sweasel.com

Thrill to the electrifying ‘putting your arm up a cow’s bum’ experience.

This opportunity, if you hadn’t guessed, is part of the James Herriot Country Tour. Herriot (real name James Alfred Wight) inspired a whole generation of Brits to go into veterinary medicine.

Sadly, that generation of vets is retiring and, in many cases, selling their practices to veterinary corporations. A quick Google search tells me that this process has been happening for some years, all over the West. It also tells me that there are pros and cons, both for the vet and the customers.

Huh.

We are fairly involved in a number of local cat charities (because of course we are). One was heavily supported by a veterinarian who has now retired and sold his practice. In their newsletter, they talk about how much their vet bills have gone up since. Many of these practices seem to be basing their prices on how much people are willing to spend to keep their pets going. Which, for many people, is a lot.

They didn’t say this, but we know it from experience with one local practice, the vets are usually young, foreign and don’t stick around for long. We still have a good old country vet, but who knows for how long.

Back in the Nineties, my 20-year-old cat Andrew suddenly developed serious breathing problems (turns out it was a pulmonary embolism). It was a Sunday afternoon – because all veterinary emergencies either happen Sunday afternoon or in the middle of the night – so I drove him to an emergency practice. Don’t ever do this. I told them to keep him comfortable until he died. Instead, he spent his final hours enduring every expensive diagnostic they could think of. Then he died. Bastards.

Speaking of croaking, Joyce Randolph of Honeymooners fame has finally copped it at 99. That means p2 has won the dick and New Dead Pool Friday.