James Herriot's Dog Stories Read online

  To my youngest grandchild

  Katrina, with love

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Tricki Woo

  2. Tristan’s Vigil

  3. A Triumph of Surgery

  4. Have a Cigar

  5. Maternal Instincts

  6. Dan – and Helen

  7. Tip

  8. The Card over the Bed

  9. Clancy

  10. Mrs Donovan

  11. The Darrowby Show

  12. A Momentous Birth

  13. Jock

  14. Sexual Harassment

  15. Granville Bennett

  16. Abandoned

  17. Penny

  18. Cindy

  19. Only One Woof

  20. The Dimmocks

  21. Magnus and Company

  22. Last Visit

  23. Cedric

  24. Wes

  25. The Bandaged Finger

  26. Shep’s Hobby

  27. Mick

  28. Strychnine

  29. Locum

  30. Kim

  31. The Flapping Track and Success Against the Odds

  32. Mr Pinkerton’s Problem

  33. Kind Hearts and Country Vets

  34. Jingo and Skipper

  35. Seth Pilling and His Little Knowledge

  36. The Stray

  37. The Stolen Car

  38. Theo the ‘Pub Terrier’

  39. Digger

  40. The Great Escape

  41. Roddy Travers and Jake

  42. Nip and Sam

  43. Judy the Nurse Dog

  44. Myrtle

  45. Venus

  46. Amber

  47. Counting Blessings

  48. Rip

  49. Ruffles and Muffles

  50. The Dustbin Dog

  Introduction

  As I look through the pages of this book I have the impression of a wheel turning full circle. As a child, I was fascinated by dogs and had a burning ambition to be a dog doctor, then I spent a lifetime treating the ailments of cows, horses, sheep and pigs, yet here I am, in my twilight years, bringing out a volume of my dog stories. I feel that an explanation rather than an introduction is necessary.

  The story is quite a simple one. My boyhood in Glasgow was very much involved with dogs – my own and other people’s. Living in the extreme west where the city sprawl thinned out into the countryside, I could look from my windows on to the Kilpatrick Hills and Campsie Fells in the north and over the Clyde to Neilston Pad and the hills beyond Barrhead to the south. Those green hills beckoned to me and though they were far away I walked to them. Through the last straggle of houses to the summits from which I could see the lochs and mountains of Argyll. Immense distances they seem to me now when I look back – often over thirty miles in a day – and Don was always with me. He was an Irish Setter, lean, glossy and beautiful, and he shared my joy in the countryside.

  Usually my school friends came with me and on those long sunny days much of the pleasure came from watching our dogs enjoying themselves and playing together. And even at that early age, I was intrigued by the character and behaviour of these animals. I could never quite take dogs for granted. Why were they so devoted to the human race? Why should they delight in our company and welcome us home in transports of joy? Why should their greatest pleasure lie in being with us in our homes and wherever we were? They were just animals after all and it seemed to me that their main preoccupation ought to be in seeking food and protection; instead they dispensed a flow of affection and loyalty which appeared to be limitless.

  And another thing. There were so many different shapes, sizes and colours, yet they all had the same fundamental characteristics. Why, why?

  I consulted my favourite reference book, Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedia, and I wasn’t surprised to learn that dogs had been cherished friends of man for thousands of years. The Egyptians loved them and it is probable that they were a happy part of family life in Stone Age caves. I noted, too, that they were thought to be descended from wolves or jackals. All this was interesting but it did not fully explain their appeal and I still marvelled. Behind it all was a vague desire to be always with dogs, to spend my life working with them if possible, but I could never see just how I was going to manage it.

  It was when I saw the article in the Meccano Magazine that everything began to crystallise out. VETERINARY SURGERY AS A CAREER. As a vet, I could be with dogs all the time, attending to them, curing their illnesses, saving their lives. It made my head swim.

  I was still trying to come to terms with this totally new conception when old Dr Whitehouse, the Principal of the Glasgow Veterinary College, came to my school to talk to us. It must be heartbreaking to the hundreds of young people who now are struggling in vain to gain entry to a veterinary school to know that in those days these institutions were going round begging the boys and girls to come to them. The reasons were simple. In 1930, the country was in the grip of a terrible economic depression, people could not afford to keep pets on anything like the present day scale and, perhaps most important of all, the draught horse, once the glory and mainstay of the veterinary profession, was rapidly disappearing from the streets and fields. Nobody wanted vets.

  Dr Whitehouse, however, refused to accept that the profession was in its death throes. He told us that if we became veterinary surgeons we would never be rich, but we would have a life of infinite variety, fulfilling in many different ways.

  I was hooked. I knew now exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but the obstacles seemed enormous. This was a scientific profession and I was certainly not a scientific type. The things I was good at in school were English and languages and I had already split off from the pupils who were doing such things as physics and chemistry. And I was nearly fourteen years old – in about eighteen months I would be taking my ‘highers’, which were the A-level examinations in Scotland. It was too late to change now.

  There was only one thing to do. I went up to the College to talk to Dr Whitehouse. He was a wonderful old man, a strong, benign personality with a gentle sense of humour. He listened patiently as I poured out my problems.

  ‘I love dogs,’ I told him. ‘I want to work with them. I want to be a vet. But the subjects I am taking at school are English, French and Latin. No science at all. Can I get into the college?’

  He smiled. ‘Of course you can. If you get two highers and two lowers you have the matriculation standard. It doesn’t matter what the subjects are. You can do physics, chemistry and biology in your first year.’

  This again must seem incredible to modern students, but it was a lifeline to me. ‘Oh, I’m pretty sure I can get three highers.’

  That’s fine, then,’ he said. ‘You’ve nothing to worry about.’

  I hesitated: ‘I’ll have to try hard to get lower maths. I’m terrible at maths – will I need them to be a vet?’

  His smile widened ‘Only to add up your day’s takings,’ he replied.

  That was it, then. My goal was fixed and clearly in front of me. I worked hard in my fourth and fifth year and it is wryly amusing to me now to think of the hours I spent boning up on those apparently useless subjects. Particularly Latin. I loved Latin and most nights I sat poring happily over Virgil, Ovid and Cicero. Towards the end, I think I could have carried on an intelligent conversation with an Ancient Roman, but the thought kept obtruding – what possible use is all this going to be to me as a veterinary student? Some people were encouraging. ‘Oh, it will help you to understand a lot of the medical terms,’ they said.

  I believe it did, but I’d have been a lot better learning about biology.

  As I hoped, I got my three highers and actually managed lower maths. I am suc