James Herriot's Dog Stories Read online

  What does a vet do in these circumstances? Refuse and send the owner away with the lurking knowledge that the man might go round to the chemist and buy a dose of poison? That was far worse than our humane, painless barbiturate. One thing a vet can’t do is take in all those animals himself. If I had given way to all my impulses I would have accumulated a positive menagerie by now.

  It was a hell of a problem which had always troubled me and now I had a soft-hearted wife which made the pull twice as strong.

  I turned to her now and voiced my thoughts.

  ‘Helen, we can’t keep him, you know. One dog in a bed-sitter is enough.’ I didn’t add that we ourselves probably would not be in the bed-sitter much longer; that was another thing I didn’t want to bring up.

  She nodded. ‘I suppose so. But I have the feeling that this is one of the sweetest little dogs I’ve seen for a long time. When he gets over his fear, I mean. What on earth can we do with him?’

  ‘Well, he’s a stray.’ I bent again and rubbed the rough hair over the chest. ‘So he should really go to the kennels at the police station. But if he isn’t claimed in ten days we are back where we started.’ I put my hand under the terrier’s body and lifted him, limp and unresisting, into the crook of my arm. He liked people, this one; liked and trusted them. ‘I could ask around the practice, of course, but nobody seems to want a dog when there’s one going spare.’ I thought for a moment or two. ‘Maybe an advert in the local paper.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Helen said. ‘Talking about the paper – didn’t I read something about an animal shelter last week?’

  I looked at her uncomprehendingly, then I remembered.

  ‘That’s right. Sister Rose from the Topley Banks hospital. They were interviewing her about the stray animals she had taken in. It would be worth a try.’ I replaced the terrier in Sam’s basket. ‘We’ll keep this little chap today and I’ll ring Sister Rose when I finish work tonight.’

  At teatime I could see that things were getting out of hand. When I came in the little dog was on Helen’s knee and it looked as though he had been there for a long time. She was stroking his head and looking definitely broody.

  Not only that, but as I looked down at him I could feel myself weakening. Little phrases were creeping unbidden into my mind . . . ‘I wonder if we could find room for him . . .’, ‘Not much extra trouble . . .’, ‘Perhaps if we . . .’

  I had to act quickly or I was sunk. Reaching for the phone I dialled the hospital number. They soon found Sister Rose and I listened to a cheerful, businesslike voice. She didn’t seem to find anything unusual in the situation and the matter-of-fact way she asked questions about the terrier’s age, appearance, temperament etc. gave the impression that she had seen a lot of unwanted animals through her hands.

  I could hear the firm pencilling sounds as she took notes then, ‘Well now that sounds fine. He’s the sort we can usually find a home for. When can you bring him along?’

  ‘Now,’ I replied.

  The misty look in Helen’s eyes as I marched out with the dog under my arm told me I was only just in time. And as I drove along the road I couldn’t put away the thought that if things had been different – the future settled and a proper home – this little brown creature rolling on his back on the passenger seat with his wide mouth half open and the friendly eyes fixed questioningly on mine would never have got away from me. Only when the occasional car flashed by did he spring upright and look from the window with the old despairing expression. Would he ever forget?

  Sister Louisa Rose was a rather handsome woman in her late forties with the sort of healthy smiling face I had imagined at the other end of the phone. She reached out and took the terrier from me with the eager gesture of the animal lover.

  ‘Oh, he looks rather a dear, doesn’t he?’ she murmured.

  Behind her house, a modern bungalow in the open country near the hospital, she led me to a row of kennels with outside runs. Some of them housed single dogs but there was one large one with an assortment of mixed breeds playing happily together on the grass.

  ‘I think we’ll put him in here,’ she said. ‘It’ll cheer him up quicker than anything and I’m sure he’ll mix in well.’ She opened a door in the wire netting surround and pushed the little animal in. The other dogs surrounded him and there was the usual ceremonious sniffing and leg-cocking.

  Sister Rose cupped her chin with her hand and looked down thoughtfully through the wire. ‘A name, we must have a name . . . let me see . . . no . . . no . . . yes . . . Pip! We’ll call him Pip!’

  She looked at me with raised eyebrows and I nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, definitely – just right. He looks like a Pip.’

  She smiled impishly. ‘I think so, too, but I’ve had a lot of practice, you know. I’ve become rather good at it.’

  ‘I’ll bet you have. I suppose you’ve named all this lot?’

  ‘Of course.’ She began to point them out one by one. ‘There’s Bingo – he was a badly neglected puppy. And Fergus – just lost. That bigger Retriever is Griff – he was the survivor of a car crash where his owners were killed. And Tessa, badly injured when she was thrown from a fast-moving vehicle. Behind her over there is Sally Anne who really started me in the business of Animal Sheltering. She was found heavily pregnant with her paws bleeding so she must have run for many miles. I took her in and managed to find homes for all her puppies and she’s still here. Placing those pups got me into contact with a lot of pet owners and before I knew what was happening everybody had the idea that I regularly took in stray animals. So I started and you can see the result. I shall have to expand these premises soon.’

  Pip didn’t look so lonely now and after the preliminary courtesies he joined a group watching interestedly a fierce tug-of-war on a stick between a Collie and a crossed Labrador.

  I laughed. ‘You know I had no idea you had all these dogs. How long do you keep them?’

  ‘Till I can find a home for them. Some are only here a day, others stay for weeks or months. And there are one or two like Sally Anne who seem to be permanent boarders now.’

  ‘But how on earth do you feed them all? It must be an expensive business.’

  She nodded and smiled. ‘Oh I run little dog shows, coffee mornings, raffles, jumble sales, anything, but whatever my efforts I’m afraid the strays keep munching their way into the red. But I manage.’

  She managed, I guessed, by dipping deeply into her own pocket. Around me the abandoned and rejected dogs barked and ran around happily. I had often thought when I encountered cruelty and neglect that there was a whole army of people who did these unspeakable things, a great unheeding horde who never spared a thought for the feelings of the helpless creatures who depended on them. It was frightening in a way, but thank heavens there was another army ranged on the other side, an army who fought for the animals with everything they had – with their energy, their time, their money.

  I looked at Sister Rose, at the steady eyes in the clear-skinned, scrubbed, nurse’s face. I would have thought her profession of dedication to the human race would have filled her life utterly with no room for anything else, but it was not so.

  ‘Well, I’m very grateful to you, Sister,’ I said. ‘I hope somebody will take Pip off your hands soon and if there’s anything else I can do, please let me know.’

  She smiled. ‘Oh don’t worry, I have a feeling this little chap won’t be here very long.’

  Before leaving I leaned on the wire and took another look at the Border Terrier. He seemed to be settling all right but every now and then he stopped and looked up at me with those questioning eyes which pulled so hard. I had the nasty feeling that I, too, was letting him down. His owners, then me, then Sister Rose, all in a couple of days . . . I hoped it would work out for him.

  I found it difficult to get that dog out of my mind and I lasted only a week before dropping in at the Animal Shelter. Sister Rose in an old mackintosh and wellingtons was filling the feeding bowls in one of the kennels.