It’s Shadow here again. I’m finding it hard to write as I’m feeling a little bit down. I need to tell you the rest of the story, but I should start by telling you that everyone here is being lovely and doing all they can to make me happy and so that I don’t feel too homesick. It was so hard watching my Mistress and Megan driving away without me yesterday. My Mistress cried. I cried. Megan cried. It was very difficult.
I got as far as after we had seen Rino last Friday. We drove straight from there to the Channel Tunnel to come home. We had to stay in a hotel on the way, but we got to the Tunnel as planned at 10.30 on Saturday morning. That’s when everything went wrong. My Mistress has all the right papers and we thought everything was in order and then they tried to read my microchip to match to my passport. They tried first one reader and then another and even after trying 3 readers there was still no possibility of my chip being read. It was then I started to understand it might be serious. We were sent to see a vet in Calais. He wanted to take me away from my Mistress to xray me. My Mistress first asked them to try to read my chip, so two more readers were brought out and still nothing. She asked him what would happen and he said he might give me sedation and if he could find the chip by xray he would operate to remove it. She told him I might be pregnant but he wasn’t interested. I was terrified and my Mistress just looked at me and then told the vet he wasn’t going anywhere near me. I was so relieved. We went back to the car and then tried to work out what to do. First we took my cousin to get the train back to England and then we set off back to Switzerland to be with people we knew who could help me.
The vet here in Switzerland was so kind to me. He took such good care in trying to find my chip and was careful to xray only my upper body. We did it all without any sedative and then he used a local anaesthetic to remove the chip. It did hurt a bit, but I was ok and he was so lovely. I have two stitches, but I’m feeling ok. I have a new microchip and my old one has been sent back to the laboratory to see if they can read it. The rest they say is history. I am here in Switzerland crossing my paws that my old chip can be read and that I can go home soon. Waving my Mistress off was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but I’m ok.
Alfie Dog with a little help from Rosemary J Kind alfie@alfiedog.me.uk
Alfie’s Diary – the Book is available at Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00583ZGSA