Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
Noah
Filming is tiring, but fun.
There’s far more involved when the camera is rolling. Even standing still is exhausting.
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 night where 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.”
“Fine. I'll see you at the house in fifteen minutes.”
I need the air more than I need the reassurance that these chewy bundles of pups are home safe.
Two wire carriers, four pups squashed in each one, a pair of borrowed welly boots and I'm off.
I've not been out to this side of the practice before; the building is hidden behind a hedge of bushy trees.
What I find is nothing like the polished and refined practice I've become accustomed to.
This is more like the puppy farm. It's basically a semicircle of stables, but some doors are regular house doors.
I open the one labelled reception and find a nice little replica of the one in the main surgery.
“Hello, you must be returning our puppies.” The nurse jumps up from behind the desk. She's wearing the same dark green as the other qualified nurses, and a pair of pink wellies. I've seen her in the main practice, so this must be a satellite surgery they work at on a rota.
“I'm Noah, and yes, returning your puppies.” That is hard to say. These are my puppies. Even if they were never meant to be.
“Welcome to the large animal size of the business. This is where we treat farm animals and several litters of puppies. I'm Abigail.”
The door opens behind me, and I instinctively turn around and then move aside. He's a tall, broad guy, wearing mud-splattered dungarees and a big grin. Absolutely looks like a farmer. “Sorry, you go first. I can wait.”
“No need for that. I work here.” He holds out a large hand that I have to put down a carrier to take. “Harry Pike, I'm the large animal veterinary specialist.”
“Like a vet for cows?” I ask.
“Exactly that.” He looks down at my baskets that are still squealing and yipping as they make do with the only toys available, being each other's tails.
“That's the loopy litter come back? Let me show you the temporary pens.” He grabs the carrier I set down and walks back out.
“He's a gentle giant,” Abigail promises as I nervously follow him out.
“We've got five litters over here, four with mums, and the one without.” He opens an empty stable where I find a clean space filled with chewed-up dog beds and lots of toys. In one corner is a red heat lamp hanging down to keep them warm.
We open the carrier doors and the pups tumble out.
“Hopefully we can get them adopted and then move Toffee over here.” Letting these puppies go is an inevitable part of my life, so the sadness sits quieter than it should. It’s good seeing them move on in favor of Toffee getting all this space for her and her pups.
“As long as I have nothing to do with the filming side, I don't mind the extra work.”
“You're looking after them?”
“Yep, and there's a nurse here permanently at the moment too.” Harry gives me a nervous smile. “I prefer animals to people, but you've got a big heart, kid, and I'll help any way I can.”
“Knowing you're here looking after these guys means a lot. Thank you.”
“We've got a few of the pregnant girls in the lambing barn if you want to see them before you go. Not quite as much room as these stables, but not by much.”
“I'd love to, but I'll have to come back another time. I've got to get back to…”
Back to my date that isn't a date.
He nods, but instead of walking me back, he sits down and starts playing. “If no one wants the nervous black girl, once her pups are gone, she can stay here, if she wants.”
“Are you offering to adopt Cayenne?”
“Cayenne. The spicy tempered one.” He chuckles. “This is her place, for as long as she needs it.”
I head back to the main practice with a smile plastered on my face. Cayenne is a good girl, but she's very nervous. I always thought she just needed love, but maybe she needs space more than love.