Kes's scan

Well yesterday turned out to be a really lovely day. The weather forecast had been terrible and we were expecting heavy snow. It was my mums 70th birthday the day before and she had agreed to come along with me.

Mum lives up on Bodmin moor which is very bleak at this time of the year, she had left home in a hail storm and on arriving at our house some 40 miles south was quite surprised that is was dry. After having a chat and a play with the dogs we set off for Perran Sand to give them a good run before heading off for the scan. We had a lovely walk, the sun was shining and the rain held off.

I had decided not to use my normal vet for this scan; a friend had recently recommended a vet in Penzance, which is about 35 miles south from here. My vet was charging £80, which I thought was a bit expensive, this new vet was charging £40. Well I hadn’t been there before so we went and found it but we were a couple of hours early so we set off to find a pub to treat mum to lunch. I thought that the coast road would be a good place to look. It wasn’t long before we ended up in Mousehole, a quaint little fishing village. We could see out over Mounts Bay, the sun was shining and the sea was so calm, it looked amazing with every shade of turquoise you could imagine.

Well there was one problem! Nige’s Trafic, the road seemed to be getting narrower and narrower, and then came the sign saying it narrowed to 6’ 6”, well I didn’t have a clue how wide it was so I headed up the hill through the village and we came out in a little hamlet called Paul with a very nice pub. We had lunch and then headed back to the vet.

When I had Miya scanned last year my normal vet had laid her on her side and rolled her on her back to scan her. I didn’t know any different and thought that this was how everyone did it. Well I was pleasantly surprised by this new vet. He stood Kes on the table, shaved her belly and started to scan. I was so relieved, I was dreading trying to upturn Kes, she isn’t very keen on being turned upside down. She did seem very relaxed and really happy with the whole thing, it’s so less stressful for the bitch this way.

Well nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see. With Miya’s scan we found a pup and then went on the hunt for the next one. The first view that came up on the screen yesterday was 4 blobs, yes 4 all at once; I gasped OMG and the vet just laughed at me, poor mum didn’t have a clue what was going on. I still can’t believe we saw 4 all in one screen. The vet was not interested in searching for puppies, which I’m in total agreement with; we were just trying to confirm pregnancy. The general rule of thumb is to double what you see, this is only guess work and no one can tell you what you are going to get, but now you can see why I was so shocked! If I saw 4 that could mean 8 puppies! Here’s hoping that everyone was showing themselves and no one was hiding! I really don’t know where I’d put that many puppies!!

After getting over the shock and sending everyone and anyone a text message mum and I set off again. The sun was still shining so we stopped off by Saint Michael’s Mount and had a lovely walk along the beach. The dogs had a fantastic time, I don’t know what it is about the beach but they were all wild despite their earlier walk.

We went home via Truro where we managed to do a little shopping and then it was off home to open mum’s birthday presents and to a lovely meal that Nige had made for us.

Sharing this day with mum’s 70th celebrations had been a real treat for us both, needless to say the dogs had had a brilliant day, they do love their Granma!