Pigeon

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I know this is sort of mad but I am posting an update on the dog, because some of you were kind enough to ask.

She spent a horrid night. She was miserable, stiff as a board, clearly in pain. I bundled her up in blankets and stroked her and stroked her while she gazed at me with those baffled dog eyes, the ones that say: can’t you do something?

This morning, she still did not want to eat, go out, or even move much. She kept lying down and doing more of the melancholy gazing. When I did finally get her outside, she was very shaky on her pins.

Back to the vet we went, at half past nine. He shook his head. He had the same look on his face that he had when he checked the Duchess’s poor, flickering heart. The very sweet, very young student vet, who has come from his college to do work experience, smiled with a nervous kindness. They know things I do not. I kept waiting for them to say: oh, it’s just a bug, clear up in a couple of days, don’t worry about a thing.

They did not say that.

‘I’m taking her in,’ the vet said.

He said sternly to the lady at the desk: ‘Scan, blood tests, sedation, drip.’

Now I wait for the telephone call.

I am trying very hard not to create catastrophes in my mind.

She is the beat of my heart. I don’t know what I would do if I lost her now.