I’ve called the doggie hospital three times now to find out how Jessie’s getting on. She’s just come round, at the time of writing. I think it’s partly guilt which makes me keep ringing up: we’re paying to have her ovaries ripped out with a small hook-like device, which seems to me a betrayal of the trust shown in us by the dog. She thought she was just going for a quick ride in the car and clearly didn’t understand why everyone was being so nice to her, so solicitous.
Seven months old and, before her first season, she is being deprived of the undoubted pleasures of being on heat. It is surely the right of every bitch to behave, once a year, like Sally Bercow. There’s a large labrador nearby which clearly wants to give her one (Jessie, not Sally): not any more he won’t.
Having a puppy spayed is, I think, high-handed, cruel and drastic — the kind of thing a really nasty social services department might do to mentally infirm adults, or perhaps simply adults who the grim-faced social workers have discovered intend voting for the United Kingdom Independence Party.
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