Puppies house visit leads to Yorkshire Vet's trip down memory lane - Julian Norton
I went on a house visit today to vaccinate some puppies. There were thirteen altogether, so it made sense to visit them rather than them come to us.
Memories came flooding back as I passed the farm where a colleague and I had tried to castrate a wild young colt, only to find he only had one testicle. It was impossible to check him before the sedatives took effect, as he was too difficult to handle.
Next, I passed the farm where two heifers escaped during a perfunctory TB test. They leapt over a makeshift gate and headed for the hills. Not literally, as they ended up over the beck and in the field of a neighbour.
But I’ve never seen two farmers run as quickly as they tried (and failed) to head off the escapees before they caused havoc.
There were other memories too. One was when I had to rescue a young colleague who had rounded a corner too quickly one night whilst on call. His car had ended up on its roof and in a field.
Luckily, the only injury was to the hedge and a patch of barley in the field; I had to cover the rest of his evening on call.
Finally, I turned right into the lane where I used to visit a dog who suffered from epilepsy. He always seemed to have his funny turns on Wednesday evenings at about 11.30. Wednesday was my night on call and I must have treated this dog more frequently than other vets in the practice at that time.
The journey was short, but my recollections of past times made it seem much longer. When I arrived to see the Labradors, I was still reflecting on the stream of memories.
But my task was a simple one- to health check, vaccinate and microchip each pup. It was pleasant but demanded a reasonable degree of organisation to do everything correctly and efficiently. The first job was to ascertain if each pup was individually identifiable.
It can be a challenge if all the pups are the same colour, but this is mitigated if they have different coloured collars. The chip and paperwork can be ascribed to “Red collar”, “Blue collar” etc. But I need not have worried.
These breeders were experienced, organised and knowledgeable, knew each pup well and had names for them all. The naming of puppies is always amusing to me. I’ve spent large chunks of my career helping at rescue and re-homing centres, so I know it is really hard to think of original names.
The first one was called “Goose”, which is a standard name for a retrieving type of dog. I expected the next one would be called “Pigeon” or “Teal”. So, I was surprised when the second pup that was presented was called “Iceman”.
“Are all these puppies named after characters from Topgun?” I asked, rather surprised.
“Yes, well, it’s really hard to think of names for puppies. We were watching this film as they were being born, so it seemed appropriate to name them after the people in the film.”
Sure enough, the pups had the names of famous cinematic aviators: Slider, Viper and Jester followed, each one’s wingman followed closely behind.
“Which one is Maverick?” I asked, hoping soon to meet the reckless, hot-headed pup who acted first and thought about the consequences later.
“We don’t have one yet,” came the reply, “We’re saving that name for a puppy that really deserves the name!”
The final pup was presented for inspection. “We’re keeping this one, we have called her Luna.” I could see their point. With a quiet demeanour and cute, appealing eyes, she definitely didn’t look very Maverick.