Veterinary Surgeons Are As Expensive As HSE Consultants

Donald Duck deceased

The wife brought our families pet duck into our local veterinary surgeons office. As she laid our Donald’s limp, motionless body on the table, the vet quickly pulled out his stethoscope and pressing it deep into our feathered friends chest, he listening intently.

After a moment or two, he began to shake his head slowly and then blurted out, “I’m sorry missus, but your pet duck, has passed on to that bird heaven in the sky.”

My deeply distressed wife let out a wail, (Well she’s always wailing anyway) “Are you sure?” said she.
“Yes, I am sure missus, your duck is most definitely dead,” replied our vet, in the most respectful bedside manner I might add.

“How can you be so sure?” the wife protested. (She good at the protesting is my wife) “I mean you haven’t done a full examination on him or anything. He might just be in a deep coma or some other form of  profound state of unconsciousness.”

Our vet bit his lip and rolled his eyes to heaven, then spinning around he left the room. He returned a few minutes later with a young black Labrador Retriever pup. As the wife looked on in sheer amazement, the dog jumped up on the table, tail wagging and sniffed the duck from tail to beak.  Suddenly his tail froze and looking up at the vet with the saddest of eyes, the dog shook his head.

The vet patted the black Labrador and escorted him out of the room, returning a few minutes later with a Siamese cat. The cat hopped out of his arms onto the table and began delicately sniffing our pet duck all over. The cat then stretched, sat back on her behind, licked her paw and began meowing softly, then jumped to the floor and ran from the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, “I’m sorry, but as I said, this is now 100% most definitely, one dead duck missus.”

As the wife began to sob, the vet turned to his computer, hit a few taps to his key board and his printer began to spit out an invoice, which when printed completely, he then passed  to my wife.

My wife glanced at the bill and suddenly stopped her sniffling. “What do you mean she screamed, you have charged me £250 just to confirm my poor dear Donald duck is dead!”

The vet shrugged his shoulders, “I’m very sorry missus but if you had just taken my word in the beginning, your bill would have been only €20. But now with the extra Lab Report, followed by a Cat Scan, I have no option but to increase your charges by an extra €230.”

Still, as I said to the missus later, the costs could have been even worse really. Just let’s thank our lucky stars there wasn’t any anesthetist present.