When my bipeds first took me home with them I was only six weeks old. I was one of eleven puppies and, as we grew and became more active, my mother’s bipeds were finding it difficult to give us all as much attention as we needed. As we were all healthy, weaned and eating well, they made the decision that some of us should go to our new families early. This would mean that they could give more individual attention to the puppies that remained and the families who took puppies early could give their puppy lots of attention.

I mentioned in “A trip down memory lane” that my bipeds took me home at the weekend and on the Monday morning I was taken to see the vet. My biped rang the veterinary clinic as soon as it opened and asked for an appointment to get a new puppy checked over. She was given an appointment for later that morning and she gave details of my breed and age to the receptionist.

You can’t fit a Pyrenean Mountain Dog in this!

An hour later she bundled me into a cat basket! It’s hard to believe that was ever possible! She carried me out to the car and we set off. It wasn’t a long journey, she was soon carrying me into a building. She spoke to the receptionist and then she found a seat in the waiting room. She put the basket, containing me, down by her feet. There were about half a dozen other bipeds in the room, each with a basket or a box – each one containing a potential friend for me.

A door opened and the vet appeared. He caught sight of us and his expression changed, he seemed worried. He called his next patient in and closed the door. Each time he opened his door to call in his next patient he looked in our direction and, each time, he looked even more concerned. My biped checked on me a few times and, each time she did, she seemed more worried.

The tension mounted – it was almost a relief when it was our turn to be called in. My biped put the basket with me in it on the end of a high table.

The vet asked, “What have we here then?”

My biped replied, “A female Pyrenean Mountain Dog puppy, six weeks old.”

He asked, “And what size do you expect her to become?”

My biped gestured just below her waist and said, “About so high, weighing in excess of one hundred pounds.”

I’d like to see him lift me up like that now!

Wow! I had some growing to do! She was expecting me to be as large as my mother! The vet went to the corner of the room and started tapping away on his computer.

My biped asked, “Is something wrong?”

He replied, “No, no, I’m just updating the computer.”

He came back and took me out of the basket. He held me up to his face.

He smiled and said, “You’re a hefty little lady!”

He then put me on the table and felt me all over. He peered in my ears and my mouth, he listened to my heart. He picked up some clippers and clipped the dewclaws on my hind legs. He told my biped that they were already growing strongly and she’d need to keep an eye on them. He asked if she was confident about clipping them.

She replied that she was and asked, “Is the puppy healthy?”

He asked, “What is it about the puppy that’s worrying you?”

She replied, “Nothing. It’s just that you appeared worried as soon as you saw us.”

He said, “Oh, you picked up on that! Okay, the receptionist had entered an age of six months, not six weeks, on the system. I wasn’t looking forward to telling you how that puppy is going to grow, if you thought you had an almost fully grown dog!”

My biped smiled and said, “I can imagine!”

The vet also smiled and he said, “She appears to be in excellent health.”

They then talked for ages about all kinds of things related to me, but I’ll tell you about those another time.

We’ve won all the treats!

I don’t know much about poker, but, if that was the vet’s poker face, I’m fairly sure I could beat him. I’d empty his pockets of treats!

See you next Wednesday!