Festive fun and games

Christmas is a time of fun, festivities, food and, in some cases, misadventure. Things don't always go quite according to plan for our dedicated vets...

- Briony Reed

I wouldn't be Christmas without a nativity donkey. These stars of the show need their vaccinations just like anyone else, and it is our intrepid vets who must administer them. Rebecca Hamilton-Fletcher recalls an encounter with a prickly individual named Holly.

"I'd only been qualified for a few months, and Christmas was just around the corner, when I was sent out to give Holly, the local vicar's donkey - and star of numerous nativity performances - her annual flu vaccine. Holly was known to be extremely vet-phobic, but I was assured that the vicar's wife was excellent at managing her during stressful procedures.

"My heart therefore sank when I arrived to find the vicar himself waiting, with a benign smile on his face. I dismally observed Holly snorting in the corner of the stable, with an upside-down headcollar around her neck and the leadrope trailing on the ground, as the vicar explained that his wife was indoors with a cup of tea, having been trampled on while catching Holly just five minutes earlier.

"Normally my approach with such a patient would have been no-nonsense and robustly agricultural. But I found myself instead cowed into ineffective servitude by the godly and tranquil presence of the vicar, and I wobbled up to Holly with all the assurance of an earthworm.

"Sure enough, Holly launched herself at me... and I hit the deck. I came round a few seconds later, lying amid the straw with the vicar leaning over me, apparently praying. I wondered briefly whether I was in fact dead, finding myself momentarily bemused by  the festive irony of the many stars (and even angels) circling around in my dazed vision.