Meeting interesting people at the vet

Pippa in the car on the way to the vet

One x-ray and a blood test later, Pippa's diagnosis is a torn knee ligament in her right back leg. She will need to have surgery, possibly later this week, followed by 8 weeks of recuperation and confinement. While I'm sure she'll be fine and will heal rapidly, our furry frisky friend is not going to be happy about (a) having to return to the vet (b) having to keep quiet as she heals.

At the vet hospital I whiled away the hours by observing the animal lovers who came with their pets. Humans don't own animals. Animals own humans.

There were two tough-looking Indian men who came in with one of them cradling a box for dear life. I asked him if the box contained puppies. He said: "No. A cat." Inside was a fluffy ginger-and-white feline who's belly apparently kept growing larger and larger whenever he ate food. The image of those two tough men and the fluffy cat was cute, if not incongruous.

Then there was the middle-aged Indian woman who kept telling me about "my Jesse" (her dog, also with a bad back leg limp). My Jesse this, my Jesse that. By the time it was "my Jesse's" turn to go into the examination room, she was calling him "Bobo."

There was the Indian woman who's dog had been knocked down and had its leg wrapped in a splint and bandage. She was juggling bringing the dog to the vet and taking the children to school.

There was the Indian man (most people there today were Indian) who had a small, fluffy dog, aged eleven, who had cataracts and couldn't see. He made up for his blindness by sniffing out anaesthetized Pippa's hind quarters as she stretched groggily across two chairs, awaiting her blood test.

There were the two thug-looking men who came in with a pittbull (without a leash). One man held it by its collar. At one point the dog began to release diarrhea—tons of it in a constant stream, liquidy like soup, all over the floor. The stench was enough to drive me and Joy outside.

Joy was the woman who struck up a conversation with me as she waited on her daughter. She had seen me walking up and down after Pippa was taken in for x-rays and asked me "How you pacing the floor so like a worried mother?" Joy bakes (from home) for a living and makes everything from mini cheese cakes to birthday cakes to wedding cakes at very affordable prices. I was amazed at how reasonable her rates were in comparison to what she told me of other prices. She told me to look for her Facebook page which her daughter had set up for her 2 weeks ago.

There's a camaraderie that strikes up among humans who bring their pets to the vet. "What happened to yours?" and "What's his/her name?" are the two questions which usually start up the ensuing conversations.