Tuesday 24 July 2012

From Wags to Riches? (Part 1)

Generally speaking, I can divide people into two groups, Cat people and Dog People.   Dog people will often keep a cat but rarely will cat people keep a dog.  We are Cat people.  I do like dogs but I don't want one.  (Actually, Bob divides people into two other groups, Lift Takers and Stair Walkers.... he is obviously a stair walker, I am secretly a lift taker but will often take the stairs to show willing!  That's if it's a low-ish storey building I mean, not 'The Shard', obviously.)  Anway, we had a call from our guests down at Fisherman's cabin to say that a puppy had turned up there the previous night, he showed no signs of moving on and was driving them crazy with his whining. He had also destroyed the saddle from one of our hire bikes.  I set off to investigate and found the little lad in the lane leading to the cabin - he was limping, had no collar or ID and seemed totally delighted to meet me.  I opened the car door and he hopped in as if he'd been waiting for me to collect him.  I headed up to the local village and he settled down for a well earned snooze while I asked a few locals if they'd ever seen him or heard of anyone who'd lost a pup.  Blanks all round , no one knew him.  I met an elderly couple who had an even more elderly dog in their garden (called Cybil, I later learned) and asked if I could borrow a lead and a collar so that I could take him to the vet to see if he was microchipped.  This being lunchtime in France though, the vet was closed and so I faced the prospect of returning home with the dog to Cat Person Bob and slightly frosty Pops the cat.  I explained my dilemma to the elderly couple and they said they'd happily keep him over lunchtime.  They would phone round and see if anyone they knew had heard tale of him.  Back home, I explained the whole histoire to Bob and the cat.  'No, No, absolutely not!' they said, 'we can't have a dog here for the following reasons etc; etc;' and I totally agreed with them.

 After lunch I collected the pest from the M et Mme.  'Oh! but he's a lovely little dog' they said.  Apparently he had slept under the table with his head on Monsieur's feet while they ate. 'Tell us who you are' pleaded Mme, as she tickled his tummy.  But they couldn't keep him, what with Cybil being epileptic and so on...  At the vets, no microchip was found.  He showed me that Dog was limping because his pads were red raw from too much walking (Ping! sound of heart string twanging.) I found myself buying expensive flea and tic treatment.  He said I was to contact the Marie about him.  But this being Monday in France, the Marie was closed!  I called in at the Mayor's house and his daughter phoned the Gendarmes for me - apparently nothing could be done until the next day when the Marie would contact the SPA to see if he'd been reported missing. I called the SPA, but this being Monday in France....you get the picture, it became clear that I was going to have to keep the damn dog overnight, and so I steeled myself for breaking the news to the others....

So what becomes of the poor little orphan pup?- tune in next week to find out!!

1 comment:

  1. I'm so glad you decided to keep Skip the Dog... and look what you wrote several months later "Sometimes when I'm out walking with Skip the Dog"... even though you're cat people, you can't take a cat for a walk in the forest!

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