At the Vet

Ellie had an unusually long walk this morning. We went to the playing field at 09:00 as per usual. When getting to the field we were met by yet another out of control dog, this time a basset hound, for which the owner had no control. It didn't do anything to Ellie, other than perpetually pester and goad her. We tried to continue walking past it, but it was a relentless creature. The owner finally caught a hold of it, and I gave my usual look of disgust.

There was also another dog (about the same size as Ellie and ten years old) and man on the field, and I'd noticed his dog hadn't ran to Ellie, but continued to play ball with its owner. We eventually got nearer to one another, and so I asked if the dog was friendly. After learning that it was, we let the two meet up. Ellie did her usual growl and bark, but then after that they sorted themselves out, with a few sniffs.

We then let them play ball together for almost an hour and a half! She seemed to be fine and dandy. She did excitedly nip at the other dog a couple of times, but then the other dog also tried to mount her her a couple of times, despite it being a bitch too! When I saw the nips, I verbally reprimanded her and pulled her away slightly, before letting them return to play. We both walked back together, as the other dog owner lives nearby. Ellie stuck to walking to heel, despite the other dog being behind her.

After coming back, I realised that she would be pretty tired, so we decided to load her into the car and drive her to the vets, while she didn't have the energy to get excited. She slept all the way to the vets. Once there, Jan went in first to make sure there were no dog-aggressive dogs in the waiting room. The last thing we wanted was to make it an unpleasant experience, for Ellie or the other dog. As it turned out, there were no other dogs there. The vets is really remote and very nice. It also seems to be having a grooming parlour built onto it. You can tell a lot of money has been spent on the place.

I led her into the waiting room and reception desk, where the scales were placed. I loaded her on with the vet assistant. She weighs in at 8.5kg. Not bad at all. We then let her sniff around before leaving. Overall, it remained a pleasant experience for her. We'll do that every couple of weeks for a while, and then make it monthly, then quarterly, as she gets older. We've also spoken about getting her professionally groomed once each quarter as well, and so we'll no doubt take her there for that.

At 13:00, when I usually walk her, she was absolutely flat out in her crate. However, because I want her to get used to the schedule, I woke her up and took her for a brisk walk around the park, and a small game of fetch with the ball.

She sure did sleep when we returned!