James Herriot's Dog Stories Read online

  There you are, then, funny fellow,’ she said to the dog.

  I laughed. ‘Has he ever barked since that day?’

  Mrs Wilkin shook her head. ‘No, he hasn’t, not a sound. I waited a long time but I know he’s not going to do it now.’

  ‘Ah well, it’s not important. But still, I’ll never forget that afternoon at the trial,’ I said.

  ‘Nor will I!’ She looked at Gyp again and her eyes softened in reminiscence. ‘Poor old lad, eight years old and only one woof!’

  One of those quirks of animal behaviour which are delightful but inexplicable. I will never know how it happened, and if I had not witnessed the whole thing I would have found it difficult to believe. Many children write to me about my books and this story is one which particularly seemed to capture their imagination. As a result, it has been specially adapted for my young readers and illustrated by Peter Barrett. This story of a dog who gave one single bark throughout his long life just had to be called Only One Woof. It was published last September.

  20. The Dimmocks

  A full surgery! But the ripple of satisfaction as I surveyed the packed rows of heads waned quickly as realisation dawned. It was only the Dimmocks again.

  I first encountered the Dimmocks one evening when I had a call to a dog which had been knocked down by a car. The address was down in the old part of the town and I was cruising slowly along the row of decaying cottages looking for the number when a door burst open and three shock-headed little children ran into the street and waved me down frantically.

  ‘He’s in ’ere, Mister!’ they gasped in unison as I got out, and then began immediately to put me in the picture.

  ‘It’s Bonzo!’ ‘Aye, a car’ it ’im!’ ‘We ’ad to carry ’im in, Mister!’ They all got their words in as I opened the garden gate and struggled up the path with the three of them hanging on to my arms and tugging at my coat; and en route I gazed in wonder at the window of the house where a mass of other young faces mouthed at me and a tangle of arms gesticulated.

  Once through the door which opened directly into the living-room I was swamped by a rush of bodies and borne over to the corner where I saw my patient.

  Bonzo was sitting upright on a ragged blanket. He was a large shaggy animal of indeterminate breed and though at a glance there didn’t seem to be much ailing him he wore a pathetic expression of self-pity. Since everybody was talking at once I decided to ignore them and carry out my examination. I worked my way over legs, pelvis, ribs and spine; no fractures. His mucous membranes were a good colour, there was no evidence of internal injury. In fact the only thing I could find was slight bruising over the left shoulder. Bonzo had sat like a statue as I felt over him, but as I finished he toppled over on to his side and lay looking up at me apologetically, his tail thumping on the blanket.

  ‘You’re a big soft dog, that’s what you are,’ I said and the tail thumped faster.

  I turned and viewed the throng and after a moment or two managed to pick out the parents. Mum was fighting her way to the front while at the rear, Dad, a diminutive figure, was beaming at me over the heads. I did a bit of shushing and when the babel died down I addressed myself to Mrs Dimmock.

  ‘I think he’s been lucky,’ I said. ‘I can’t find any serious injury. I think the car must have bowled him over and knocked the wind out of him for a minute, or he may have been suffering from shock.’

  The uproar broke out again. ‘Will ’e die, Mister?’ ‘What’s the matter with ’im?’ ‘What are you going to do?’

  I gave Bonzo an injection of a mild sedative while he lay rigid, a picture of canine suffering, with the tousled heads looking down at him with deep concern and innumerable little hands poking out and caressing him.

  Mrs Dimmock produced a basin of hot water and while I washed my hands I was able to make a rough assessment of the household. I counted eleven little Dimmocks from a boy in his early teens down to a grubby-faced infant crawling around the floor; and judging by the significant bulge in Mum’s midriff the number was soon to be augmented. They were clad in a motley selection of hand-me downs, darned pullovers, patched trousers, tattered dresses, yet the general atmosphere in the house was of unconfined joie de vivre.

  Bonzo wasn’t the only animal and I stared in disbelief as another biggish dog and a cat with two half-grown kittens appeared from among the crowding legs and feet. I would have thought that the problem of filling the human mouths would have been difficult enough without importing several animals.

  But the Dimmocks didn’t worry about such things; they did what they wanted to do, and they got by. Dad, I learned later, had never done any work within living memory. He had a ‘bad back’ and lived what seemed to me a reasonably gracious life, roaming interestedly around the town by day and enjoying a quiet beer and a game of dominoes in a corner of the Four Horse Shoes by night.

  I saw him quite often; he was easy to pick out because he invariably carried a walking stick which gave him an air of dignity and he always walked briskly and purposefully as though he were going somewhere important.

  I took a final look at Bonzo, still stretched on the blanket, looking up at me with soulful eyes, then I struggled towards the door.

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,’ I shouted above the chattering which had speedily broken out again, ‘but I’ll look in tomorrow and make sure.’

  When I drew up outside the house next morning I could see Bonzo lolloping around the garden with several of the children. They were passing a ball from one to the other and he was leaping ecstatically high in the air to try to intercept it.

  He was clearly none the worse for his accident but when he saw me opening the gate his tail went down and he dropped almost to his knees and slunk into the house. The children received me rapturously.

  ‘You’ve made ’im better, Mister!’ ‘He’s all right now, isn’t he?’ ‘He’s ’ad a right big breakfast this mornin’, Mister!’

  I went inside with little hands clutching at my coat. Bonzo was sitting bolt upright on his blanket in the same attitude as the previous evening, but as I approached he slowly collapsed on to his side and lay looking up at me with a martyred expression.

  I laughed as I knelt by him. ‘You’re the original old soldier, Bonzo, but you can’t fool me. I saw you out there.’

  I gently touched the bruised shoulder and the big dog tremblingly closed his eyes as he resigned himself to his fate. Then when I stood up and he realised he wasn’t going to have another injection he leaped to his feet and bounded away into the garden.

  There was a chorus of delighted cries from the Dimmocks and they turned and looked at me with undisguised admiration. Clearly they considered that I had plucked Bonzo from the jaws of death. Mr Dimmock stepped forward from the mass.

  ‘You’ll send me a bill, won’t you?’ he said, with the dignity that was peculiar to him.

  My first glance last night had decided me that this was a no-charging job and I hadn’t even written it in the book, but I nodded solemnly.

  ‘Very well, Mr Dimmock, I’ll do that.’

  And throughout our long association, though no money ever changed hands, he always said the same thing – ‘You’ll send me a bill, won’t you?’

  This was the beginning of my close relationship with the Dimmocks. Obviously they had taken a fancy to me and wanted to see as much as possible of me. Over the succeeding weeks and months they brought in a varied selection of dogs, cats, budgies, rabbits at frequent intervals, and when they found that my services were free they stepped up the number of visits; and when one came they all came. I was anxiously trying to expand the small animal side of the practice and increasingly my hopes were raised momentarily then dashed when I opened the door and saw a packed waiting-room.

  And it increased the congestion when they started bringing their auntie, Mrs Pounder, from down the road with them to see what a nice chap I was. Mrs Pounder, a fat lady who always wore a greasy velour hat perched on an untidy mound