Of course, generally there is no problem with Rufus.  He is an exceptionally well-behaved dog and is truly lovable (as we find when he walks the street).  If you’re single, living in Italy and want to meet people – get a Rufus and it will work wonders.

At the moment he is still not Rabies certified, so to speak.  When we were back in the UK last summer, I took him to the vets to get his normal annual vaccinations as it coincides with us being back for Hay.  As you do, I chatted with the vet and discussed the fact that we were taking him back to Italy as we live there now.  The injections were done and the passport (yes, he has one, although there is no photo), was updated.  I never thought to check it as the vets have always been so good.

In September, D (who is Milanese) was moving back to London to live.  She had gone back with her son, L and her soon-to-be-ex-husband was bringing her cat later.

So she needed a passport for the cat and it would have to be done in Italy.  Her Italian vet was telling her father that the cat (Sachmo) would have to be re-done for rabies, so we had many conversations on the telephone discussing how preposterous this was.

I agreed to go and sort it out, with the help of her husband (my Italian leaving much to be desired).  In the process I checked Rufus’ passport to find, to my horror, that it appeared the vets had not updated his passport last time and so, in theory, he was not covered for rabies, it having run out in July!

Obviously this was an oversight on the part of the vet and I just needed to get his passport up-to-date.

However, on telephoning them, I found out that they had not, in fact, given him the booster and that, if anyone needed rabies boosters, they had to specifically ask!

So he wasn’t covered.  A pain as it meant a new injection and then a test and then a wait of six months before he could return to the UK.  However, I knew the procedure here and thought it would be easy.

So to the vets here.  They gave him a booster saying that, although he would probably be OK, it was worth having the booster first and then taking the blood sample.  Back to the vets a week later to take the sample for testing.  All is cool, I thought.

After several weeks I went back to vets to find that there was a problem.  He had failed the test!  OK, so another jab and another test.

After several weeks, again, the vet rang to say there was another problem.  The lab in Germany did not have enough blood for the test!  So we had to do it again!!  Now we are into 2006.  Still waiting for the result.  Hmmm.  Not good.

Normally this would not be a problem, except that we cannot bring him into the UK until 6 months AFTER a positive test.  So Rufus cannot come back with us when we go to Hay.  But we cannot bear to put him in kennels for so long.  So, maybe, only one of us can go back.

I hate Arrowfield vets in Kington.  If I hadn’t talked about the return to Italy, then fine.  But the vet and I had a whole conversation about living in Italy and how Rufus got on fine with the people, the city etc.  Grrrr.

I am angry both at them and at myself.  It’s the sort of situation where you ask yourself “Why didn’t I check the passport myself?”  I always thought it would be the vets in Italy that would be a problem, not the ones in the UK.  Ah well, their loss as he would have come back and gone to them for his normal annual injections.  Now there will be no point and Rufus will have all his stuff done here.

On a brighter note, he had a hair cut a couple of days ago and is looking the cutest, cuddliest dog ever.  Bless him.  I would put up photos but I cannot get the thing to work properly in the blog.  However, now I’ve worked out how to change some other things, I’ll have another go in the next few days.

Now I can add a photo and here it is:

This is much as he looks now – with his smart new haircut.  So cute!