So today we met the appointment for Jack and Jill to get their rabies vaccination. We have more or less decided that we will not return to the veterinary hospital which we had been using for the last twenty-two years. Not that they hadn't given us good service. Particularly at first, when there were just two vets, and they were brothers. Then the older one retired, surprisingly, since he wasn't all that old. And the  younger brother took over the business.

And it grew like Topsy. More veterinarians and technicians came aboard. They were operating out of a small converted bungalow on the corner of two local main streets, and their clinic became quite popular and their clientele grew in numbers. They decided to expand, and looked to buy the properties in either side of them to give them the opportunity to do just that. And eventually that's what happened, they bought the properties and on that expanded property built a bright and modern, large new facility.

Of course part of the facility became a pet shop. And the clinic acquired new high-tech diagnostic tools. And in came a few more veterinarians to work out of the expanded site, and more technicians as well as office staff. Every individual but perhaps one in that expanded professional workforce was cheerful and adept at what they did. Including selling the owners of pets on the need to consume ever more services.

In the pet store portion all the usual, popular dog food is sold, but not any of the type produced in Alberta that bills itself as biologically appropriate, and is quite a bit more expensive than the run-of-the-mill, containing prime ingredients specifically geared toward ensuring a dependent animal will eat nutritiously sound food. But the much smaller veterinarian service we visited today and which we may decide to use on a permanent basis, also has a store selling pet food, and it's clear that Royal Canin has locked up its popularity through a costly and clever public relations ploy to bring vets on board their bottom line.

In any event, the veterinarian we saw today, one of two at that clinic, is popular with his clients and trusted, a few of whom we had questioned about the quality of service. He seems a very nice person, and we had a casual chat about what we expected as clients, leaving him and us to weigh the results. Jack and Jill got their rabies shot, and we left for another destination, somewhat further afield, but still within the community; the sole pet shop that sells the Origen brand pet food that represents the pinnacle of food quality, to ensure good nutritional health for our two little dependents.