Long Suffering Boyfriend: 101 Bulldogs

drferox:

It’s often said that nobody other than other veterinarians know what we truly go through. This isn’t helped by the fact that we’re often barred from discussing our work in civilized company and so we often don’t talk about these things, even with our nearest and dearest.

As a recent graduate I had explained to my dear Long Suffering Boyfriend (LSB) that my days at work were busy, hectic and fast. The message he absorbed from these descriptions was that I sometimes didn’t manage to eat lunch until 4pm. So he decided one day that he was going to be Best Boyfriend^TM and bring me lunch at the clinic. A gourmet sandwich he’d made himself. He was going to show up right on 1pm and make me stop work for five minutes to eat this delicious food, and make all the other staff members insanely jealous.

At least, that was his cunning plan.

When he walked through the staff entrance into the back of the clinic, he was not greeted with adoration and delight. 

He was greeted by a stern veterinary nurse with all the attitude of an army sergeant.

“Excellent. You! Take this!” she commanded, whisking my future lunch onto the bench and thrusting a towel into my LSB’s hands. Before he knew what was happening, he was dragged into the surgical suite.

“Here honey, catch!” I greeted him, not bothering to question his unexpected appearance and plopping a fresh bulldog puppy into his hands, still coated in amniotic membranes, before I returned to retrieving its siblings from the caesarean in front of me.

He would go on to describe the subsequent events as “Like 101 Dalmatians but with newborn bulldog puppies!”

He was swiftly educated in puppy resuscitation, learning how to rub them to stimulate breathing and how to make a makeshift oxygen crib out of a rectal glove.

The puppies just kept coming and coming. Twelve bulldog puppies revived by my two nurses and LSB. That uterus was more packed than a clown car. Let me tell you there is an art to stimulating four newborn puppies at a time to breathe properly. There were puppies everywhere, on tables and the counter. The sandwich was swiftly moved as more bench space was required.

While everyone was glad to see him, this was not the outcome he had been expecting when he walked into the clinic.

He did, however, refuse to leave the clinic until I’d eaten at least one bite.

I asked him what the one stand out lesson from the experience was. He said that “they’re weird and gross but it’s strange how quickly they go to cute and snuggly fuzzles as soon as they’re dry”. Also that bringing me lunch was appreciated, but pointnless.

I think he enjoyed it, really.