Anxious wait

I have to say that driving across the heathland when the torrential rain is obscuring everything and the oncoming headlights are too dazzling, with the possibility of a New Forest pony, cow or deer suddenly stepping into your path, is not something I’d like to do any night. Tonight, however, we had no choice.

We dropped Freya at the vets in Hythe before ten this morning. It was the date for her dental procedure. As I handed her over, she was shaking like those paint mixer things they have in hardware shops. I was surprised she didn’t just shake her teeth out.

The nurses were very good. Actually, I’ve been really impressed with Seadown Vets. Everyone I’ve dealt with has been professional, pleasant and shown a great love for our dogs. A pity they don’t have a branch in Trosa.

Anyway, regardless of how wonderful the two nurses were, we couldn’t help worrying about our little monkey. Emma, on the other hand, was well pleased to get all the attention all day. She didn’t seem to miss Freya at all.

On the way back to the house, Mirinda suggested brunch and I suggested the bakehouse at Beaulieu village.

Over brunch, we met Claire, an Aussie who’s lived in Kent for five years, a woman who sounded South African who may have been Claire’s mother and Claire’s dad who lives in Roseville when not visiting Claire in Kent.

The reason we started talking to them was because Claire has a beautiful, young standard poodle. And, naturally, Emma was on my lap. There were also lots of other dogs in the Bakehouse.

The delightfully overwhelming presence of dogs, stirred up quite the conversation when Claire told us how the Bondi Vet had returned to Oz having learned how much the Brits love their dogs and how they can come and go almost everywhere. He posted his findings on his social media account only to cop a load of negative abuse from his two million followers who, clearly, are happy with the Draconian way Australia treats its family dogs.

Anyway, that took our minds off the plight of poor little Freya who I kept imagining just huddled in a corner of a cage, shivering, thinking we’d abandoned her without lunch.

Though, once we’d returned to Max and driven back to the house, our thoughts were very much with her, particularly at 3pm when the dental expert was due to start operating. Though there must have been a few other animals in for teeth work because Freya’s operation didn’t start until quite late. It was so late, in fact, that I called at 5:30 to see how she was.

I was concerned because the surgery closes at 6pm. I was assured by Maggie on reception that Freya was being operated on as we spoke. When I said I was worried about getting to them by 6pm, Maggie further assured me that the surgery is open until 7:30 pm for pet pick ups and there’s an emergency nurse on duty all night.

We waited until 7pm before ringing again, now both quite worried. I spoke to Maggie again who reported that Freya was fine and in recovery. The nurse had told her we should come and pick her up at about 8pm. With great relief, we jumped in the car and headed over to Hythe.

And that’s when we discovered the joys of driving through the New Forest in the dark and torrential rain. Fortunately, we didn’t run into any stray livestock. Though, I did think any livestock would be sheltering under a tree and not wandering across any roads.

We happily collected a very dopey Freya and took her home, after the lovely Kate (the all night nurse) filled us in on what had been done and what we now needed to do. Freya had 15 teeth taken out, she’d already lost 16 and she had ten left. And her breath no longer smelled like rotting corpses. We have some medication for her and need to keep her calm for a few days and only feed her soft food but, otherwise, she’s perfectly fine.

Even so, she was treated to sitting on my lap on the drive back to the house.

It may take a few days for her to be back to complete normal but, after a sleep on my lap and a rather late dinner, she was almost back to normal already.

After a day of worry, the night was joyous.