James Herriot's Dog Stories Read online

  ‘Let him lie there a minute, Roddy,’ I said. ‘And tell me exactly what you’ve seen.’

  He rubbed his palms together and his fingers trembled. ‘Well it only started this afternoon. He was right as rain, larkin’ about on the grass, then he went into a sort o’fit.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Just kind of seized up and toppled over on ’is side. He lay there for a bit, gaspin’ and slaverin’. Ah’ll tell ye, I thought he was a goner.’ His eyes widened and a corner of his mouth twitched at the memory.

  ‘How long did that last?’

  ‘Nobbut a few seconds. Then he got up and you’d say there was nowt wrong with ’im.’

  ‘But he did it again?’

  ‘Aye, time and time again. Drove me near daft. But in between ’e was normal. Normal, Mr Herriot!’

  It sounded ominously like the onset of epilepsy. ‘How old is he?’ I asked.

  ‘Five gone last February.’

  Ah well, it was a bit old for that. I reached for a stethoscope and auscultated the heart. I listened intently but heard only the racing beat of a frightened animal. There was no abnormality. My thermometer showed no rise in temperature.

  ‘Let’s have him on the table, Roddy. You take the back end.’

  The big animal was limp in our arms as we hoisted him on to the smooth surface, but after lying there for a moment he looked timidly around him then sat up with a slow and careful movement. As we watched he reached out and licked his master’s face while his tail flickered between his legs.

  ‘Look at that!’ the man exclaimed. ‘He’s all right again. You’d think he didn’t ail a thing.’

  And indeed Jake was recovering his confidence rapidly. He peered tentatively at the floor a few times then suddenly jumped down, trotted to his master and put his paws against his chest.

  I looked at the dog standing there, tail wagging furiously. ‘Well, that’s a relief, anyway. I didn’t like the look of him just then, but whatever’s been troubling him seems to have righted itself. I’ll . . .’

  My happy flow was cut off. I stared at the Lurcher. His fore legs were on the floor again and his mouth was gaping as he fought for breath. Frantically he gasped and retched then he blundered across the floor, collided with the pram wheels and fell on his side.

  ‘What the hell . . . ! Quick, get him up again!’ I grabbed the animal round the middle and we lifted him back on to the table.

  I watched in disbelief as the huge form lay there. There was no fight for breath now – he wasn’t breathing at all, he was unconscious. I pushed my fingers inside his thigh and felt the pulse. It was still going, rapid and feeble, but yet he didn’t breathe.

  He could die any moment and I stood there helpless, all my scientific training useless. Finally my frustration burst from me and I struck the dog on the ribs with the flat of my hand.

  ‘Jake!’ I yelled. ‘Jake, what’s the matter with you?’

  As though in reply, the Lurcher immediately started to take great wheezing breaths, his eyelids twitched back to consciousness and he began to look about him. But he was still mortally afraid and he lay prone as I gently stroked his head.

  There was a long silence while the animal’s terror slowly subsided, then he sat up on the table and regarded us placidly.

  ‘There you are,’ Roddy said softly. ‘Same thing again. Ah can’t reckon it up and ah thought ah knew summat about dogs.’

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t reckon it up either, and I was supposed to be a veterinary surgeon.

  I spoke at last. ‘Roddy, that wasn’t a fit. He was choking. Something was interfering with his air flow.’ I took my hand torch from my breast pocket. ‘I’m going to have a look at his throat.’

  I pushed Jake’s jaws apart, depressed his tongue with a forefinger and shone the light into the depths. He was the kind of good-natured dog who offered no resistance as I prodded around, but despite my floodlit view of the pharynx I could find nothing wrong. I had been hoping desperately to come across a bit of bone stuck there somewhere but I ranged feverishly over pink tongue, healthy tonsils and gleaming molars without success. Everything looked perfect.

  I was tilting his head a little further when I felt him stiffen and heard Roddy’s cry.

  ‘He’s goin’ again!’

  And he was, too. I stared in horror as the brindled body slid away from me and lay prostrate once more on the table. And again the mouth strained wide and froth bubbled round the lips. As before, the breathing had stopped and the rib cage was motionless. As the seconds ticked away I beat on the chest with my hand but it didn’t work this time. I pulled the lower eyelid down from the staring orb – the conjunctiva was blue, Jake hadn’t long to live. The tragedy of the thing bore down on me. This wasn’t just a dog, he was this man’s family and I was watching him die.

  It was at that moment that I heard the faint sound. It was a strangled cough which barely stirred the dog’s lips.

  ‘Damn it!’ I shouted. ‘He is choking. There must be something down there.’

  Again I seized the head and pushed my torch into the mouth and I shall always be thankful that at that very instant the dog coughed again, opening the cartilages of the larynx and giving me a glimpse of the cause of all the trouble. There, beyond the drooping epiglottis, I saw for a fleeting moment a smooth round object no bigger than a pea.

  ‘I think it’s a pebble,’ I gasped. ‘Right inside his larynx.’

  ‘You mean, in ’is Adam’s apple?’

  ‘That’s right, and it’s acting like a ball valve, blocking his windpipe every now and then.’ I shook the dog’s head. ‘You see, look, I’ve dislodged it for the moment. He’s coming round again.’

  Once more Jake was reviving and breathing steadily.

  Roddy ran his hand over the head, along the back and down the great muscles of the hind limbs. ‘But . . . but. . . it’ll happen again, won’t it?’

  I nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘And one of these times it isn’t goin’ to shift and that’ll be the end of ’im?’ He had gone very pale.

  ‘That’s about it, Roddy. I’ll have to get that pebble out.’

  ‘But how . . . ?’

  ‘Cut into the larynx. And right now – it’s the only way.’

  ‘All right.’ He swallowed. ‘Let’s get on. I don’t think ah could stand it if he went down again.’

  I knew what he meant. My knees had begun to shake, and I had a strong conviction that if Jake collapsed once more then so would I.

  I seized a pair of scissors and clipped away the hair from the ventral surface of the larynx. I dared not use a general anaesthetic and infiltrated the area with local before swabbing with antiseptic. Mercifully there was a freshly boiled set of instruments lying in the steriliser and I lifted out the tray and set it on the trolley by the side of the table.

  ‘Hold his head steady,’ I said hoarsely, and gripped a scalpel.

  I cut down through skin, fascia and the thin layers of the sterno-hyoid and omo-hyoid muscles till the ventral surface of the larynx was revealed. This was something I had never done to a live dog before, but desperation abolished any hesitancy and it took me only another few seconds to incise the thin membrane and peer into the interior.

  And there it was. A pebble right enough – grey and glistening and tiny, but big enough to kill.

  I had to fish it out quickly and cleanly without pushing it into the trachea. I leaned back and rummaged in the tray till I found some broad-bladed forceps, then I poised them over the wound. Great surgeons’ hands, I felt sure, didn’t shake like this, nor did such men pant as I was doing. But I clenched my teeth, introduced the forceps, and my hand magically steadied as I clamped them over the pebble.

  I stopped panting, too. In fact I didn’t breathe at all as I bore the shining little object slowly and tenderly through the opening and dropped it with a gentle rat-tat on the table.

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Roddy, almost in a whisper.