James Herriot's Dog Stories Read online

  The old man looked bewildered and his lips trembled. ‘Then he’s going to die?’

  I swallowed hard. ‘We really can’t just leave him to die, can we? He’s in some distress now, but it will soon be an awful lot worse. Don’t you think it would be kindest to put him to sleep? After all, he’s had a good, long innings.’ I always aimed at a brisk, matter-of-fact approach, but the old cliches had an empty ring.

  The old man was silent, then he said, ‘Just a minute,’ and slowly and painfully knelt down by the side of the dog. He did not speak, but ran his hand again and again over the grey muzzle and the ears, while the tail thump, thump, thumped on the floor.

  He knelt there a long time while I stood in the cheerless room, my eyes taking in the faded pictures on the walls, the frayed, grimy curtains, the broken-springed armchair.

  At length the old man struggled to his feet and gulped once or twice. Without looking at me, he said huskily, ‘All right, will you do it now?’

  I filled the syringe and said the things I always said. ‘You needn’t worry, this is absolutely painless. Just an overdose of an anaesthetic. It is really an easy way out for the old fellow.’

  The dog did not move as the needle was inserted, and, as the barbiturate began to flow into the vein, the anxious expression left his face and the muscles began to relax. By the time the injection was finished, the breathing had stopped.

  ‘Is that it?’ the old man whispered.

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ I said. ‘He is out of his pain now.’

  The old man stood motionless except for the clasping and unclasping of his hands. When he turned to face me his eyes were bright. ‘That’s right, we couldn’t let him suffer, and I’m grateful for what you’ve done. And now, what do I owe you for your services, sir?’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, Mr Dean,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s nothing – nothing at all. I was passing right by here – it was no trouble.’

  The old man was astonished. ‘But you can’t do that for nothing.’

  ‘Now please say no more about it, Mr Dean. As I told you, I was passing right by your door.’ I said goodbye and went out of the house, through the passage and into the street. In the bustle of people and the bright sunshine, I could still see only the stark, little room, the old man and his dead dog.

  As I walked towards my car, I heard a shout behind me. The old man was shuffling excitedly towards me in his slippers. His cheeks were streaked and wet, but he was smiling. In his hand he held a small, brown object.

  ‘You’ve been very kind, sir. I’ve got something for you.’ He held out the object and I looked at it. It was tattered but just recognisable as a precious relic of a bygone celebration.

  ‘Go on, it’s for you,’ said the old man. ‘Have a cigar.’

  This incident, which happened so early in my veterinary career, haunted me for many weeks afterwards, and it still remains as one of my most vivid and poignant memories. Putting old people’s precious pets to sleep is sadly a common duty in veterinary practice, and the fact that it can be done humanely and peacefully with barbiturates makes it tolerable. But there was something about the Mr Dean episode that made it stand out, and I remember it as the very first time I said to myself, ‘If ever I write a book, I’ll put that in.’ Maybe it was that cigar . . .

  5. Maternal Instincts

  There didn’t seem much point in a millionaire filling up football pools coupons but it was one of the motive forces in old Harold Denham’s life. It made a tremendous bond between us because, despite his devotion to the pools, Harold knew nothing about football, had never seen a match and was unable to name a single player in league football; and when he found that I could discourse knowledgeably not only about Everton and Preston North End, but even about Arbroath and Cowdenbeath, the respect with which he had always treated me deepened into a wide-eyed deference.

  Of course we had first met over his animals. He had an assortment of dogs, cats, rabbits, budgies and goldfish which made me a frequent visitor to the dusty mansion whose Victorian turrets peeping above their sheltering woods could be seen for miles around Darrowby. When I first knew him, the circumstances of my visits were entirely normal – his Fox Terrier had cut its pad or the old grey tabby was having trouble with its sinusitis – but later on I began to wonder. He called me out so often on a Wednesday and the excuse was at times so trivial that I began seriously to suspect that there was nothing wrong with the animal but that Harold was in difficulties with his Nine Results or the Easy Six.

  I could never be quite sure, but it was funny how he always received me with the same words. ‘Ah, Mr Herriot, how are your pools?’ He used to say the word in a long-drawn, loving way – poools. This enquiry had been unvarying ever since I had won sixteen shillings one week on the Three Draws. I can never forget the awe with which he fingered the little slip from Littlewoods, looking unbelievingly from it to the postal order. That was the only time I was a winner but it made no difference – I was still the oracle, unchallenged, supreme. Harold never won anything, ever.

  The Denhams were a family of note in North Yorkshire. The immensely wealthy industrialists of the last century had become leaders in the world of agriculture. They were ‘gentlemen farmers’ who used their money to build up pedigree herds of dairy cows or pigs; they ploughed out the high, stony moorland and fertilised it and made it grow crops; they drained sour bogs and made them yield potatoes and turnips; they were the chairmen of committees, masters of Foxhounds, leaders of the county society.

  But Harold had opted out of all that at an early age. He had refuted the age-old dictum that you can’t be happy doing absolutely nothing; all day and every day he pottered around his house and his few untidy acres, uninterested in the world outside, not entirely aware of what was going on in his immediate vicinity, but utterly content. I don’t think he ever gave a thought to other people’s opinions, which was just as well because they were often unkind; his brother, the eminent Basil Denham, referred to him invariably as ‘that bloody fool’ and with the country people it was often ‘nobbut ninepence in t’shillin’’.

  Personally I always found something appealing in him. He was kind, friendly, with a sense of fun and I enjoyed going to his house. He and his wife ate all their meals in the kitchen and in fact seemed to spend most of their time there, so I usually went round the back of the house.

  On this particular day it was to see his Great Dane bitch which had just had pups and seemed unwell; since it wasn’t Wednesday I felt that there really might be something amiss with her and hurried round. Harold gave me his usual greeting; he had the most attractive voice – round, fruity, mellow, like a bishop’s, and for the hundredth time I thought how odd it was to hear those organ-like vocal chords intoning such incongruities as Mansfield Town or Bradford City.

  ‘I wonder if you could advise me, Mr Herriot,’ he said as we left the kitchen and entered a long, ill-lit passage. ‘I’m searching for an away winner and I wondered about Sunderland at Aston Villa?’

  I stopped and fell into an attitude of deep thought while Harold regarded me anxiously. ‘Well, I’m not sure, Mr Denham,’ I replied. ‘Sunderland are a good side but I happen to know that Raich Carter’s auntie isn’t too well at present and it could easily affect his game this Saturday.’

  Harold looked crestfallen and he nodded his head gravely a few times; then he looked closely at me for a few seconds and broke into a shout of laughter. ‘Ah, Mr Herriot, you’re pulling my leg again.’ He seized my arm, gave it a squeeze and shuffled off along the passage, chuckling deeply.

  We traversed a labyrinth of gloomy, cob webbed passages before he led the way into a little gun room. My patient was lying on a raised wooden dog-bed and I recognised her as the enormous Dane I had seen leaping around at previous visits;. I had never treated her, but my first sight of her had dealt a blow at one of my new-found theories – that you didn’t find big dogs in big houses. Times without number I had critically observed Bull Mastiffs, Alsatians and Old E