James Herriot's Dog Stories Read online

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘Is she inclined to eat rubbish when she’s out?’

  Mrs Flaxton shook her head. ‘No, not as a rule. But I suppose even the nicest dog will have a nibble at a dead bird or something horrid like that now and then.’ She laughed and Penny laughed back at her.

  ‘Well, she has a slightly raised temperature but she seems bright enough.’ I put my hand round the dog’s middle. ‘Let’s have a feel at your tummy, Penny.’

  The little animal winced as I gently palpated the abdomen, and there was a tenderness throughout the stomach and intestines.

  ‘She has gastroenteritis,’ I said. ‘But it seems fairly mild and I think it should clear up quite soon. I’ll give you some medicine for her and you’d better keep her on a light diet for a few days.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that. Thank you very much.’ Mrs Flaxton’s smile deepened as she patted her dog’s head. She was about twenty-three and she and her young husband had only recently come to Darrowby. He was a representative of one of the big agricultural firms which supplied meal and cattle cake to the farms and I saw him occasionally on my rounds. Like his wife, and indeed his dog, he gave off an ambience of eager friendliness.

  I sent Mrs Flaxton off with a bottle of bismuth, kaolin and chlorodyne mixture which was one of our cherished treatments. The little dog trotted down the surgery steps, tail wagging, and I really didn’t expect any more trouble.

  Three days later, however, Penny was in the surgery again. She was still vomiting and the diarrhoea had not taken up in the least.

  I got the dog on the table again and carried out a further examination, but there was nothing significant to see. She had now had five days of this weakening condition but though she had lost a bit of her perkiness she still looked remarkably bright. The Toy Poodle is small but tough and very game, and this one wasn’t going to let anything get her down easily.

  But I still didn’t like it. She couldn’t go on like this. I decided to alter the treatment to a mixture of carbon and astringents which had served me well in the past.

  ‘This stuff looks a bit messy,’ I said, as I gave Mrs Flaxton a powder box full of the black granules, ‘but I have had good results with it. She’s still eating, isn’t she, so I should mix it in her food.’

  ‘Oh thank you.’ She gave me one of her marvellous smiles as she put the box in her bag and I walked along the passage with her to the door. She had left her pram at the foot of the steps and I knew before I looked under the hood what kind of baby I would find. Sure enough the chubby face on the pillow gazed at me with round friendly eyes and then split into a delighted grin.

  They were the kind of people I liked to see, but as they moved off down the street I hoped for Penny’s sake that I wouldn’t be seeing them for a long time. However, it was not to be. A couple of days later they were back, and this time the Poodle was showing signs of strain. As I examined her she stood motionless and dead-eyed with only the occasional twitch of her tail as I stroked her head and spoke to her.

  ‘I’m afraid she’s just the same, Mr Herriot,’ her mistress said. ‘She’s not eating much now and whatever she does goes straight through her. And she has a terrific thirst – always at her water bowl and then she brings it back.’

  I nodded. ‘I know. This inflammation inside her gives her a raging desire for water and of course the more she drinks the more she vomits. And this is terribly weakening.’

  Again I changed the treatment. In fact over the next few days I ran through just about the entire range of available drugs. I look back with a wry smile at the things I gave that little dog, powdered epicacuanha and opium, sodium salicylate and tincture of camphor, even way-out exotics like decoction of haematoxylin and infusion of caryophyllum which, thank heavens, have been long forgotten. I might have done a bit of good if I had had access to a gut-active antibiotic like neomycin, but as it was I got nowhere.

  I was visiting Penny daily as she was unfit to bring to the surgery. I had her on a diet of arrowroot and boiled milk but that, like my medical treatment, achieved nothing. And all the time the little dog was slipping away.

  The climax came about three o’clock one morning. As I lifted the bedside phone Mr Flaxton’s voice, with a tremor in it, came over the line.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry to get you out of your bed at this hour, Mr Herriot, but I wish you’d come round to see Penny.’

  ‘Why, is she worse?’

  ‘Yes, and she’s . . . well . . . she’s suffering now, I’m afraid. You saw her this afternoon didn’t you? Well since then she’s been drinking and vomiting and this diarrhoea running away from her all the time till she’s about at the far end. She’s just lying in her basket crying. I’m sure she’s in great pain.’

  ‘Right, I’ll be there in a few minutes.’

  ‘Oh thank you.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And Mr Herriot . . . you’ll come prepared to put her down won’t you?’

  My spirits, never very high at that time in the morning, plummeted to the depths. ‘As bad as that, is it?’

  ‘Well honestly we can’t bear to see her. My wife is so upset . . . I don’t think she can stand any more.’

  ‘I see.’ I hung up the phone and threw the bedclothes back with a violence which brought Helen wide awake. Being disturbed in the small hours was one of the crosses a vet’s wife has to bear, but normally I crept out as quietly as I could. This time, however, I stamped about the bedroom, dragging on my clothes and muttering to myself; and though she must have wondered what this latest crisis meant she wisely watched me in silence until I turned out the light and left.

  I had not far to go. The Flaxtons lived in one of the new bungalows on the Brawton Road, less than a mile away. The young couple, in their dressing gowns, led me into the kitchen, and before I reached the dog basket in the corner I could hear Penny’s whimperings. She was not lying comfortably curled up, but on her chest, head forward, obviously acutely distressed. I put my hands under her and lifted her and she was almost weightless. A Toy Poodle in its prime is fairly insubstantial, but after her long illness Penny was like a bedraggled little piece of thistledown, her curly brown coat wet and soiled by vomit and diarrhoea.

  Mrs Flaxton’s smile for once was absent. I could see she was keeping back the tears as she spoke.

  ‘It really would be the kindest thing . . .’

  ‘Yes . . . yes . . .’ I replaced the tiny animal in her basket and crouched over her, chin in hand. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’

  But still I didn’t move but stayed, squatting there, staring down in disbelief at the evidence of my failure. This dog was only two years old – a lifetime of running and jumping and barking in front of her; all she was suffering from was gastroenteritis and now I was going to extinguish the final spark in her. It was a bitter thought that this would be just about the only positive thing I had done right from the start.

  A weariness swept over me that was not just due to the fact that I had been snatched from sleep. I got to my feet with the slow stiff movements of an old man and was about to turn away when I noticed something about the little animal. She was on her chest again, head extended, mouth open, tongue lolling as she panted. There was something there I had seen before somewhere . . . that posture . . . and the exhaustion, pain and shock . . . it slid almost imperceptibly into my sleepy brain that she looked exactly like Mr Kitson’s ewe in its dark corner. A different species, yes, but all the other things were there.

  ‘Mrs Flaxton,’ I said, ‘I want to put Penny to sleep. Not the way you think, but to anaesthetise her. Maybe if she has a rest from this non-stop drinking and vomiting and straining it will give nature a chance.’

  The young couple looked at me doubtfully for a few moments, then it was the husband who spoke.

  ‘Don’t you think she has been through enough, Mr Herriot?’

  ‘She has, yes she has.’ I ran a hand through my rumpled uncombed hair. ‘But this won’t cause her any more distress. She won’t k