: The Life of a Yorkshire Vet

by Norton, Julian

  Paddy was a great little dog and he had a brilliant place to grow up. We lived in a beautiful street in Winchcombe called Vineyard Street. It is probably one of the most picturesque streets in Britain, leading up to Sudeley Castle, the burial place of Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII, and home to Edward VI and Thomas Seymour. History oozed from every part of its grounds, where we took little Paddy for his first walks. He grew up to be a handsome and proud terrier, but at this time he was full of fun and played constantly. On one of his early walks he misjudged a cattle grid over which he thought he could jump, and landed, splat, in the middle. He hobbled home, badly lame. The only thing to do was to take an x-ray. This was the first time we had the responsibility of tending to our own pet and it felt slightly strange. We identified a hairline crack in his radius and, as was normal procedure, bandaged it up in a sturdy bandage. We knew that a tiny fracture in a youngster would heal in just a few weeks, with this kind of simple and non-invasive treatment. Unfortunately, poor Paddy looked miserably sad with his enormous bandage and he stubbornly refused to walk or even move with his bandaged leg. We could not bear to see him looking so gloomy, and removed the bandage after only forty-eight hours. We had utterly disregarded our very own veterinary advice, purely because of his sad face. His leg, however, did heal quite quickly and he was soon back in action around the lovely footpaths of the Cotswolds.

  My locum job in the Forest of Dean ended after a couple of months, and I started my new position, working alongside Anne. It was great to be back in mixed practice, where I had chance to get out onto farms and to see horses again. However, I had to become familiar with the area and get to know the farmers and horse owners from scratch. I had developed many friendships in Thirsk, but down here I had to start again, find new friends in the farming community and establish my reputation.

  This was easier than previously because I had quite a bit of experience, but my first few weeks and months were not completely free of problems. On one occasion I had been called to see a lame horse. Little Paddy was with me and jumped out of the car as soon as I arrived on the yard. I asked if it was okay for him to potter around while I attended to the horse. It provided the little pup with a fun-packed morning if he could snuffle around after bits of horse hoof trimmings. The lady suggested it would be better if he stayed in the car, because she had a new collection of small and very expensive rare breed ducklings. Once older, these birds would lay special blue eggs and they had been a present from her husband.

  I left him in the car, watching me through the window, as I dealt with the horse. I pared its foot with my hoof knives and released the pocket of pus that was causing its pain. ‘Great,’ I thought, as it is immensely satisfying when you find that place that has been causing so much discomfort. Dark grey, fetid-smelling liquid shot out of the hole that I had just excavated in the sole of the horse’s foot. When I went back to get some bandages from my car boot, Paddy jumped out again. I ushered him back into the car, but the lady had obviously realized that he was far too cute to be a threat to the new ducklings, and waved her hand as if to say, ‘Don’t worry, it will be fine.’

  I turned my attention back to the foot, and carefully applied the dressing, which looked very neat and tidy by the time I had finished. The horse was already much more comfortable and, as its owner walked it back to the stable, it did not even seem to be lame. Job done, I looked around to find the dog.

  ‘Paddy! … Paddy! … PADDY!’

  After a few minutes, which felt more like an hour, the little dog reappeared with his head held high and his tail up. He looked very pleased with himself. He also had a beautiful and expensive duckling sticking out of his mouth. There was much quacking and commotion. I extracted the dishevelled bird, quickly examined it, deposited it back on the pond, bundled Paddy into the car and made a very quick getaway. I did not stop to see whether it floated back to its mum or sank to the bottom of the pond.

  This was Paddy’s first misdemeanour, but not his last. We had not learnt our lesson. A few months later, dog in car, I set off to see a bull that had died suddenly. I had been summoned to perform a post mortem examination to establish the cause of its demise. Having ruled out anthrax (I had at least, learnt my lesson in this regard), I embarked upon the post mortem. Paddy was, again, safely shut in, watching my every move through the car window. I cut through skin and muscle and was soon scooping out the abdominal contents like some sort of medieval soothsayer. I found nothing abnormal, so turned my attention to the chest cavity. This is the hardest part because of the thick ribs, and I really needed the equipment of a butcher rather than the precision instruments of a surgeon. Nevertheless, I managed to cut a window in the ribs of sufficient size to remove the heart and lungs, which I examined carefully. It was clear that the animal had died of acute pneumonia. I explained this to the worried farmer as I gathered my stethoscope and thermometer from the car. It was likely the dead bull was the tip of the pneumonic iceberg, so I needed to examine the other beasts in the group, and treat them promptly to avoid further losses. As I set about the task, I was sure I had closed the boot of the car fully.

  Forty-five minutes later, I returned to collect a bucket and brush to clean my wellies. No dog. He had clearly sneaked out of the car when I went to see the other animals. He was nowhere to be seen but I was not especially worried, so I continued to scrub my boots and wash my hands under the tap. He would show up. And indeed, after a few calls, Paddy obediently appeared. But he appeared right out of the middle of the bull carcass and he was completely covered in blood. Very red blood – all over his head, body and feet, and dribbling from the corners of his mouth. It was just as if he had been dipped in bright red paint. I could not believe my eyes. I was astonished and cross, but I didn’t need to raise my voice: he knew he had been bad and pretty much took himself off, to stand under the hosepipe for a very thorough cleaning.

  Paddy’s adventures continued and he became a popular character in the village. It was a short walk from our house in Vineyard Street to the branch surgery, where I was based. Next door to the surgery was a pub called the Plaisterers Arms, then the doctor’s surgery and then the bank. In those child-free days, we would often call in at the Plaisterers Arms for a pint, a chat with Ken, the Irish landlord, or a game of darts after finishing evening surgery. In fact, when we walked up the road with Paddy, he would stop at the door of the practice, but if we weren’t going in there, he would automatically take himself to the pub. Late one evening, a few days after the incident with the bull, Ken had drunk one too many halves of Guinness. He was firm in his opinion that a bit of stout did a dog a world of good. Anne and I returned from the dartboard to see our dog sitting contentedly, licking his furry, foam-covered whiskers, next to an empty drip tray. The drip tray had been catching the overflow from glasses of Guinness all night. It was the second time that week that he had the air of achievement about his canine person. Knowing about pharmacology and also about drinking, it was clear that half a pint of stout to a six-kilogram dog was the equivalent of a fifteen-year-old boy drinking about ten pints. It was too late to do much about it, though, and so all we could do was take him home. The poor dog meandered along on his lead, urinating about every ten paces and wobbling while he did so. Eventually we made it the short distance back. If Paddy could have spoken, he would have assured us both that he really, really loved us.

  The next morning Paddy didn’t move from his bed. I bundled him up and carried him to the practice. He headed straight to the dog bed under the desk in reception, and hid his head under the blanket. Clearly the poor dog had a hangover and I felt terrible. I offered him painkillers and oral rehydration drinks and by lunchtime he was feeling much better, though he wasn’t in quite such a rush to go back into the Plaisterers Arms the next night. I feel sure that he was not the first ‘Paddy’ to be on the wrong end of the landlord’s generous hospitality!

  Work was great, and it was brilliant being able to spend time with Anne after too many years in separat
e parts of the country. This is a common problem for veterinary couples. The veterinary degree course is long, and veterinary students spend many hours working intensively alongside one another, so it is not unusual for vets to end up in relationships with other vets. In some ways this is helpful. People who are not familiar with the nature of the job and its utter commitment, in terms of hours on call and weekends tied up and busy, might find it very difficult to live with a vet. Add to that smelly and muddy cars, blood-stained shirts, chronic fatigue and a persistent low-grade bad temper when woken up too many times during the night, and vets could be considered not to make the best of partners.

  In other ways, two vets in a relationship can pose a big problem. Vets in mixed practice have to live close to their surgery, so they can be there to treat an emergency as quickly as possible. It is, therefore, not really possible to commute, and finding two jobs close enough together is difficult. Often, big compromises or sacrifices are needed from one or both sides of the relationship. We were extremely lucky to have managed to get jobs in the same practice. At last, the miserable Sunday-night journey up or down the M42 was a thing of the past, and we could live together, which was wonderful.

  We worked together very well, with hardly any squabbles, either professionally or personally. Our professional attitudes were very similar. We both had a pragmatic and straightforward approach to work and to clinical cases. Jobs needed doing and animals needed to be treated, and the only way was to get on and do it. There was no room for avoiding hard work or ducking the challenging jobs. After all, we both saw clearly that this was how to learn and progress.

  One night, Anne was called to a calving at a large beef herd just outside Broadway. Calls to this particular farm were usually tough, and often necessitated two vets. Since the beeper had woken me up as well, it seemed silly to drag the vet on second call out of his bed, and I offered to go along in case a caesarean was needed.

  Sure enough, this calf was not budging and we performed the operation together, under the light of head torches, in the middle of a freezing cow shed in the middle of the night. It was the first time we had operated on a cow together, but it did not feel like a romantic moment.

  The Cotswolds was a beautiful place to be, the type of work was very similar to what I was used to, and I felt at home. There were some differences, though. I had many more horses to see, which really improved my equine expertise. Clients were much the same. People often talk about the differences between ‘northerners’ and ‘southerners’ and how one group is friendlier than the other. In my experience this is complete nonsense. There are friendly, happy, kind and sociable people everywhere, just as there are miserable, grumpy and intolerant people. Being in one part of the country rather than another does not mean an exclusivity of any of these features or characteristics. That said, in this part of the country, there were many large houses owned by wealthy people who spent the working week in London, and this would leave some of the villages somewhat empty and lacking in atmosphere during the week. By contrast in Thirsk, pretty much everyone lived and worked in the area so the villages had a much more cohesive atmosphere.

  One other difference I noticed was the number of elderly lady clients who lived alone in enormous houses. There were often photographs suggesting a glamorous past, usually involving racehorses, as we were close to Cheltenham, and sometimes there was a vintage Bentley parked – rarely used – in the garage. One particular such client had a small dachshund called Sebastian, which had a bad back. Whenever the little dog needed attention (which was often), we would be asked to do a house visit. ‘Mornings are better for me,’ was her usual comment when visits were being arranged. As a newcomer to these parts, I did not immediately grasp the significance of this request. I assumed she had an important voluntary job at the local church or played bridge in the afternoons. As often as possible, we complied with her requests, but one day my morning visit was delayed. I had been busy with a tuberculosis test on twelve cows. I was expecting the test to take about half an hour, but when I arrived I was dismayed to see all twelve cattle happily grazing in the field next to the farm. It was a large field surrounded by a hedge. This hedge had holes in and there was only a very flimsy fence. To cut a very long story short, the cows did not want to be captured. We chased them around the field, the adjacent fields, the farmyard, the slurry lagoon, the silage clamp and a nearby wood. Three hours later it became clear that this was an impossible job and with red faces and frayed tempers, the farmer and I admitted defeat. We would have to rearrange the test for another occasion, when the cattle had already been caught.

  It was well into the afternoon by this point, and I was very late for my visit to Sebastian the dachshund. I made my way up the long drive and knocked on the supersized door, apologizing profusely for my lateness as the housekeeper showed me into the sitting room. Mrs B was sitting comfortably in a large chair with a tray on a small table next to her. On this was a half-pint-sized tumbler, a saucer with sliced lemons, two bottles of tonic and a bottle of gin. Half of the gin was already missing.

  ‘Ah, thank you for coming, are you the new vet?’ she slurred. We had met several times before, so either our first meetings had left no impression at all, or the old lady could not remember. Before I could offer more apologies for arriving on the wrong side of midday, Mrs B went on to explain the problem with the dog. ‘It’s his todger,’ she blurted out rather bluntly.

  ‘Oh, I see. I’ll have a look.’

  Being a dachshund, Sebastian had very short legs and the hind ones were weak, because of his back problems. This meant that the poor dog’s penis did, on occasions, rub along the ground or worse, get caught on the side of his wicker basket as he pulled himself in or out. It was very sore, and made worse by his constant licking. Dogs like to lick this part of their anatomy at the best of times, but any wound or soreness gives extra impetus to this canine pastime. He needed a combination of antibiotics and cream to be applied twice daily. I carefully explained the treatment to both the old lady and the housekeeper, as I was not confident that my instructions would be clearly remembered by the next morning.

  Later that evening, when I recounted my story to Anne, there was much mirth. Anne had been working at the practice for two years already, and she knew full well the significance of the phrase ‘mornings are better for me’. She also knew that it was unwise to arrange any visits after a TB test to Mr Wilson’s.

  We always discussed our day’s work when we sat down to eat in the evening. It was great to be able to do this in person, rather than over the telephone, as we had been used to for the last few years. In fact, twenty years later, it is something we still do. It probably sounds tedious, but it is a really good way to get a different perspective on a case, air one’s frustrations or get new ideas on a treatment. One evening, Anne related the tale of her day spent dehorning and castrating a bunch of about forty wild calves at an exposed farm near the top of a hill. The elderly farmer always drafted in the help of his equally elderly neighbour for this annual task, which often took two days. I had been to the farm once, to do the same job on a day when it rained constantly. Mud was everywhere and the pen holding the cattle was in the middle of the mud. The cattle crush was also surrounded by mud and there was no shelter anywhere. It was always a tough job and the cattle were not used to being handled.

  The animals, as usual, varied in size from fairly small to way too big. To begin with they were all milling about in the mud, but the plan was to herd them, in batches, into a stable, from where they could be funnelled down a race into the crush. It was the job of the elderly neighbour to push them down the race. He did this, not particularly effectively, with a lot of shouting, swearing and waving of his stick. The biggest beast was not keen to be caught. It was eventually corralled into the stable towards the end of the day, and proceeded to cause havoc, hurling itself around and generally making life difficult. The shouting, swearing and flapping of arms suddenly ended with an expletive, as the beast kicked out and ca
ught the old man. Those waiting at the crush to deal with the last of the animals weren’t particularly sympathetic, as everyone just wanted to get the job finished and get home. Once it was all done, Anne went back to her car to sort out her kit and the injured neighbour took himself off to examine his wounds.

  ‘Can you just have a look at this?’ came a wavering voice from behind a tractor. Anne followed the voice, to find the old man, white as a sheet, trousers round his ankles, inspecting an enormous purple haematoma about an inch wide, running all the way from his groin to his knee. The unruly young bullock had kicked out and caught the end of the stick, ramming it down the inside of the poor man’s leg, which had caused the massive blistering bruise. Anne peered at the wound with a clinician’s eye, but just as she began to suggest a cream of some sort, she realized the ludicrous nature of the scene. There she was, behind a tractor, with an old man with his trousers down, examining his inner thigh … she briskly extricated herself from the situation, and decided this might be someone else’s job next year.