More Waiting Room Tales (Tails)

by Linda

As previously mentioned, we do have some interesting clients.

One in particular sticks in my mind for a number of reasons:  she was an artist and had been married to a sculptor, sketched by Picasso in her youth and was known locally for walking a dog with a conure parrot called Billy on her shoulder.  

When she came to the vet, Billy always came too and was a little character.  I was fascinated by him and got chatting to her.  She said he always went into the forest with her when she walked her dog and would never leave her, I stroked his little head and talked to him, intrigued by his loyalty, until eventually she was called in for her appointment.  Ten minutes later she left and went to her car...

The vet suddenly called out to me, “Who is this?”  Billy had returned to the consulting room on his own!  I  ran out to the car and the client who was very flustered and embarrassed came in to retrieve him and then got into her car and drove home.   
After she had gone, I returned to my desk and the vet, to his consult room…after a few minutes, I  suddenly saw a flash of green out of the corner of my eye...Billy had come back again!  The little bird who ‘never’ left  his owner seemed to have had a change of heart! We put him into a cage and I rang the client and explained! She immediately came to get him and told him he was a very naughty boy. To my recollection this was the last time Billy came to our surgery, walks in the forest were his outings from thence on!

One Saturday morning, a couple brought in a  pretty stray black and white cat who they had found in their yacht on the quay.  
We immediately scanned him for a microchip and found his address was for the Isle of Wight and there was a contact telephone number.  Thinking he had been re-homed and this was an obsolete number, we rang it, only to find it was the current information.  It transpired that the cat had climbed into the boat and come on a trip to Poole, as a stowaway!  We had to arrange for the cat to be collected by the owner at the Quayside to go back to his island home.  This story actually made the national press and is a very good example of the positive results from microchipping!

Sometimes, a surname can trigger an interesting anecdote.

One day I had a Mrs Goldfinger on my diary to come in to see the vet.  I immediately thought of James Bond and in fun, I made some reference to this.  The interesting thing was that Mrs Goldfinger’s husband’s grandfather had actually been an adversary of Ian Fleming! As a revenge he had repaid him by putting him in his novel ... as the villain.  As you can imaging, Mr Goldfinger (senior) was definitely not happy and tried to stop the publication, but as we now know, was unsuccessful.

Working at a vets you often end up taking home waifs and strays and in my time working here, I have rescued, two guinea pigs, three rabbits and two cats.  The cats arrived at our vets ten years apart but both  at Halloween.  As they didn’t have a 
name, our staff named the first one Pumpkin and ten years later the other one Cobweb.  
Boosters were always around this time of the year, dating from when the cats arrived in my possession.  I remember calling my husband to collect them on the phone, whilst sitting at the Reception desk …. the conversation went something like this,”Hi Boo, Pumpkin needs a dental, Cobweb is fine, is that all ok?”  I heard a giggle at the desk in front of me, and an amused lady client said, ” is that a conversation for Halloween? Pumpkin, Cobweb, Boo?”

Laughingly I explained about Pumpkin and Cobweb, the origin of their names etc  and she said,” but who is Boo?”
 I laughed and said,” that’s what I call my husband!”