I was victim of growl play

IT FIRST happened to me many years ago.

I was helping a Lhasa apso give birth when I realised it just wasn’t going to happen.

It transpired that the owner had decided it would be a good idea to mate his lovely, soft, fluffy bitch with a big, muscular Staffordshire bull terrier.

The inevitable outcome was that the still-in-thewomb puppy was nearly bigger than its mum and quite unable to be born by natural means through the birth canal.

Contrary to popular belief, the term “Caesarean section” does not originate from Julius Caesar having been removed from his mother in this way.

A history lesson was far from my mind when I approached my expectant mother’s owner to tell him the bad news.

It was just around the time that “informed consent” had November 4 ■ Working and Pastoral Breeds Association of Scotland’s championship show in Highland Hall, Ingliston, Edinburgh. November 5 ■ Scottish Border Collie Club’s filtered from human to veterinary medicine and I remembered to print out an anaesthetic consent form that was designed to protect me from subsequent legal action.

My intrepid owner – who turned out to be as musclebound as the pup’s sire – stared at the typed A4 paper for what seemed like an eternity.

I don’t actually think he could read and eventually he picked it up and flung it back at me.

“Look,” he growled. “The deal is simple – if the dug dies, you die, too.”

The air between us turned a little icy.

Our eyes locked. He blinked. I didn’t. I had no championship show at 9.30am, together with the Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of Scotland’s championship show in Lanark Agricultural Centre. ■ Waverley Gun Dog Association’s open show in the SNEC, Oatridge Agricultural College, Ecclesmachan, West Lothian at 10.30am. option but to do as the Veterinary Defence Society had instructed and respectfully tell him that his threat, indeed his intimidating behaviour, was unacceptable and would not be tolerated.

In the heat of the moment, however, the words came out all wrong and I heard myself telling him that a lot of people a lot bigger and a lot tougher than him had threatened me before and it was all water off a duck’s back.

He leant forward, so that he dangerously invaded my space, and growled again, quieter this time but more forceful.

“Aye. But they probably didn’t mean it. I do,” he said.

Fast forward to today and a “Voice of the Profession” survey by the British Veterinary Association paints a bleak picture.

More than 80 per cent of vets said that they or a team member had felt intimidated by a client’s language or behaviour, with support staff, such as receptionists, often bearing the brunt of tirades.

Given the job we do and why we do it, that’s not acceptable.

And my wee Lhasa apso bitch? She lived.

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