Page 47 of Vetted for Vengeance
I've watched Rhys do it since I arrived. Normal Rhys morphs perfectly into TV Rhys. Back straight, eyes fixed, body movements slow and calculated. I try to follow his example, but the moment the light blinks on, I start talking with my hands, moving my body around the camera because there is always a better angle of the dogs.
I just hope the viewers on the other side can see past me, the horrible man who kept twenty-six dogs locked in kennels while they had puppies over and over, and see the dogs behind me. The dogs who need forever homes.
“Bobo hasn't put on any weight for the third day in a row.” I announce before the cameras have been packed away. Rhys is still trying to get out of the large kennel without puppies attached.
“Show me,” he instructs.
I fetch Bobo from Toffee's litter, and we head to the prep room.
“I need towels and a heat pad.” Rhys orders. “Get me IV fluids, a feeding tube, and make up some puppy formula.”
A small trolley is wheeled closer by Tammy. There are so many puppies in this place, I stocked the portable trolley up, ready. I had something similar in the kennels that I used to drag up and down with me.
“Right, little guy, let's check you over.” Rhys examines the brown pup. Toffee’s puppies lean more toward solid colors than the usual splodges.
“I'm probably crazy. He's 310g, which is heavier than Honey's biggest puppy. I’ve been taking Lumpy away from the litter so the smaller ones get a chance at the milk, and he’s still eighty grams lighter than Bobo.”
“280g is fine for a newborn pup.”
“I know, which is why I'm worried about her tiny ones. 120g is nothing.” Tears prick my eyes as I talk. In my peripheral vision, I see the camera being lifted back onto its stand.
“310g is fine for a 4-day-old puppy. It's not the weights we're worried about,” Rhys reminds me.
“I know. It's the fact that he's not putting on weight.”
“Right. He's active. His nose and mouth are clear, bottom isn't dirty.” Rhys finishes his check. “He's probably just getting pushed off the teats by the other pups. We need to keep a close eye on him. Make sure we're rotating him onto the hind teats and give him a supplement feed before bedtime.”
“Hind teats?” I smile. “You can't say nipples?”
“Not on national television, no.”
That's when the camera registers to my right. The film crew captured my candid moment of weakness when I panicked about Bobo. I'm an idiot. I know he just needs an extra feed. That's the entire reason for weighing them. It was kennel policy. If they don’t put on weight within twenty-four hours, they get a bottle.If they are the smallest in the litter, they get an extra bottle. Frank and Derek needed big pups as quickly as possible, and puppy formula was cheaper than bulking up the mothers. But here, I let my guard down. I let myself believe that better food for the mums, and people more qualified than me, meant I wasn’t responsible for all of this.
“I should have been doing their top-up feeds. I stopped supplementing. I thought your nurses were better than me. I thought things like this wouldn’t happen here.” I can't stop the tears, national television be damned. “I thought being here meant I could relax.”
“You can relax. You take amazing care of these dogs, but it's harder for you here because your routine has been changed. Dogs are scattered around, and you're not just looking after them; you're training as a nurse and a TV presenter too. But this isn't the kennels where you shove formula down their throats and move on. You're here with me and my nurses. Where you can stop and give Bobo the formula, but also the love and attention he needs too. And stopping to do that doesn't mean neglecting the other dogs. It means having faith that others are here to help.”
“That's true.” I wrap my hands around Bobo and feel his little headbutts against my fingers as he hunts for a nipple to suck.
“If you stopped to give him this attention in the kennels, the other dogs wouldn't get their dinner. Here, Chloe will feed everyone for you, and you can give Bobo time.”
“Time,” I echo.
“Soon, we will find loving homes for all of these dogs, so you can share the responsibilities with the entire nation.”
Tammy appears with the bottle and offers it to me, but before I can take it, Rhys pulls my hand back. “No. Tammy can feed him. You need to go somewhere where there are no dogs. One nightwhere you can stop thinking about them. One evening when you stop triaging puppies in your head.”
“Like a date?”
“Like dinner away from all this. No puppies in your pockets.”
So totally a date.
“I have nothing to wear to a date…dinner without dogs. Dinner, that is, without puppy-sized pockets.”
“Hair and makeup, at your service,” Lola suddenly appears from nowhere. “I can make you date…dinner worthy in five minutes.”
“You've gotta let me take the older puppies back to their house so I feel like I've finished a task, otherwise I'll be thinking about Bobo all dinner.”
