James Herriot's Dog Stories

by James Herriot

  ‘That young Wesley Binks,’ he said to me ruminatively. ‘He was a wrong ’un if ever I saw one. You know, I don’t think he ever cared a damn for anybody or any living thing in his life.’

  ‘I know how you feel, sergeant,’ I replied, ‘but you’re not entirely right. There was one living thing . . .’

  It is so true that having an animal to love and care for can greatly influence the lives of young people. This story also highlights the horrors of canine distemper, and when I see the stream of people coming into our surgery to have their puppies inoculated I feel thankful that we now have the means to push this dreadful disease into the background.

  25. The Bandaged Finger

  I was castrating pigs and Rory was holding them. There were several litters to do and I was in a hurry and failed to notice the Irish farm worker’s mounting apprehension. His young boss was catching the little animals and handing them to Rory who held them upside down, gripped between his thighs with their legs apart, and as I quickly incised the scrotums and drew out the testicles my blade almost touched the rough material of his trouser crutch.

  For God’s sake, have a care, Mr Herriot!’ he gasped at last.

  I looked up from my work. ‘What’s wrong, Rory?’

  ‘Watch what you’re doin’ with that bloody knife! You’re whippin’ it round between me legs like a bloody Red Indian. You’ll do me a mischief afore you’ve finished!’

  ‘Aye, be careful, Mr Herriot,’ the young farmer cried. ‘Don’t geld Rory instead of the pig His missus ud never forgive ye.’ He burst into a loud peal of laughter, the Irishman grinned sheepishly and I giggled.

  That was my undoing, because the momentary inattention sent the blade slicing across my left forefinger. The razor-sharp edge went deep and in an instant the entire neighbourhood seemed flooded with my blood. I thought I would never staunch the flow. The red ooze continued, despite a long session of self-doctoring from the car boot, and when I finally drove away my finger was swathed in the biggest, clumsiest dressing I had ever seen. I had finally been forced to apply a large pad of cotton wool held in place with an enormous length of three-inch bandage.

  It was dark when I left the farm. About five o’clock on a late December day, the light gone early and the stars beginning to show in a frosty sky. I drove slowly, the enormous finger jutting upwards from the wheel, pointing the way between the headlights like a guiding beacon. I was within half a mile of Darrowby, with the lights of the little town beginning to wink between the bare roadside branches, when a car approached, went past, then I heard a squeal of brakes as it stopped and began to double back.

  It passed me again, drew into the side and I saw a frantically waving arm. I pulled up and a young man jumped from the driving seat and ran towards me.

  He pushed his head in at the window. ‘Are you the vet?’ His voice was breathless, panic-stricken.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Oh thank God! We ‘re passing through on the way to Manchester and we’ve been to your surgery . . . they said you were out this way . . . described your car. Please help us!’

  ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘It’s our dog . . . in the back of the car. He’s got a ball stuck in his throat. I . . . I think he might be dead.’

  I was out of my seat and running along the road before he had finished. It was a big white saloon and in the darkness of the back seat a wailing chorus issued from several little heads silhouetted against the glass.

  I tore open the door and the wailing took on words.

  ‘Oh Benny, Benny, Benny . . . !’

  I dimly discerned a large dog spread over the knees of four small children. ‘Oh Daddy, he’s dead, he’s dead!’

  ‘Let’s have him out,’ I gasped, and as the young man pulled on the forelegs I supported the body, which slid and toppled on to the tarmac with a horrible limpness.

  I pawed at the hairy form. ‘I can’t see a bloody thing! Help me pull him round.’

  We dragged the unresisting bulk into the headlights’ glare and I could see it all. A huge, beautiful Collie in his luxuriant prime, mouth gaping, tongue lolling, eyes staring lifelessly at nothing. He wasn’t breathing.

  The young father took one look, then gripped his head with both hands. ‘Oh God, oh God . . .’ From within the car I heard the quiet sobbing of his wife and the piercing cries from the back. ‘Benny . . . Benny . . .’

  I grabbed the man’s shoulder and shouted at him. ‘What did you say about a ball?’

  ‘It’s in his throat . . . I’ve had my fingers in his mouth for ages but I couldn’t move it.’ The words came mumbling up from beneath the bent head.

  I pushed my hand into the mouth and I could feel it all right. A sphere of hard solid rubber not much bigger than a golf ball and jammed like a cork in the pharynx, effectively blocking the trachea. I scrabbled feverishly at the wet smoothness but there was nothing to get hold of. It took me about three seconds to realise that no human agency would ever get the ball out that way and without thinking I withdrew my hands, braced both thumbs behind the angle of the lower jaw and pushed.

  The ball shot forth, bounced on the frosty road and rolled sadly on to the grass verge. I touched the corneal surface of the eye. No reflex. I slumped to my knees, burdened by the hopeless regret that I hadn’t had the chance to do this just a bit sooner. The only function I could perform now was to take the body back to Skeldale House for disposal. I couldn’t allow the family to drive to Manchester with a dead dog. But I wished fervently that I had been able to do more, and as I passed my hand along the richly coloured coat over the ribs the vast bandaged finger stood out like a symbol of my helplessness.

  It was when I was gazing dully at the finger, the heel of my hand resting in an intercostal space, that I felt the faintest flutter from below.

  I jerked upright with a hoarse cry. ‘His heart’s still beating! He’s not gone yet!’ I began to work on the dog with all I had. And out there in the darkness of that lonely country road it wasn’t much. No stimulant injections, no oxygen cylinders or intratracheal tubes. But I depressed his chest with my palms every three seconds in the old-fashioned way, willing the dog to breathe as the eyes still stared at nothing. Every now and then I blew desperately down the throat or probed between the ribs for that almost imperceptible beat.

  I don’t know which I noticed first, the slight twitch of an eyelid or the small lift of the ribs which pulled the icy Yorkshire air into his lungs. Maybe they both happened at once, but from that moment everything was dreamlike and wonderful. I lost count of time as I sat there while the breathing became deep and regular and the animal began to be aware of his surroundings; and by the time he started to look around him and twitch his tail tentatively I realised suddenly that I was stiff-jointed and almost frozen to the spot.

  With some difficulty I got up and watched in disbelief as the Collie staggered to his feet. The young father ushered him round to the back where he was received with screams of delight.

  The man seemed stunned. Throughout the recovery he had kept muttering, ‘You just flicked that ball out . . . just flicked it out. Why didn’t I think of that . . . ?’ And when he turned to me before leaving he appeared to be still in a state of shock.

  ‘I don’t . . . I don’t know how to thank you,’ he said huskily. ‘It’s a miracle.’ He leaned against the car for a second. ‘And now what is your fee? How much do I owe you?’

  I rubbed my chin. I had used no drugs. The only expen­diture had been time.

  ‘Five bob,’ I said. ‘And never let him play with such a little ball again.’

  He handed the money over, shook my hand and drove away. His wife, who had never left her place, waved as she left, but my greatest reward was in the last shadowy glimpse of the back seat where little arms twined around the dog, hugging him ecstatically, and in the cries, thankful and joyous, fading into the night.

  ‘Benny . . . Benny . . . Benny . . .’

  Vets often wonder after a patient’
s recovery just how much credit they might take. Maybe it would have got better without treatment – it happened sometimes; it was difficult to be sure.

  But when you know without a shadow of a doubt that, even without doing anything clever, you have pulled an animal back from the brink of death into the living, breathing world, it is a satisfaction which lingers, flowing like balm over the discomforts and frustrations of veterinary practice, making everything right.

  Yet, in the case of Benny, the whole thing had an unreal quality. I never even glimpsed the faces of those happy children nor that of their mother huddled in the front seat. I had a vague impression of their father, but he had spent most of the time with his head in his hands. I wouldn’t have known him if I met him in the street. Even the dog, in the unnatural glare of the headlights, was a blurred memory.

  It seemed the family had the same feeling, because a week later I had a pleasant letter from the mother. She apologised for skulking out of the way so shamelessly, she thanked me for saving the life of their beloved dog who was now prancing around with the children as though nothing had happened, and she finished with the regret that she hadn’t even asked me my name.

  Yes, it had been a strange episode, and not only were those people unaware of my name but I’d like to bet they would fail to recognise me if they saw me again.

  In fact, looking back at the affair, the only thing which stood out unequivocal and substantial was my great white-bound digit which had hovered constantly over the scene, almost taking on a personality and significance of its own. I am sure that is what the family remembered best about me because of the way the mother’s letter began.

  ‘Dear Vet with the bandaged finger . . .’

  It was nice to have that letter all those years ago, but nicer still to hear from a lady quite recently. She wrote to tell me that she had been in exactly the same predicament with a ball stuck in her dog’s throat. She, too, had tried in vain to remove the ball by the mouth, then, just as she was giving up hope, she remembered the incident in my book and pushed from behind the jaw. She thanked me for saving her dog’s life, and the thought struck me that though my books were not intended primarily to instruct, perhaps they had helped other people in this way.

  26. Shep’s Hobby

  Mr Bailes’s little place was situated about half-way along Highburn Village, and to get into the farmyard you had to walk twenty yards or so between five-foot walls. On the left was the neighbouring house, on the right the front garden of the farm. In this garden Shep lurked for most of the day.

  He was a huge dog, much larger than the average Collie. In fact I am convinced he was part Alsatian, because though he had a luxuriant black and white coat there was something significant in the massive limbs and in the noble brown-shaded head with its upstanding ears. He was quite different from the stringy little animals I saw on my daily round.

  As I walked between the walls my mind was already in the byre, just visible at the far end of the yard. Because one of the Bailes’s cows, Rose by name, had the kind of obscure digestive ailment which interferes with veterinary surgeons’ sleep. They are so difficult to diagnose. This animal had begun to grunt and go off her milk two days ago, and when I had seen her yesterday I had flitted from one possibility to the other. Could be a wire? But the fourth stomach was contracting well and there were plenty of rumenal sounds. Also she was eating a little hay in a half­hearted way.

  Could it be impaction . . . ? Or a partial torsion of the gut . . . ? There was abdominal pain without a doubt and that nagging temperature of 102.5° – that was damn like a wire. Of course I could settle the whole thing by opening the cow up, but Mr Bailes was an old-fashioned type and didn’t like the idea of my diving into his animal unless I was certain of my diagnosis. And I wasn’t – there was no getting away from that.

  I was half-way down the alley between the walls with the hope bright before me that my patient would be improved, when from nowhere an appalling explosion of sound blasted into my right ear. It was Shep again.

  The wall was just the right height for the dog to make a leap and bark into the ear of the passers-by. It was a favourite gambit of his and I had been caught before; but never so successfully as now. My attention had been so far away and the dog had timed his jump to a split second so that his bark came at the highest point, his teeth only inches from my face. And his voice befitted his size, a great bull bellow surging from the depths of his powerful chest and booming from his gaping jaws.

  I rose several inches into the air and when I descended, heart thumping, head singing, I glared over the wall. But as usual all I saw was the hairy form bounding away out of sight round the corner of the house.

  That was what puzzled me. Why did he do it? Was he a savage creature with evil designs on me, or was it his idea of a joke? I never got near enough to him to find out.

  I wasn’t in the best of shape to receive bad news and that was what awaited me in the byre. I had only to look at the farmer’s face to know that the cow was worse.

  ‘Ah reckon she’s got a stoppage,’ Mr Bailes muttered gloomily.

  I gritted my teeth. The entire spectrum of abdominal disorders were lumped as ‘stoppages’ by the older race of farmers. ‘The oil hasn’t worked, then?’

  ‘Nay, she’s nobbut passin’ little hard bits. It’s a proper stoppage, ah tell you.’

  ‘Right, Mr Bailes,’ I said with a twisted smile. ‘We’ll have to try something stronger.’ I brought in from my car the gastric lavage outfit I loved so well and which has so sadly disappeared from my life. The long rubber stomach tube, the wooden gag with its leather straps to buckle behind the horns. As I pumped in the two gallons of warm water rich in formalin and sodium chloride I felt like Napo­leon sending in the Old Guard at Waterloo. If this didn’t work, nothing would.

  Next morning I was driving down the single village street when I saw Mrs Bailes coming out of the shop. I drew up and pushed my head out of the window.

  ‘How’s Rose this morning, Mrs Bailes?’

  She rested her basket on the ground and looked down at me gravely. ‘Oh, she’s bad, Mr Herriot. Me husband thinks she’s goin’ down fast. If you want to find him you’ll have to go across the field there. He’s mindin’ the door in that little barn.’

  A sudden misery enveloped me as I drove over to the gate leading into the field. I left the car in the road and lifted the latch.

  ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ I muttered as I trailed across the green. I had a nasty feeling that a little tragedy was building up here. If this animal died it would be a sickening blow to a small farmer with ten cows and a few pigs. I should be able to do something about it and it was a depressing thought that I was getting nowhere.

  And yet, despite it all, I felt peace stealing into my soul. It was a large field and I could see the barn at the far end as I walked with the tall grass brushing my knees. It was a meadow ready for cutting and suddenly I realised that it was high summer, the sun was hot and that every step brought the fragrance of clover and warm grass rising about me into the crystal freshness of the air. Somewhere nearby a field of broad beans was in full flower, and as the exotic scent drifted across I found myself inhaling with half-closed eyes as though straining to discern the ingredients of the glorious melange.

  And then there was the silence; it was the most soothing thing of all. That and the feeling of being alone. I looked drowsily around at the empty green miles sleeping under the sunshine. Nothing stirred, there was no sound.

  Then without warning the ground at my feet erupted in an incredible blast of noise. For a. dreadful moment the blue sky was obscured by an enormous hairy form and a red mouth went ‘WAAAHH!’ in my face. Almost screaming, I staggered back, and as I glared wildly I saw Shep disap­pearing at top speed towards the gate. Concealed in the deep herbage right in the middle of the field he had waited till he saw the whites of my eyes before making his assault.

  Whether he had been there by accident or whether he had spotted me arriving and
slunk into position I shall never know, but from his point of view the result must have been eminently satisfactory because it was certainly the worst fright I have ever had. I live a life which is well larded with scares and alarms, but this great dog rising bellowing from that empty landscape was something on its own. I have heard of cases where sudden terror and stress has caused involuntary evacuation of the bowels, and I know without question that this was the occasion when I came nearest to suffering that unhappy fate.

  I was still trembling when I reached the barn and hardly said a word as Mr Bailes led me back across the road to the farm.

  And it was like rubbing it in when I saw my patient. The flesh had melted from her and she stared at the wall apathetically from sunken eyes. The doom-laden grunt was louder.

  I decided to have one last go with the lavage. It was still the strongest weapon in my armoury but this time I added two pounds of black treacle to the mixture. Nearly every farmer had a barrel of the stuff in his cow house in those days and I had only to go into the corner and turn the tap.

  It was not till the following afternoon that I drove into Highburn. I left the car outside the farm and was about to walk between the walls when I paused and stared at a cow in the field on the other side of the road. It was a pasture next to the hayfield of yesterday and that cow was Rose. There could be no mistake – she was a fine deep red with a distinctive white mark like a football on her left flank.

  I opened the gate and within seconds my cares dropped from me. She was wonderfully, miraculously improved, in fact she looked like a normal animal. I walked up to her and scratched the root of her tail. She was a docile creature and merely looked round at me as she cropped the grass; and her eyes were no longer sunken but bright and full.

  As the wave of relief flooded through me I saw Mr Bailes climbing over the wall from the next field. He would still be mending that barn door.

  As he approached I felt a pang of commiseration. I had to guard against any display of triumph – after all the poor chap had been worried. No, it wouldn’t do to preen myself unduly.