From Gramps …
Winnie was the first dog that I had since childhood. She had the markings of an Alsatian combined with the soft ears of a Labrador and ownership went some way to completing the perfect life of house, children and dog.
She was about three years old when you were born. Later, as you grew older, one of her tricks was to run alongside you in the park with your arm in her mouth to the amusement of onlookers. Although less amused were the couple whose child dressed in the same ‘Don’t look now’ dwarf’s red coat was mistakenly grabbed by Winnie.
Winnie’s demise started with a blow to the head. She had run out of the garden gate and collided with a car. I knew that it was a car by the tread mark on her head. She seemed none the worse for the experience and we just assumed that her skull was pretty thick. It was later that Winnie started to act in an odd way although at the time we didn’t connect her behaviour with the accident. We began to notice that she would stand stock still in a room for long periods and stare into the corner; always a corner. This is actually quite handy behaviour if your dog is wet and you don’t want it jumping on the furniture or if you are visiting people uncertain of dogs. Still it was odd and an appointment with the local vet was duly arranged. I forget what his prognosis was but it involved a lot of orange pills and wads of money. The treatment went on for a long time with mounting fees and no recovery. It was during a visit to my brother in Scotland that we discovered the answer. Encouraged by my sister-in-law we sought a second opinion from their vet who instantly diagnosed a brain tumour and to my great sadness Winnie had to be put to sleep.
For a long time afterwards I harboured a deep antipathy towards our local incompetent vet who had failed at great expense to diagnose Winnie’s illness.
In parallel with Winnie’s problems your big sister’s goldfish developed a strange white fungus and pieces of rotting fin were floating about in the murky waters of the bowl as it swam around in a lopsided way. Your mother told me to flush it down the toilet. This, I decided was pretty inhumane; the better way was a quick and painless end by electrocution. In the garage, away from your mother’s prying eyes I placed wires in the water and switched on. There was a dull thud and the goldfish instantly stopped swimming around and peacefully floated to the surface. Pleased with my humane killing I went off to lunch intending to dispose of the dead fish later. To my utter amazement I returned to find the fish vigorously swimming around like Mark Spitz albeit with incomplete fins. But the Lazarus effect soon wore off and days later it did die.
The connection between the dog and the fish was that your mother found me placing the body of the goldfish in a box with the intention of anonymously posting it to the incompetent vet with a note asking him for a diagnosis. Needless to say I was persuaded not to and the fish was unceremoniously flushed down the pan.
16 Comments on "Guest Post from Gramps – Winnie and a fish called …"
Is seems you family have a lot of stories involving the demise of family pets…something we should be worried about miss?
Fabulous post from gramps, once again.
Well, now this reminds me of when I was a kid, my niece, nephew and I (they’re my age) decided we needed a graveyard to bury all the dead flies in. Of course, we had to catch and kill the flies first. (To make it more interesting and functional, of course). We had match boxes for coffins, and then we picked flowers from the garden and put them on the small mounds of dirt – carefully lined up side by side.
When my Mum discovered what we’d been doing all afternoon, she wasn’t particularly pleased. And therefore, our grave yard was abandoned. We were probably lucky we didn’t dig up the pet dog, who, apparently, was buried only metres behind where we played.
Phew.
Reminds me of when the hamster died, I told mr x he’d have to bury it, then next morning it was running around the cage…next time it ‘died’ I got X to sit with it on his lap all night ….but it really was dead. Couldn’t help laughing …
We had that once, my hamster pretended to die – gave it a prod – dead as a dodo. Following morning running round it’s wheel.
I’m not sure if I was supposed to laugh but it did bring a smile to my face, esp when you said the fish was swimming around again.
CJ xx
Absolutely fine to laugh! All Gramps posts are humorous … I can;’t wait for him to tell the hamster tale.
Now I what happened to my gold fish! I think the last sentance leads nicely on to the next story of what do you do with a dead dog….. ( ie Tessa)
And your dead flying hamster … Do you remember my hamster which we left with Mr Proctor during the holidays and it came back with ‘Free Nelson Hamdela’ on the bars.
I can’t remember what he did with Tessa … I shall ask.
I love Gramp. I alway have this little vision of us all sitting around his armchair, crossed-legged as he tells us his stories.
I would have sent the fish too. My sister in law once sent a jiffy bag of dog poo to someone who kept parking across her drive.
I have often threatened the dog poo/jiffy treatment but never followed through. When I say followed through I mean the action … not ‘followed through’.
That’s very sad about poor Winnie, I hope something was said to the stupid Vet?!
I can’t stop giggling to myself about the electrocution of a goldfish, I’ve never heard anything like it. I would of liked to seen the Vets face if he had received a dead fish though the post.
When I think about some of the things Gramps has done … I’m surprised he didn’t accidentally electrocute himself. He’d have been up for a Darwin Award.
OMFG! I am also shocked. First the trauma with the dog and then the goldfish electrocution. Please go back to blogging silly whoopie cushion bottom posts!
I do have to say though, Gramps makes excellent use the the semicolon. Rare in a blog post these days; he is a clever man.
As said above … there is a hmaster story too … in fact now I come to thin of it there might be two hamster stories.
I am working on a video post – but it’s finding the time to catch the person ‘in action’.
Grandpa! I am dumbstruck. The things that come out when you start asking people about their goldfish stories eh?
I’m shocked (see what I did there!), very shocked
My memory is that he resusitated the fish, which I suppose he did.
I might ask him to tell the ‘dead flying hamster’ story next week.