In the operating room I hoisted Dan on to the table. He stood without moving as I examined the hip. There was no doubt about it at all – the head of the femur was displaced upwards and backwards, plainly palpable under my thumb.
The dog looked round only once – when I made a gentle attempt to flex the limb – but turned away immediately and stared resolutely ahead. His mouth hung open a little as he panted nervously, but like a lot of the placid animals which arrived on our surgery table he seemed to have resigned himself to his fate. I had the strong impression that I could have started to cut his head off and he wouldn’t have made much fuss.’
‘Nice, good-natured dog,’ I said. ‘And a bonny one, too.’
Helen patted the handsome head with the broad blaze of white down the face; the tail waved slowly from side to side.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s just as much a family pet as a working dog. I do hope he hasn’t hurt himself too badly.’
‘Well, he has a dislocated hip. It’s a nasty thing but with a bit of luck I ought to be able to put it back.’
‘What happens if it won’t go back?’
‘He’d have to form a false joint up there. He’d be very lame for several weeks and probably always have a slightly short leg.’
‘Oh dear, I wouldn’t like that,’ Helen said. ‘Do you think he’ll be all right?’
I looked at the docile animal still gazing steadfastly to his front. ‘I think he’s got a good chance, mainly because you haven’t hung about for days before bringing him in. The sooner these things are tackled the better.’
‘Oh good. When will you be able to start on him?’
‘Right now.’ I went over to the door. ‘I’ll just give Tristan a shout. This is a two-man job.’
‘Couldn’t I help?’ Helen said. ‘I’d very much like to if you wouldn’t mind.’
I looked at her doubtfully. ‘Well I don’t know. You mightn’t like playing tug-of-war with Dan in the middle. He’ll be anaesthetised of course, but there’s usually a lot of pulling.’
Helen laughed. ‘Oh, I’m quite strong. And not a bit squeamish. I’m used to animals, you know, and I like working with them.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Slip on this spare coat and we’ll begin.’
The dog didn’t flinch as I pushed the needle into his vein and, as the Nembutal flowed in, his head began to slump against Helen’s arm and his supporting paw to slide along the smooth top of the table. Soon he was stretched unconscious on his side.
I held the needle in the vein as I looked down at the sleeping animal. ‘I might have to give him a bit more. They have to be pretty deep to overcome the muscular resistance.’
Another cc and Dan was as limp as any rag doll. I took hold of the affected leg and spoke across the table. ‘I want you to link your hands underneath his thigh and try to hold him there when I pull. OK? Here we go, then.’
It takes a surprising amount of force to pull the head of a displaced femur over the rim of the acetabulum. I kept up a steady traction with my right hand, pressing on the head of the femur at the same time with my left. Helen did her part efficiently, leaning back against the pull, her lips pushed forward in a little pout of concentration.
I suppose there must be a foolproof way of doing this job – a method which works the very first time – but I have never been able to find it. Success has always come to me only after a fairly long period of trial and error and it was the same today. I tried all sorts of angles, rotations and twists on the flaccid limb, trying not to think of how it would look if this just happened to be the one I couldn’t put back. I was wondering what Helen, still hanging on determinedly to her end, must be thinking of this wrestling match when I heard the muffled click. It was a sweet and welcome sound.
I flexed the hip joint once or twice. No resistance at all now. The femoral head was once more riding smoothly in its socket.
‘Well, that’s it,’ I said. ‘Hope it stays put – we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed. The odd one does pop out again but I’ve got a feeling this is going to be all right.’
Helen ran her hand over the silky ears and neck of the sleeping dog. ‘Poor old Dan. He wouldn’t have jumped over that wall this morning if he’d known what was in store for him. How long will it be before he comes round?’
‘Oh, he’ll be out for the rest of the day. When he starts to wake up tonight I want you to be around to steady him in case he falls and puts the thing out again. Perhaps you’d give me a ring. I’d like to know how things are.’
I gathered Dan up in my arms and was carrying him along the passage, staggering under his weight, when I met Mrs Hall. She was carrying a tray with two cups.
‘I was just having a drink of tea, Mr Herriot,’ she said. ‘I thought you and the young lady might fancy a cup.’
I looked at her narrowly. This was unusual. Was it possible she had joined Tristan in playing Cupid? But the broad, dark-skinned face was as unemotional as ever. It told me nothing.
‘Well, thanks very much, Mrs Hall. I’ll just put this dog outside first.’ I went out and settled Dan on the back seat of Helen’s car; with only his eyes and nose sticking out from under a blanket he looked at peace with the world.
Helen was already sitting with a cup in her lap and I thought of the other time I had drunk tea in this room with a girl. On the day I had arrived in Darrowby. She had been one of Siegfried’s followers and surely the toughest of them all.
This was a lot different. During the struggle in the operating room I had been able to observe Helen at close range and I had discovered that her mouth turned up markedly at the corners as though she was just going to smile or had just been smiling; also that the deep warm blue of the eyes under the smoothly arching brows made a dizzying partnership with the rich black-brown of her hair.
And this time the conversation didn’t lag. Maybe it was because I was on my own ground – perhaps I never felt fully at ease unless there was a sick animal involved somewhere, but at any rate I found myself prattling effortlessly just as I had done up on that hill when we had first met.
Mrs Hall’s teapot was empty and the last of the biscuits gone before I finally saw Helen off and started on my round.
The same feeling of easy confidence was on me that night when I heard her voice on the phone.
‘Dan is up and walking about,’ she said. ‘He’s still a bit wobbly but he’s perfectly sound on that leg.’
‘Oh great, he’s got the first stage over. I think everything’s going to be fine.’
There was a pause at the other end of the line, then: ‘Thank you so much for what you’ve done. We were terribly worried about him, especially my young brother and sister. We’re very grateful.’
‘Not at all, I’m delighted too. He’s a grand dog.’ I hesitated for a moment – it had to be now. ‘Oh, you remember we were talking about Scotland today. Well, I was passing the Plaza this afternoon and I see they’re showing a film about the Hebrides. I thought maybe . . . I wondered if perhaps, er . . . you might like to come and see it with me.’
Another pause and my heart did a quick thud-thud.
‘All right,’ Helen said. ‘Yes, I’d like that. When? Friday night? Well, thank you – goodbye till then.’
I replaced the receiver with a trembling hand. Why did I make such heavy weather of these things? But it didn’t matter – I was back in business.
It so often happens that spectacular cures go unnoticed and unappreciated, but how wonderful that this one should further my courtship so beautifully. Reducing a dislocated hip is truly dramatic and it couldn’t have happened at a better time. It is surprising how easily a hip can pop out of place. Just as it is deeply satisfying to a vet to convert a lame dog to a sound one with one quick click, it is similarly alarming to an owner to see a pet suddenly transformed into a three-legged cripple for no apparent reason. It can happen so simply. Jumping for a ball. Falling off a chair. It must be one of the worst panic-instigators.
7. Tip<
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It looked as though I was going to make it back to the road all right. And I was thankful for it because seven o’clock in the morning with the wintry dawn only just beginning to lighten the eastern rim of the moor was no time to be digging my car out of the snow.
This narrow, unfenced road skirted a high tableland and gave on to a few lonely farms at the end of even narrower tracks. It hadn’t actually been snowing on my way out to this early call – a uterine haemorrhage in a cow – but the wind had been rising steadily and whipping the top surface from the white blanket which had covered the fell-tops for weeks. My headlights had picked out the creeping drifts; pretty, pointed fingers feeling their way inch by inch across the strip of tarmac.
This was how all blocked roads began, and at the farm as I injected pituitrin and packed the bleeding cervix with a clean sheet I could hear the wind buffeting the byre door and wondered if I would win the race home.
On the way back the drifts had stopped being pretty and lay across the road like white bolsters; but my little car had managed to cleave through them, veering crazily at times, wheels spinning, and now I could see the main road a few hundred yards ahead, reassuringly black in the pale light.
But just over there on the left, a field away, was Cote House. I was treating a bullock there – he had eaten some frozen turnips – and a visit was fixed for today. I didn’t fancy trailing back up here if I could avoid it and there was a light in the kitchen window. The family were up, anyway. I turned and drove down into the yard.
The farmhouse door lay within a small porch and the wind had driven the snow inside, forming a smooth, two-foot heap against the timbers. As I leaned across to knock, the surface of the heap trembled a little, then began to heave. There was something in there, something quite big. It was eerie standing in the half-light watching the snow parting to reveal a furry body. Some creature of the wild must have strayed in, searching for warmth – but it was bigger than a fox or anything else I could think of.
Just then the door opened and the light from the kitchen streamed out. Peter Trenholm beckoned me inside and his wife smiled at me from the bright interior. They were a cheerful young couple.
‘What’s that?’ I gasped, pointing at the animal which was shaking the snow vigorously from its coat.
‘That?’ Peter grinned. ‘That’s awd Tip.’
‘Tip? Your dog? But what’s he doing under a pile of snow?’
‘Just blew in on him, I reckon. That’s where he sleeps, you know, just outside back door.’
I stared at the farmer. ‘You mean he sleeps there, out in the open, every night?’
‘Aye, allus. Summer and winter. But don’t look at me like that Mr Herriot – it’s his own choice. The other dogs have a warm bed in the cow house but Tip won’t entertain it. He’s fifteen now and he’s been sleeping out there since he were a pup. I remember when me father was alive he tried all ways to get t’awd feller to sleep inside but it was no good.’
I looked at the old dog in amazement. I could see him more clearly now; he wasn’t the typical sheepdog type, he was bigger boned, longer in the hair, and he projected a bursting vitality that didn’t go with his fifteen years. It was difficult to believe that any animal living in these bleak uplands should choose to sleep outside – and thrive on it. I had to look closely to see any sign of his great age. There was the slightest stiffness in his gait as he moved around, perhaps a fleshless look about his head and face, and of course the tell-tale lens opacity in the depths of his eyes. But the general impression was of an unquenchable jauntiness.
He shook the last of the snow from his coat, pranced jerkily up to the farmer and gave a couple of reedy barks. Peter Trenholm laughed. ‘You see he’s ready to be off – he’s a beggar for work is Tip.’ He led the way towards the buildings and I followed, stumbling over the frozen ruts, like iron under the snow, and bending my head against the knife-like wind. It was a relief to open the byre door and escape into the sweet bovine warmth.
There was a fair mixture of animals in the long building. The dairy cows took up most of the length, then there were a few young heifers, some bullocks, and finally, in an empty stall deeply bedded with straw, the other farm dogs. The cats were there too, so it had to be warm. No animal is a better judge of comfort than a cat and they were just visible as furry balls in the straw. They had the best place, up against the wooden partition where the warmth came through from the big animals.
Tip strode confidently among his colleagues – a young dog and a bitch with three half-grown pups. You could see he was boss.
One of the bullocks was my patient and he was looking a bit better. When I had seen him yesterday his rumen (the big first stomach) had been completely static and atonic following an over-eager consumption of frozen turnips. He had been slightly bloated and groaning with discomfort. But today as I leaned with my ear against his left side I could hear the beginnings of the surge and rumble of the normal rumen instead of the deathly silence of yesterday. My gastric lavage had undoubtedly tickled things up and I felt that another of the same would just about put him right. Almost lovingly I got together the ingredients of one of my favourite treatments, long since washed away in the flood of progress: the ounce of formalin, the half pound of common salt, the can of black treacle from the barrel which you used to find in most cow houses, all mixed up in a bucket with two gallons of hot water.
I jammed the wooden gag into the bullock’s mouth and buckled it behind the horns, then as Peter held the handles I passed the stomach tube down into the rumen and pumped in the mixture. When I had finished the bullock opened his eyes wide in surprise and began to paddle his hind legs. Listening again at his side, I could hear the reassuring bubbling of the stomach contents. I smiled to myself in satisfaction. It worked; it always worked.
Wiping down the tube I could hear the hiss-hiss as Peter’s brother got on with the morning’s milking, and as I prepared to leave he came down the byre with a full bucket on the way to the cooler. As he passed the dogs’ stall he tipped a few pints of the warm milk into their dishes and Tip strolled forward casually for his breakfast. While he was drinking, the young dog tried to push his way in, but a soundless snap from Tip’s jaws missed his nose by a fraction and he retired to another dish. I noticed, however, that the old dog made no protest as the bitch and pups joined him. The cats, black and white, tortoise-shell, tabby grey, appeared, stretching, from the straw and advanced in a watchful ring. Their turn would come.
Mrs Trenholm called me in for a cup of tea and when I came out it was full daylight. But the sky was a burdened grey and the sparse trees near the house strained their bare branches against the wind which drove in long, icy gusts over the white empty miles of moor. It was what the Yorkshiremen called a ‘thin wind’ or sometimes a ‘lazy wind’ – the kind that couldn’t be bothered to blow round you but went straight through instead. It made me feel that the best place on earth was by the side of that bright fire in the farmhouse kitchen.
Most people would have felt like that, but not old Tip. He was capering around as Peter loaded a flat cart with some hay bales for the young cattle in the outside barns; and as Peter shook the reins and the cob set off over the fields, he leapt on to the back of the cart.
As I threw my tackle into the boot I looked back at the old dog, legs braced against the uneven motion, tail waving, barking defiance at the cold world. I carried away the memory of Tip who scorned the softer things and slept in what he considered the place of honour – at his master’s door.
Dear old Tip. So typical of the thousands of hardy farm dogs who joyfully earn their keep in the high country of North Yorkshire. Bursting with energy, tough and stringy. You never see a fat one. They know little of comfort, leisure or balanced diets – many of them live on flaked maize and milk – but they are wonderfully healthy. Perhaps their lifespan is a little shorter because of their constant work and activity, but that doesn’t always hold good; I can remember one old fellow of twenty tottering out of a
stable on shaky limbs to welcome me on to a farm. His waving tail told me that he was still enjoying life. Tip, however, remains as the only dog I have ever known who slept under the snow.
8. The Card over the Bed
The card dangled above the old lady’s bed. It read ‘God is Near’ but it wasn’t like the usual religious text. It didn’t have a frame or ornate printing. It was just a strip of cardboard about eight inches long with plain lettering which might have said ‘No smoking’ or ‘Exit’ and it was looped carelessly over an old gas bracket so that Miss Stubbs from where she lay could look up at it and read ‘God is Near’ in square black capitals.
There wasn’t much more Miss Stubbs could see; perhaps a few feet of privet hedge through the frayed curtains, but mainly it was just the cluttered little room which had been her world for so many years.
The room was on the ground floor and in the front of the cottage, and as I came up through the wilderness which had once been a garden I could see the dogs watching me from where they had jumped on to the old lady’s bed. And when I knocked on the door the place almost erupted with their barking. It was always like this. I had been visiting regularly for over a year and the pattern never changed; the furious barking, then Mrs Broadwith who looked after Miss Stubbs would push all the animals but my patient into the back kitchen and open the door and I would go in and see Miss Stubbs in the corner in her bed with the card hanging over it.
She had been there for a long time and would never get up again. But she never mentioned her illness and pain to me; all her concern was for her three dogs and two cats.
Today it was old Prince and I was worried about him. It was his heart – just about the most spectacular valvular incompetence I had ever heard. He was waiting for me as I came in, pleased as ever to see me, his long, fringed tail waving gently.
James Herriot's Dog Stories Page 7