Vale Elsie.

If you are extremely observant, you may have noticed a change in my Profile description above. "We have no children, but we have a cat and aviaries, etc." I have deleted the "elderly dog". Two weeks ago, we took Elsie to the vet, who gave her medication for arthritis and dementia (seriously - apparently there is such a thing as doggy dementia), and he said if there is no improvement in two weeks, we should re-assess the situation. We returned to the vet yesterday and it was agreed that there was nothing more we could do for her, so...guess I don't need to go into detail.

Ken had to carry her from the car into the waiting room, and kept her on his lap for the half hour we were waiting. Other people came and went with their pets, and one jovial man with his pup was commenting on everyone else's pets. He turned to us and looking at Elsie said "She doesn't look too happy", to which I replied "You probably won't either, when you are 140 years old". He didn't have an answer to that, but it wasn't until a few minutes later when the vet called us in and made some comment about Elsie being 18 years old, that the penny dropped with the other bloke and he gasped "Eighteen???" When we came out of the surgery without Elsie, the other people in the waiting room went very quiet. Earlier, a lady had gone in with her dog, and come out alone in floods of tears. I said to the receptionist "Two in a row must be pretty hard for Dr.S" and she said "It's been a real bad morning actually". I hate to think what she meant by that....