Vetting procedures

Expand Your Spanish

VISITING a Costas vet is unlikely to be hindered by non­communication.

Practically all of them understand and can make themselves understood in English because foreign residents make up a large part of their clientele.

Even so, you will share a waiting room with Spanish clients with a wailing cat carrier on their knee or an unhappy dog shuddering at their feet.

A cat (gato) was formerly tolerated as a mouser while a dog earned its keep as a hunter (perro de caza) or a herder (perro pastor).

Anything else was dismissed un perro faldero or a lapdog, scornfully used in both languages for a subservient person who idolises, or is controlled by, somebody else.

Instead, cats and dogs have now earned the affectionate label of animales de compañía or the twee­sounding mascota which sounds less twee to a Spanish­speaker.

Meanwhile, back at the vet’s….. la consulta del veterinario/de la veterinaria:

He/she is off­colour…..no está bien

He/she is off his/her food…..no come bien

I think he/she has a temperature… ..creo que tiene fiebre

I’ve noticed that he/she has weepy eyes… ..veo que tiene los ojos llorones

He/she has a runny nose…..está moqueando

He/she is scratching his/her ears…..se rasca mucho las orejas

Depending on your speech patterns:

I want to sterilise/spay/neuter/doctor my dog/cat…..quiero esterilizar/castrar mi perro/mi gato

I would like to microchip my dog/cat… ..quiero poner un microchip a mi perro/mi gato

I want to vaccinate my dog/cat…..quiero vacunar a mi perro/gato

I want to get rid of fleas /ticks …..quiero un producto para eliminar piojos/garrapatas

There will be things you might not want to hear:

He/she has distemper/mange/fleas/ worms…..tiene moquillo/sarna/ piojos/lombrices or parásitos internos/

We need to operate…..hay que operar

And something you might have to accept:

We need to put your dog/cat to sleep… ..hay que sacrificar, dormir, practicar la eutanasia a tu perro/gato but we are concerned with the domesticated species. There is therefore no danger in the free movement of cats among us. Unless you are a mouse, a small rat or the occasional bird.

Having ended on an unhappy note, bear in mind that miseria in Spanish means poverty, not misery, although both conditions are pretty miserable, whichever way you look at them.

In fact, most of these attributes apply to cows, pigs, and pelicans. In very different ways, horses and pigeons fail on the street­crapping issue but are generally as harmless as cats. And they don’t bark.

In a similar way, I like people who don’t cackle loudly when they are drunk, interviewers who don’t interrupt their guests and footballers who don’t wrestle and pull shirts. I like the simple things that we should take for granted, like plenty of legroom in aircraft, fastmoving arrival checks at airports and guaranteed seating on trains. And the civilised things in life like welcoming service in restaurants and bars, a gesture of thanks when opening a door for somebody, and letting a driver through from a side road.

There are a lot of good things around us, but in the end it is all relative and certainly subjective.

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