A better night; Pip is learning to love his kennel. Hurray!
I decided that today we’d take Pip to the vet to get him weighted. Yes, it is like having a new baby. Only you can’t give a new baby back...It’s okay, my recalcitrant thoughts are gone and the puppy love is back. I’m still finding myself on trips to the supermarket thinking, ‘Hmm, what little treat can I get for my boy today?’
So, I wanted to get him weighted for two reasons – one; to figure out how much I should be feeding him, because he’s kind of been acting like it’s not enough, and two; to figure out what worming treatment to give him because this is also based on weight. After bribing two reluctant children, we set off. After the whole ‘poo-in-the-crate trauma’, I’ve abandoned using it for car transport and just get Pip to sit between the kids in the back seat. With a lot of stern words to Pip, to sit, etc this is working reasonably well – but it does mean that if I want to take him anywhere in the car I need escorts. Not so good.
Anyway, made it to the vets and took Pip in. Obviously the impact of his desexing was not huge, because he seemed to think the vets was the dog equivalent of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory - shelves packed full of gigantic bags of top quality dog food, walls covered with every squeaky toy known to dog, a large doggie futon on display and of course, quite a few other dogs to check out!
The doggie scales were prominently placed in the waiting room and although he hopped on them a couple of times, he hopped off before I could get a reading.
A lovely vet called Silka (not sure of the spelling but this seems like such a great vet name to me!) mistakenly thought we had an appointment and showed us into a consulting room, where she proceeded to tell me all about worms. There are two types – heartworm, which can be fatal – and tape worms which I think are kind of like the regular worms the kids bring home from school – in their intestines, not their pockets. There have been no recorded cases of heartworm on the Bellarine Peninsula so Silka said that unless we were taking Pip up to Melbourne – definitely not! – that we didn’t need to worry about medication for that.
Once Silka realised we were not actually paying customers, she handed us over to an equally nice assistant who successfully weighted Pip – 9.8 kilos – and fed him a worming tablet in a handful of liver treats. She also gave us a flea treatment which is kind of a gel to be applied at the back of his neck and top of his tail before bed.
So, successful vet visit down, we called in on Rouser – my brother-in-law – who runs a surfboard repair business just 50 metres down the road. Rouser and family recently acquired two beagle pups, Gidget and Bonnie. Rouser is a dog-whisperer. Well, actually, yeller. He alternates between tough love yelling at the dogs and then lifting them into his arms and cuddling and kissing them (yes, kissing them!) as if they were proverbial babes in arms. He’s had dogs all his life and says they need to know you’re the boss, in between oodles of puppy love.
Pip was putty in his hands...
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