TO ABSENT FRIENDS

I’m coming to the end of another week without my beloved Labrador Esme so I thought I’d share with you one of her little foibles.

I’ve had three guide dogs, Cider, Wheat and Esme and neither of the other two liked the vet and would take any opportunity they could get to sneak past. I used to have to ring the vet before I went to ask them to look out for me after telling them my estimated time of arrival because otherwise I’d be patrolling up and down the road past the vet’s without the dog having any enthusiasm for going in.

“Find the vet Wheat”,

or:

“Find the vet, Cider”,

said when we’re very near the door and not at my front door as some imagine, yielded no fruit. However with Esme it’s a different story. As soon as she sees me pick up her health books and put them in my bag and as soon as she sees me pass the turning I usually go down for the shops she’s off like a rocket! I’m sure, left to herself, she would get us both killed as she stands trembling and whining on the crossing which is on the corner of a very busy road over which I must get help. On the command “Forward” she’d disobey her training I’m sure in order to get to see her beloved friends in the surgery.

In there she sees all her other animal friends. I can just imagine their whines, squeaks and miaws being a conversation which runs thus:

“Oh good morning! And what’s a fine Labrador like you doing all trussed up in that thing then and who’s that you’ve got hanging on for dear life to that handle”?

“Oh well you see I’m a working girl you know. Normally I’m trained to respect red lights rather than have one outside my home advertising for business but when it comes to coming in here I just go all silly and have to be kept in check. Isn’t this exciting? Rather like a day club for dogs”!

“Oh yes. I’m Tabatha the tabby cat and what’s your name”?

“Esme the elephant if I eat all the liver treats up there in that jar. Can you see them”?

“Miawyes. I imagine I’ll get one”.

“I say! Can you jump high enough to get the jar down for me? My owner can’t see and she’ll just think the wind blew it down. Then you and I can scoff the lot”.

Tabatha is just thinking about it when Esme hears the receptionist tell her to stop looking at the jar as she’s had two already. Then I’m suddenly catapulted into the surgery by a frantic Esme desperate for the Australian male vet to get his hands on her. He has a lovely manner and I’m disappointed to find he’s married with “Two little boys” (shades of Rolph Harris) and see that it’s quite useless asking him for a blind date even when it’s leap year.

Suddenly the party’s over and out we come but home we don’t go. Instead we go round and round in circles as Esme refuses to go to the crossing and takes me back again and again to the door of the vet’s. She thinks she’s won as I give in and go in and she strikes up another conversation with a one-eyed rabbit or a clawless owl. With a desperate look on my face, almost as bad as Esme’s as she hopes in vain for another liver treat or three, I beg a busy receptionist to please see me over the road. The first time this happened soon after Esme came home she went first into a doctor’s surgery and when I got out of there she went into a church yard. All the way home I expected to be knocked down by a vehicle and killed. Not because she’s a bad guide dog but because I thought she may know something I didn’t!

She’s a darling old girl of nine now and soon to retire from her life with her batty author of an owner whose computer is hated by her more than any cats. When she thinks I’ve done enough work on it she brings her disgusting old ragga and nudges the keyboard with it and whines. If that gets no response she barks while standing on her hind legs and pants in my face. When she hears the windows tune if the headphones are off, an indication that the machine is closing down or when she sees the headphones come off there is frantic wagging and jumping. I love her dearly and even I long to be pulled, kicking and screaming to the vet’s so desperate am I to see her again.