The Vet goes bump in the night

I was woken by a howling outside. I had been in a deep slumber, dreaming about my role as a key member of the combined gangs of the county, when this quite awful sound snatched the final scene from me  - I am sure I was about to be crowned Jake the Leader.

Dog or fox, I thought, still bemused  by my sudden awakening. The   urgent scratching at the door confirmed it was a colleague from the gang because we had an arrangement, this was the signal that my immediate attendance was needed, indeed demanded.

Of course, the Vet, sleeping peacefully upstairs, would be woken by the racket and would investigate in the most vile of tempers. I was determined not to be caught this time, as on a previous similar occasion he had come clattering down the stairs, missing the last step and falling heavily not a metre from where I was laying. Normally I would have been wide awake at this point, but a very bad cold and some unspeakable medicine from the Vet had drugged me into inaction.

He cursed and swore hitting out with the heavy stick he kept by the bed for such emergencies. He missed my head my millimetres and I recovered by senses in time to avoid another swipe and ran for the sitting room.

This time he took the steps more carefully but still managed to catch his bare foot on the mat at the bottom of the stairs and slide most gracefully head first in to the hat stand. His ill temper magnified a hundred times and I was out of the door (I can still use the cat’s flap in an emergency) in a flash to see where the disturbance came from. And to avoid the Vet’s violently swinging stick.

I heard and identified the call. It was Jock, Mrs Cuthwaite’s Skye Terrier, who had retreated to the hedge at the end of the garden. Wise fellow, I thought, for no matter what the problem, it would be nothing to the retribution by the Vet who, by this time, was standing by the front door stick in hand and torch at the ready.

That torch was kept by the front door. I was constantly surprised by this fact and wondered why the Vet failed to keep it at the top of the stairs and avoid his misadventures on the staircase in the dark. In his sleep-filled state he had never managed to find the light switch for the hallway, believing that fumbling for it was wasting valuable time catching the burglar, or whoever was causing the racket. He always believed that the scratching at the door indicated someone doing his best to break down it down. It never occurred to him that it might be an animal  - and he’s a Vet!

I found  Jock easily enough and we both watched as the Vet ventured cautiously into the garden swinging the torch from side to side and holding the stick in the upright position. Of course, it was bound to happen. He missed a large stone right in front of him, recently placed there by our twice-a-week gardener Everard. Over went the Vet, this time dropping the torch and the stick and screaming blue murder that his big toe was broken.

Who he expected to help him his was something of a mystery. Large detached house, half an acre of garden and everyone in the vicinity fast asleep. Not a chance said Jock, who by this time was so intrigued by the sight of the Vet limping back to the house that he almost forgot to tell me what brought him here in the first place.

As the front door slammed Jock said Mrs Cuthwaite had woken him up by prowling round the house with a poker and pleading with him to get up and help her search for a lost earring.

Frightened of getting crack on the head from the poker, he too made a quick exit and ran for my house. He had been in quite a state, but the antics of the Vet had calmed him down and he was now ready to return home.  Mrs Cuthwaite has admitted to the Vet to having “senior moments” when she forgets where things have been put, but getting up in the middle of the night to find them is something new.

Jock, now forewarned, will sleep a little less soundly at night, but make up the loss by a little extra daytime snoozing.