This is Nico

Golden Retrievers have arthritic joints particularly often. So over the years, for Nico several gold implantations became necessary in various joints. All of them went without complication. He is running carefree and enjoying life. This is “his thank-you letter” to the attending vet Ralf Schweda:

Hello Doc!

A promise is a promise! Even though I wasn’t so enthusiastic about you at first, because you just forced me into checkmate by giving me an anaesthetics to gild my two hind legs without so much as a ‘by your leave’. But when I awoke from the anaesthetics and suddenly noticed that I was able to run about without pain again, I was happy and made it up with you.

So, as I promised, I wanted to tell you how I have been since then. My mistress and I are completely enthusiastic because I can run again as I used to. I have just become five dog years old or 37 human years old, so I’m in the doggy prime of my life. Sometimes I can even run almost as fast as a hare, if only he wouldn’t run in such zigzags ...! And the squirrels that I’m so keen on and that always give me a real kick are damned smart too: Whenever I think I could catch them, hey presto, they’ve disappeared up the next tree. And what is my mistress doing? No, she doesn’t wait for me when I have to bark loudly after the squirrels. On the contrary, she just keeps on cycling and doesn’t take any notice of me. So sometimes I really have to step on it to catch up with her. In the mornings she cycles with me one or one and a half hours through woods and fields, and then again one or one and a half hours in the afternoon: quite a stint isn’t it? But I can keep up quite well, after all I am gilt. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

In Denmark there really are doctors who practise gold therapy on the two-legged too. So we four-legged creatures are actually better off than you two-legged ones, it’s a real shame!

So doc, mistress is quite happy, I’m happy, and of course I don’t know how many others of the same species you have made happy by letting them run again without pain, but it must be quite a number. So in return a hearty thanks-wuff-wuff. And if I should ever be passing again, I’ll give you my paw to shake ... that’s perhaps saying more than mistress can say in words! Another cordial wuff-wuff from

NICO and his mistress

You’ll hardly believe it: But now I’m really a true Golden Retriever!