In the Dark

Following yesterday’s emergency trip to the vet with Columbo, I took him back this morning. Although still very woozy from the tranquilizers he’s been having, he is much better this morning and the vet suggested no further action would be needed unless he had another episode. When the latest Diazepam wears off, hopefully he will return to some semblance of normality.

By the way, thanks for all the nice messages on here and on facebook. I really appreciate them.

While I was waiting in the reception area, a guy came in to make an appointment. When the receptionist asked what kind of animal he had, he said “Pet Sheep”. The animal concerned was waiting patiently in the back of his car.

It turns out the owner of this particularly sheep, David Palmer, is something of a celebrity and has even featured on Sky News. He found the sheep abandoned and brought it up as a pet. It lives in his house and is very tame, sitting quietly in the car while people chatted around him. It’s a substantial beast, though. Over 20 stones in fact -that’s 280lbs for any transatlantic readers.

I’ve never thought of sheep as pets. There are pet lambs on farms of course: when their mother has died or rejected them they are typically brought up by humans until they’re ready to go to market. But a full-grown sheep is a sizeable beast and, I would have thought, difficult to housetrain. Still, this one seemed quite affectionate. I asked Mr Palmer what he fed the sheep on. The answer was sprouts and carrots.

These days vets have to cope with all kinds of animals as well as the traditional cats and dogs. I’ve seen lizards, snakes, a monkey and vietnamese pig in various waiting rooms during various visits to various vets over the years.

The funniest thing I ever saw, though, wasn’t the sheep but a huge dog; a Great Dane no less. This enormous animal came  into the vet’s surgery with a little old lady in tow. She was like a character out of an old Ealing comedy and the dog was at least shoulder high to her. I thought she could probably ride around on it like a horse.

As they entered, a small dog barked and the Great Dane freaked out and started bounding around the room, knocking over a stand covered in pet treats and toys and generally causing a commotion. The old lady said “Brian! Calm down!”.

Brian. What a name for a Great Dane.

This entry was posted on April 13, 2009 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Columbo with tags Columbo, Sheep. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.