The Lord God Made Them All Read online

  “Mousy smell? And is it there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Mange.”

  “Oh, dear.” The nurse put a hand to her mouth. “That’s rather nasty, isn’t it.” Then she put her shoulders back in a characteristic gesture. “Well, I’ve had experience of mange before, and I can tackle it. I’ve always been able to clear it up with sulphur baths, but there’s such a danger of infection to the other dogs. It really is a worry.”

  I put Amber down and stood up, feeling suddenly weary. “Yes, but you’re thinking of sarcoptic mange, Sister. I’m afraid this is something rather worse.”

  “Worse? In what way?”

  “Well, the whole look of the thing suggests demodectic mange.”

  She nodded. “I’ve heard of that—and it’s more serious?”

  “Yes … .” I might as well bite the bullet. “Very often incurable.”

  “Goodness me, I had no idea. She wasn’t scratching much, so I didn’t worry.”

  “Yes, that’s just it,” I said wryly. “Dogs scratch almost nonstop with sarcoptic mange and we can cure it, but they often show only mild discomfort with demodectic, which usually defeats us.”

  The spectre was very large in my mind now, and I use the word literally because this skin disease had haunted me ever since I had qualified. I had seen many fine dogs put to sleep after the most prolonged attempts to treat them.

  I lifted the microscope from the back of the car. “Anyway, I may be jumping the gun. I hope I am. This is the only way to find out.”

  There was a patch on Amber’s left foreleg which I squeezed and scraped with a scalpel blade. I deposited the debris and serum on a glass slide, added a few drops of potassium hydroxide and put a cover-slip on top.

  Sister Rose gave me a cup of coffee while I waited, then I rigged up the microscope in the light from the kitchen window and looked down the eyepiece. And there it was. My stomach tightened as I saw what I didn’t want to see—the dread mite, demodex canis; the head, the thorax with its eight stumpy legs and the long, cigar-shaped body. And there wasn’t just one. The whole microscopic field was teeming with them.

  “Ah, well, that’s it, Sister,” I said. “There’s no doubt about it. I’m very sorry.”

  The corners of her mouth drooped. “But … isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “Oh, yes, we can try. And we’re going to try like anything because I’ve taken a fancy to Amber. Don’t worry too much. I’ve cured a few demodex cases in my time, always by using the same stuff.” I went to the car and fished around in the boot. “Here it is—Odylen.” I held up the can in front of her. “I’ll show you how to apply it.”

  It was difficult to rub the lotion into the affected patches as Amber wagged and licked, but I finished at last.

  “Now do that every day,” I said, “and let me know in about a week. Sometimes that Odylen really does work.”

  Sister Rose stuck out her jaw with the determination that had saved so many animals. “I assure you I’ll do it most carefully. I’m sure we can succeed. It doesn’t look so bad.”

  I didn’t say anything, and she went on. “But how about my other dogs? Won’t they become infected?”

  I shook my head. “Another odd thing about demodex. It very rarely spreads to another animal. It is nothing like as contagious as the sarcops, so you have very little cause for worry in that way.”

  “That’s something, anyway. But how on earth does a dog get the disease in the first place?”

  “Mysterious again,” I said. “The veterinary profession is pretty well convinced that all dogs have a certain number of demodex mites in their skins, but why they should cause mange in some and not in others has never been explained. Heredity has got something to do with it because it sometimes occurs in several dogs in the same litter. But it’s a baffling business.”

  I left Sister Rose with her can of Odylen. Maybe this would be one of the exceptions to my experiences with this condition. I had to hope so.

  I heard from the nurse within a week. She had been applying the Odylen religiously but the disease was spreading further up the legs.

  I hurried out there, and my fears were confirmed when I saw Amber’s face. It was disfigured by the increasing hairlessness, and when I thought of the beauty that had captivated me on my first visit, the sight was like a blow. Her tail-wagging cheerfulness was undiminished, and that seemed to make the whole thing worse.

  I had to try something else, and in view of the fact that a secondary subcutaneous invasion of staphylococci was an impediment to recovery, I gave the dog an injection of staph toxoid. I also started her on a course of Fowler’s solution of arsenic, which at that time was popular in the treatment of skin conditions.

  When ten days passed I had begun to hope, and it was a bitter disappointment when Sister Rose telephoned just after breakfast.

  Her voice trembled as she spoke. “Mr. Herriot, she really is deteriorating all the time. Nothing seems to do any good. I’m beginning to think that …”

  I cut her off in mid-sentence. “All right, I’ll be out there within an hour. Don’t give up hope yet. These cases sometimes take months to recover.”

  I knew as I drove to the sanctuary that my words were only meant to comfort. They had no real substance. But I had tried to say something helpful because there was nothing Sister Rose hated more than putting a dog to sleep. Of all the hundreds of animals that had passed through her hands, I could remember only a handful that had defeated her. Very old dogs, in a hopeless plight with chronic kidney or heart conditions, or young ones with distemper. With all the others she had battled until they were fit to go to their new homes. And it wasn’t only Sister Rose—I myself recoiled from the idea of doing such a thing to Amber. Something about that dog had taken hold of me.

  When I arrived I still had no idea what I was going to do, and when I spoke I was half-surprised at the things I said.

  “Sister, I’ve come to take Amber home with me. I’ll be able to treat her myself every day, then. You’ve got enough to do, looking after your other dogs. I know you have done everything possible, but I’m going to take on this job myself.”

  “But … you are a busy man. How will you find the time?”

  “I can treat her in the evenings and any other spare moments. This way I’ll be able to check on her progress all the time. I’m determined to get her right.”

  And, driving back to the surgery, I was surprised at the depth of my feeling. Throughout my career I have often had this compulsive desire to cure an animal, but never stronger than with Amber. The young bitch was delighted to be in the car with me. Like everything else, she seemed to regard this as just another game, and she capered around, licking my ear, resting her paws on the dash and peering through the windscreen. I looked at her happy face, scarred by the disease and smeared with Odylen, and thumped my hand on the wheel. Demodectic mange was hell, but this was one case that was going to get better.

  It was the beginning of a strangely vivid episode in my life, as fresh now as it was then, more than thirty years ago. We had no facilities for boarding dogs—very few vets had at that time—but I made up a comfortable billet for her in the old stable in the yard. I penned off one of the stalls with a sheet of plywood and put down a bed of straw. Despite its age, the stable was a substantial building and free from draughts. She would be snug in there.

  I made sure of one thing. I kept Helen out of the whole business. I remembered how stricken she had been when we adopted Oscar the cat and then lost him to his rightful owner, and I knew she would soon grow too fond of this dog. But I had forgotten about myself.

  Veterinary surgeons would never last in their profession if they became too involved with their patients because I knew from experience that most of my colleagues were just as sentimental over animals as the owners, but before I knew what was happening, I became involved with Amber.

  I fed her myself, changed her bedding and carried