In the Pet Shop

A pet shop whose owners are small time crooks unknowingly bring happiness to two pensioners.

 

 

IN THE PET SHOP

 

‘You Want A Pet, We’ll Get One For You’ was the legend written in ultra large letters in the pet shop window. The only things to be perceived through the glass were the bars of cages and movement inside some of them. This intrigued some, but held no interest for others. Those who dared enter the shop, went from the harsh sounds of traffic in the streets to the strange cacophony of animals. Monkeys chattering, snakes hissing, the bubbling of the aquariums, cats mewing and dogs barking, were primitive to the ear, and made a sharp contrast to the exterior sounds of the modern world. There were two parts to the shop. The shop itself that the general public saw, and then a second part where all kinds of strange deals were struck. This the public never saw and probably never even suspected existed.

The business was run by Monty, a seedy, skinny man of dubious character, and his wife Beryl, who was a worn-out totally lacking female who always echoed Monty, in whatever he said. They would have formed a comical couple if they hadn’t taken themselves so seriously and hadn’t been so intense about making a sale.

 

They had an associate, who was one of their main suppliers, an eastern European who made long journeys from the other side of the Channel with an old  horsebox that had been stolen from a street with no recognisable number plates, loaded up with dogs, cats and, every so often, monkeys or other sellable creatures. Alanka’s profession was smuggling animals stolen from farms and streets, and through an intricate route known only to the genuinely criminal-minded, got them into England. His idea was to avoid quarantine authorities. Even his name Alanka was not his, nor was it real. He had once tried to sell the Pet Shop a load of goats, which Monty rejected, saying, “How is anyone supposed to keep a goat in a house or a flat?”

Alanka had replied, “They eat grass, so you wouldn’t have to cut it.”

“And when the goats had cut back my grass, whose grass would they eat next?”

“There seem to be a lot of parks around here. You could always take them for a walk like with a dog.”

“Sorry, Mate, but goats in England live on farms.”

“No problem just give me the names and addresses of a few farms and I’ll be off.”

Monty wrote down the names and addresses of the local farms, gave the list to Alanka, and the two business partners said farewell until the next time.

 

Monty had many sidelines in animal care. He never sold an animal in bad condition, however it had come into his possession. He was very friendly with a vet called  Rafa, who was a specialist in neutering animals. The number of alley cats in Monty’s town had gone down since Rafa had set up his clinic there. People would go to see him and report they had seen a stray pregnant cat in a scruffy area, and Rafa would go along and pick up the queen and take her to the surgery, and when the kittens had been born he would operate on the mother so that she never fell pregnant again. He put up pictures of the kittens with their mother in Monty’s shop, and in a very short time they were all sold. This was one thing that the vet and the pet shop man agreed on. There were not to be any unwanted animals in town.

 

One day a young lady walked into Monty’s, and said, “Good morning. Do you think you can do something for these guinea pigs and gerbils. I work in the small zoo in the local stately home and I’m fed up with seeing these poor little things being bred to feed the snakes.”

Monty regarded her silently, then, “Are you telling me that these little animals have been stolen from your bosses?”

“Yes, they have. But I thought you’d understand about my good intentions. You don’t seem very happy with my having brought them here.”

“Listen, these have been so interbred that they probably won’t live very long anyway. But I’ll take them and see how they go, please don’t bring me any more, OK?”

“Yes, OK. Although it upsets me to see what happens to them.”

“If you don’t like the job then you’d better find another one. Rafa, the vet who works with me, may be able to give you some kind of work if you’re interested. Here’s his phone number. Tell him you come from me.”

The young lady thanked him and left the shop and Monty picked up the small cages and took them into the back room. Beryl was in there handing out food to the other inmates. “We’ve got some guinea pigs and gerbils here. I don’t think they’ll last long, but do the best you can for them.”

“Fair enough. By the way, the dogs that Alanka brought last week are looking fine now. I think that after a bath and blow-dry they will be up to scratch to receive pedigree papers.” Falsifying pedigree papers was Beryl’s speciality, with the aid of Photoshop and a few rubber stamps she was able to download a pedigree form and fill it in. She was a dab hand at copying signatures and names. Her imagination was endless, she was able to think up a series of names to create a lineage for the humblest of dogs or cats. When a would-be owner thought that the said animal didn’t quite match up to the photos in an animal magazine Beryl had no trouble in fobbing them off with that it was a rarer breed than the normal. Her attitude was, ‘Never mind the defects, consider the rarity.’ Beryl’s biggest problem was that she got some animals mixed up, due to ignorance rather than a deliberate policy. So the owner of a Lhasa Apso might meet up with the owner of another Lhasa Apso, only to be told that it was a Shih Tzu. Although the dog’s owners thought that their dog’s papers must have been mixed up, they  just went back to Beryl and had the information rectified.  Poor old Beryl, she could never tell the difference between similar looking dogs, and besides all this, she got the sexing wrong. After a dog had had its testicles drained so that it could not impregnate a b***h, her eyesight, not being what it should have been, said it was a b***h much to the amusement of the customer.

 

Alanka being an animal smuggler knew that the police were after him and one day his luck would run out. One Sunday evening he was driving along near the Pet Shop where he was going to hand over the animals and get paid. He could see in his mirror that he was being followed by a police car. For the first time in his life as an illegal animal dealer he panicked, stopped the horsebox, got out, and ran. The police got to the horsebox and opened the back doors. The dogs got out and ran in all directions the cats sat in their boxes mewing their heads off. The police took the cat boxes to the police station and rang Rafa to go and see if they were OK and not suffering from any serious diseases.

Alanka rang Monty, and between the two of them they managed to round up all the dogs, except for one tiny bundle of white fluff. An elderly lady out for a walk with her husband saw the little dog and said to her husband, “Oh, take a look at that cute little dog. Can we keep it?”

“And what if it belongs to someone?”

 “It isn’t wearing a collar, so therefore it isn’t anyone’s pet. What do you think, yes or no?”

“All right then. It means we won’t have to go and see that so and so Monty.”

“We can take it to Rafa tomorrow to get it vaccinated, I just know we are going to be happy with our little snowball.”

 

Back at the pet shop Monty and Alanka were having their work cut out, even with Beryl’s help, in getting some sort of order in the back room. All the new dogs were showered and dried and then given food and water. Finally they were put into cages while being prepared for selling. “This lot don’t look as pedigree as the previous ones.”

Alanka looked rather gloomy, and said, “ We may have to slow down a bit. There are fewer and fewer stray animals in my area and sometimes I have to go further afield to see any at all. Also there’s competition growing up, now people see a new way of making a living. Times are hard and are going to get harder. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay with you for the night and slip out early in the morning and head for the coast.”

“No problem, Mate, happy to have you stay,” Monty said.

When all the animals had been watered and fed, including old and new, the three went upstairs to the rooms above the shop, where Monty and Beryl lived.

 

On Monday the elderly couple who had found the little ball of fluff went to see Rafa. The dog had been washed and dried by the wife, who treated the little dog as if it were a baby. “Good morning, we’d like you to see how our little dog is, please,” said the man.

Rafa picked up the dog and laid it down on the exam table. He felt it all over, took its temperature, and took specimens to see whether it had an illness. When he had the result he gave the dog some vaccinations. “May I have the dog’s details, please. How long have you had it?”

The woman said, “Not long. It was a present.”

Rafa then asked them, “Do you know what kind of dog this is?”

“We’re not sure,” the man said.

“This is a pure bred Maltese terrier. They can fetch quite a high price. The only downside with them is that they need to be brushed and kept clean, but they are good little dogs. Fine for a flat or a house. You should get a lot of fun out of him. What’s his name?”

The couple exchanged looks and then stared at the vet. “Well, we can’t come to an agreement,” said the husband.

“What about Coco, after all coconut is white,” said the vet.

“That’s OK by us, isn’t it, Dear?” the wife responded looking at her husband.

“Oh, yes indeed,” the man said, picking Coco up in his arms as he and his wife left the shop.

Rafa finished his write up about Coco, and then greeted his next patient.

 

What Alanka and Monty never discovered, was that one of the few pedigree dogs that had ever entered England illegally was Coco, who very happily lived lovingly spoilt by the couple who had found him. Every day the couple would give Coco his breakfast. He had a lovely bed with cushions and blankets in different shades of blue. His dishes were also in blue with his name written on the sides. All in all the trio were very happy and well integrated. The couple and Coco seemed to understand each other from the very beginning. The little dog was incredibly affectionate and sweet natured. Coco was the centre of attention wherever they went, and the elderly couple soon found that through the cuteness of their pet they made new friends. What had been a rather grey old age, with the coming of Coco all that had gone, and now they looked forward to every new day, instead of dreading it. So, out of all the dirty dealings of Monty, Beryl, and Alanka, something better than good had actually taken place.

 

Every cloud has a silver lining.