Meet Izzy:


For several months now my girlfriend (who's now my wife) and I have been trying to train our dog out of running off whenever she sees another pooch. It's a right pain, because in just about every other way, she's a perfectly trained pup: she sits, begs, makes coffee, etc, etc. But this has been a problem that just won't go away and we've been worried she might spot a dog, make a beeline for it, and end up under a car.

She has been improving lately but clearly not enough, because at 10 o'clock tonight the little bitch found herself under a car.

So Kate's in bits, I nearly passed out (Foley + blood = Foley on floor) and we're desperately trying to find an emergency vet last thing on a Sunday night. Thankfully there is such a service, as we found out on the voicemail of our regular vet: thirteen or so vets from around North Dublin pool to provide a 24 hour on-call service. The people on call last night were great: they're at the dog pound in Castleknock - a bitch (excuse the pun) to get to from where we are, but we didn't care as long as we got her sorted.

At this stage, she was quiet, but warm. She has a cut on her head - only small - another on her right front leg - again, only small - and a massive gash all down her back left leg. The bone in the leg looks OK, not broken or anything but then it's probably not a good thing that I can see it that clearly. It's totally exposed, and I'm totally pale. Nearly passing out.

So we get her to the vets, but they can't take us for a minute or two because they're dealing with another case. Grand, we'll wait in the car. Three or four minutes later a woman comes out, crying. She tells us she just had to put her dog to sleep.

THE TOTAL LAST THING MY GIRLFRIEND (who's now my wife) NEEDS TO HEAR!

Anyway, she's grand. No internal damage, no broken bones. But she's got damn all skin left on her rear left leg and if they can't get that healed, stitched or if it gets infected she might (they stress might) lose the leg. Pretty horrific stuff, but so long as I still have this throwing me dirty looks at half seven every morning:


(or half eight if I'm late)

Then I'm a happy man.

Ray


PS Apologies to the non-dog-lovers reading this. Own one and you'll understand.