A poorly paw

Day 19

Sophie and Keith went for a walk at 9am again while I went to get the newspapers and collected some laundry from Mum and Dad. Their tumble dryer has stopped working and Mum wanted me to take some towels for her as drying them outside on the line makes them go stiff and scratchy. Things seemed to be great with them both, which was a relief, and Mum said she was looking forward to going out into the garden later in the day.

Back home Sophie and Keith returned and we had breakfast. Sophie was very worried about Monty's paw as it was red and swollen so she telephoned the vets at Moulton but there was no answer. We learnt that Vets Now, an emergency service, were available from 12pm so I suggested we go to the veterinary practice and see if anyone was there.

We drove to Moulton and we were surprised to see a fair few cars there. One woman kindly explained that we had to ring the bell and someone would come out and see us, which they did. She told us to either go and get Monty and come back before 1pm or ring and make an appointment with Vets Now for later in the afternoon.

I was worried about the cost of an emergency vets so I suggested we drive down to Pets At Home and see if we could get some ointment for his paw until we could make an appointment on Tuesday. The roads were startling empty and Riverside was very quiet indeed. Only one of us could go into Pets At Home so I sat in the car and googled what they had on offer. Sophie came back to the  car and I showed her what to get, so she went back in and bought three products which we hoped would help.

Back home, we applied one of the creams but Sophie said the toe was looking far worse, and was oozing pus. We called the emergency vets again and this time we managed to speak to someone who asked us to bring Monty down to the practice. She quoted £180 for the consultation.

Keith took our ancient pet carrier down from the eaves of the garage and it was covered in dust, so we had to hurriedly give it a good clean! Amazingly, Monty went into the carrier without a murmur and we put his blanket in the bottom.

I had expected him to be very uncomfortable in the car, but Sophie sat in the back with him and he was fine, bless him. At the practice, we had to wait for a vet to come out and he asked us lots of questions about Monty, his general health and what had happened to his foot. We then had to place the carrier in the middle of the car park so he could pick him up! We weren't allowed to go in with him.

After about fifteen minutes the vet appeared with Monty and said he had "inter-digital dermatitis" which could have been caused by him standing on something abrasive. He said he couldn't see any puncture wounds. He'd been given two injections and we had a course of antibiotics to give him, starting from tomorrow evening.

The total bill came to £291... but Sophie was so relieved it was worth it!

Back home we relaxed before Sophie prepared our evening meal - Gino D'Acampo's sausage pasta dish. She added cream and wine this evening as well as a lot of vegetables, so it was delicious!