SPAY THAT AGAIN

A simple op turns into a doggy disaster for Kate

We recently went through the trauma of having our dog spayed. It’s not meant to be traumatic, but our little princess pup decided to make it quite the production. She’s a total drama queen. We had to have three attempts at getting her spayed.

The first time, she had an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic. So much so, it was a jaws-of-life situation, which put me off going through the operation a second time.

“My heart can’t take it,” I told the vet.

“We’ll use different drugs,” she reassured me.

But it took a long time before I could commit to a second go. Eventually, we bit the bullet. My daughter and

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I took her in and reluctantly bade her farewell. We were a bundle of nerves and I’m sure the dog picked up on our anxiety. She looked unsettled and very unimpressed when we handed her over, wrapped in her favourite blanket, and left the vet’s.

I was on the phone before I’d even driven home just to check how she was. “We haven’t started it yet,” the bemused vet nurse told me.

I sat anxiously by the phone until the vet called.

“Not great news, I’m afraid,” she began.

My heart was in my mouth. We were all so attached to this little ball of white fluff that if anything happened to her, I wasn’t sure how any of us would get over it.

“She appears to have a little cold and was gagging as we tried to get the tube down her throat. So as a precaution, we decided to abort the operation.”

“That’s it,” my husband said. “We’re not doing it. It’s a sign – let’s leave it. She can just keep her ovaries!”

We picked her up and brought our woozy little girl home, where she was showered in kisses and promises of no more operations.

But after a few weeks and a very convincing conversation with the vet that this was a standard procedure for dogs, we finally relented and agreed to attempt number three.

As you can imagine, my daughter and I were wrecks on the day. I’m pretty sure the vet wanted to anaesthetise us as well just to shut us up.

Thankfully, after the longest few hours of my life, the vet called to say the operation had been a success.

“Not without its dramas, though,” she added.

“What dramas?” I asked, trying not to sound hysterical.

“Well, she did stop breathing at one point …” the vet began. Oh, my God! I drove to the vet’s faster than I should’ve, and collected our fluffy little friend with a bandage on her tummy and a humiliating satellite-dish cone on her head.

She was very woozy but managed a small tail wag when she saw us. We took her home for a rest and lots of cuddles, and it wasn’t long before she was back to her old self. As for us, I think it’ll take a bit longer for us all to recover.