• Dr Liza’s Vet Tales Excerpt – Honcho, our Staffie’s, Adventures

It was a new year, living in a wonderful land and the time had come to start working with Rose and her team of vets. Ash and I had moved into a house with a fenced garden and our dogs, Honcho the tough thug and Sheila the gentle little lady had served their time in quarantine where Ash thought they may well have been served caviar for the price we paid!

It was great to have them around again and they were none the worse for their time in quarantine but I dare to say slightly more obedient! We bought them a new kennel and a carpet to line it but they insisted on still sleeping in the crate that they had flown over in!

One night we heard Honcho barking and went out to see what the problem was… our resident hedgehogs who came to be known as “Hungry” and “Hungry’s Buddy” were out and about at his food bowl and eating his food. Honcho was really offended and we watched as he picked up his bowl and carried it off to his crate so that the hedgehogs wouldn’t eat his food. Unfortunately, on the way Honcho dropped most of the food from the bowl so that Hungry and Co. were still eating his food at which time Honch decided that the only way to stop them would be for him to eat it all and so he did!

A few days after their arrival, our landlord visited to get rid of some of some rubbish in the garden. He left the gate open and unfortunately Honch got out. Ash got home that evening to find only Sheila in the garden and phoned me at work. I was deeply concerned and although I was scheduled to work late that night, Rose insisted that I go home and look for Honcho. Last time he had escaped was back in Johannesburg where he ended up following a runner for 12 km across town! We were worried as not only could he be anywhere within a 12 km radius but he also had no road sense and there were some busy roads near to where we lived.

One of our neighbours told us that she’d seen a dog jumping up on some passer-by and had called the pound. We took comfort knowing that Honcho would, in all likelihood, make too much of a nuisance of himself not be picked up by the pound but unfortunately, we could make no further headway in that direction until the pound opened again the following morning. Sure enough, the next day we found Honcho at the pound – thank goodness!

To read more about my adventures, read Vet Tales available as a book or e-book from https://www.drliza.co.nz/shop/