... ok bring them both in, I'll be there in ten minutes." Suddenly, I leaped into action. I had both dogs on their leads in milliseconds, had locked the back door and was running across the street to the car. Then I had an idea. Alice! My best friend! She must come with me, how on earth could I go alone? What if the dogs were to die or something, I would be stranded a distraught mess! Not that Alice could drive me home or anything, she'd never drove a car in her life! Apart from the one time at the forest I attempted to give her a driving lesson which resulted in a clutch that smelled suspiciously of burning, and me a quivering wreck. Anyway, I needed her for moral support.

Within minutes, I'd persuaded Alice to accompany me, and had arrived with Alice and the dogs in tow at the surgery. Bundling the dogs out of the car, we made out way in to the reception. Dr Duffy greeted us immediately, and took us through to the back room. Saphy and Rosie suddenly realised they weren't been taken on another exciting walk, but had been conned by a Gravy Bone or two into this all too familiar, disinfectant smelling place of bad memories. At once, Saphy's tail became jammed under her legs in fear, and her whole body began trembling.

"I bet it was her who ate all the tablets, look at her shaking," the vet assumed. I however, knew it was pure fear stemming from the memory of what the vet had previously done to her, involving a thermometer.

"Right what I'll do is give them both a vomit inducing injection, then give them some other medicine." Moments later, we were instructed to take both dogs out to the car park to witness a 'spectacular' display of sick. We cringed with horror, made sure our shoes were well away from spots of potential projectile vomiting, and eyed the dogs warily as we waited for the grotesque show to begin. Nothing. We waited. Still nothing. Saphy seemed happy to eat bits of paper from the floor, and Rosie was content just stood staring vacantly into space, tail wagging.

"Do you think it's not gonna work?" Alice asked, looking a bit green herself in worry of what was supposedly about to happen.

"No, look, Saphy's stomach is kinda starting to heave," I observed. Surely enough, within minutes both dogs had practically filled the entire car park with endless piles of steaming, fluorescent yellow vomit. Dr Duffy soon came out with a little plastic glove, for further inspection of the vomit. No sign of any pills here, but they had probably been digested by now.

"Right girls, I don't think there is any more vomit now. Take them home and give them the contents of this bottle of toxin-absorbent with this syringe immediately. They should be fine, but any further problems, ring me at once." Me and Alice retreated to the car, guiltily driving past Dr Duffy who was now on his hands and knees trying to scrub away all the vomit. I shuddered and recoiled in horror and we narrowly avoided driving through it.

We got home, put the dogs in their baskets and took to examining the 'medicine' we had been given. Upon opening of the bottle, we soon concluded that the vet had mistakenly given us a pit of black, viscous, foul smelling paint, or possibly tar. And we were supposed to get this down their necks without trouble? Yeah right.

"Ok, fill the syringe, we'll try Rosie first," I told Alice, I as went and took an unsuspecting Rosie into the garden. "Ok Alice, you hold her collar, I'll squirt it down." Easier said than done. Approximately 20 minutes later, the full 40ml of tar was down the dog, down my legs, on my face, all over the garden, on Alice's crotch, in the plants, and I swear, even in my mouth a little.

"Well that wasn't too bad... Saphy now," I whispered, turning to face Saphy who had witnessed this whole event, and was looking fairly alarmed. Now, Saphy like I said earlier, is a rather temperamental dog, and just feeding her alone usually resulted in the near loss of an arm, or the baring of her pearly white, blade-like canine teeth. So this was not going to be easy.

"Ok Alice, this should be pretty easy," I lied. "Just hold her collar, yes like that, and I'll administer the gloop." Initially, she did let me put a little in her mouth, just to try it, then clearly realised it was pure filth, and promptly buckerooed Alice into the air and shook her face.

"Now now Saphy, come on, just a little more," I said, eyeing the completely full syringe. I rapidly grabbed her, forcing her mouth open, and tried to pour the entire lot down her throat at once. Disaster. Instantly she stood up and shook her head as though her life depended on it, ensuring the filthy black gloop went everywhere possible apart from in her. This was not going to work. We tried mixing it with food, water everything. In the end, we just about managed to get them to eat it, with the use of an entire tub of Pringles. What a bloody waste.

Finally, it was 4pm, and Alice and I exhaustedly collapsed into chairs for much needed chocolate and cups of tea. The normally yellow kitchen was sprayed with smatterings of thick, black splodgings, and both dogs had sticky black beards which they insisted on wiping all over my silver leggings, and on Alice's pale blue hoodie. Of course, Disney had been in his bed sleeping throughout the entire commotion, snoring peacefully.

Both Rosie and Saphy were acting completely normally, no signs of illness, heart failure, seizures, or anything else I imagined would have occurred. They sat looking at me, tails wagging fondly, dribbling all over the floor, still salivating with pleasure at the treat of Pringles they had recently been given.

"Well, nothing like a bit of drama as usual in this house," I admitted.

So, my planned day of relaxation and comfort eating was taken away by two crazy dogs ODing on around 60 heart pills. And a very expensive vet fee. But, admittedly, it was worth it for the life of my much loved, and much appreciated canine companions. They do bring some entertainment to my life.