SOMETIMES, it is worth telling a good story just for the sheer sake of it.

There doesn’t need be a reason, a lesson or a moral. Just a good story.

A few minutes telling a tale just for the fun of it. Five hundred words or so of simple entertainment, devoid of worry, fear, stress and bad news.

And so…Once upon a time, in a not very far off land, it was exceedingly hot and we were all worried about dogs overheating and suffering from the life-threatening effects of hyperthermia.

Around this time there was great excitement because the day of the marriage of the beautiful princess was looming (I say ‘princess’ but actually it was one of our veterinary nurses, which is the next best thing but doesn’t sound quite so good in a story...and I say ‘beautiful’ but actually I should have said scary). Anyway.

Everyone was chattering constantly about the wedding (which I thought a bit odd, as there was no football involved in it) and what they were going to wear and how they were going to get lovely shoes to match their wonderful dresses.

And then the day dawned! Heart rates rose. Romance was in the air. But first, for some at least, there was work to be done. And so it came to pass that, on the very day of the joining together of the beautiful princess and her handsome (but scared) groom in holy matrimony, into the surgery burst a distraught lady with her near moribund dog.

He was in a bad way; collapsed, panting ferociously and burning hot to touch. His story was a classic, always easy to prevent with the benefit of hindsight, always, to some extent, there but for the grace of God.

A car carefully parked in the shade. A simple errand to return an unwanted item to a shop. A queue that was much longer and slower than anticipated. The decision to wait it out and then the awful realisation that, of course, the sun moves and what was once in the shade…

Heatstroke requires all hands to be on deck and on top form. A nurse soaks the neck and shoulders, another fetches oxygen. A vet administers cold water enemas and another nurse, the hero of our story (and a bridesmaid to the beautiful princess), gets to work spraying the patient’s feet with spirit to increase evaporative heat loss. All well and good and our dog survives to create a happy ending.

But wait! There is more! One contraindication for surgical spirit is fake tan! It doesn’t actually tell you on the bottle but it should have a clear warning IN CAPITAL LETTERS saying, ‘If you are going to be a bridesmaid at the wedding of the beautiful princess and have had special fake tan done on your legs, do not inadvertently spray them with surgical spirit, as your fake tan will run into funny brown and white streaks that will make your legs look like a granny wearing old wrinkled tights”.

I told you it was a good story…