Vet on the Loose

by Gillian Hick

  ‘Oh! Hi dog!’ said Donal as we came in the door that evening. ‘I though you were only here for one night.’ He laughed as I tried to explain. ‘It’s all right. I didn’t believe you anyway – even if you did!’

  That night, we had a long-standing arrangement to go to the local barn dance with two friends we hadn’t met for a few months. I couldn’t back out at this late stage as they had travelled some distance to get there. Slug lay peacefully by the fire, having decided it was more cosy than the utility room. Spook and Judy took up their usual positions, entwined in a black and yellow ball on an old armchair.

  ‘Look after the patient,’ I told them and laughed as Spook wagged her tail in acknowledgement while Judy didn’t even miss a snore. We hoped to be back in an hour or two. I should have known better. I began to unwind after the first drink, and, despite the pressures of the day, I ended up having a good time. Slug seemed a bit bemused by my joviality when I returned and kept up her usual growling as I gently flushed and injected her. I really didn’t think that her constant snarling was due to anything other than her past ill-treatment. I was sure that if she pulled through, she would come around with a little bit of kindness and that I could then find a suitable home for her.

  Before I went to bed, I set the alarm for six the next morning. It wasn’t until I was woken by the persistent ringing that I realised that long working hours and late nights don’t mix. As I flushed out her uterus again, the smell from her persistent discharge assailed my tender nostrils. Before long, both Slug and I were vomiting in the back garden. For the first time she turned and wagged her tail at me. I think she thought I was going out in sympathy.

  I had recovered sufficiently by the time I got to work. But shortly after 11.00am my heart froze as I recognised Mr Molloy’s voice in the waiting room. Slug lay patiently in the kennels next door.

  ‘How’s my little bitch, then?’

  ‘She’s still very sick, I’m afraid. We’ll have to keep in her for longer.’

  ‘Well, I dunno about that. I think I’ll just take her home with me. If yer jabs haven’t fixed her by now, there’s not much chance. Can I have a look at her?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. She’s not here at the moment,’ I lied nervously. ‘She’s in our intensive care unit. She can’t leave until she’s a lot better and we don’t allow visitors.’

  I looked in alarm as his eyes narrowed and his face reddened. ‘That’s a bloody good bitch of mine, that is! I won’t have ye messing around with her.’

  ‘Of course not, that’s why she needs such intensive treatment. Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll also need some payment to cover the cost of the treatment so far.’ I didn’t care in the slightest about the money but I thought it might get rid of him.

  ‘Well, I’ve nothing on me now. Ye’ll have to wait. How much is the bill anyway?’

  I took out a sheet of headed paper and carefully started doing a breakdown of the costs. I thought of every single injection, every flush, every millilitre of fluids, every mile I had driven her, every hour I had worked with her and I wrote them all down. For each item, I picked a figure and then carefully totted them all up.

  ‘So you see, Mr Molloy, the bill at the moment stands at three hundred and fifty-eight euro, plus VAT,’ I replied calmly, hoping my voice wouldn’t shake. I had to get the bill up to more than what he could sell her for. I was sure that was his only interest in her.

  ‘What?! That’s bloody ridiculous!’ he exclaimed, going from red to purple. For a moment I thought he was going to have a heart attack.

  ‘Well, unfortunately, that’s not all. If she were to come in heat again the infection would recur so she’ll have to be spayed as well. That will cost another hundred and fifty euro or so.’ It would also significantly reduce her resale value if she was spayed. ‘We’ll need the money by tomorrow.’

  ‘This is crazy. I’ll have to think about it,’ he muttered faintly. Obviously he had done the same rough calculations as I had. He would be lucky to get a couple of hundred euro for her, even if she had papers.

  ‘Take all the time you like,’ I replied calmly. ‘Drop in tomorrow and let us know. Of course, if you decide it’s not worth bothering with, you’ll still owe us the three hundred and fifty-eight euro, plus an extra forty for putting her to sleep. Plus VAT.’

  He walked out, muttering in disgust. I felt I had won the battle.

  That evening, Slug picked a piece of fresh chicken out of my hand although she never took her wary eyes off me. She came on in leaps and bounds after that. I never saw Mr Molloy again but it took a long time before my heart didn’t stop every time the doorbell rang. After ten days, with no further contact from the owner, Justin decided that she had been officially abandoned and, with a bit of persuasion, agreed to spay her as there was no way I was going to do it myself so early in my surgical career.

  I was right in my early assessment: with a bit of time and patience, Slug became a very friendly dog. I was wrong, though, in thinking that I would find a nice home for her; Slug picked me.

  As the days went by and we travelled in and out to work together, she became increasingly devoted to me. I got used to my little shadow and she would often lie unnoticed at my feet as I consulted or carried out operations. I eventually gave up telling Donal every day that she would be going soon – and he had long since given up listening anyway! Gradually, her health improved and before long she was unrecognisable. Her ears now point upwards, her coat is glossy and only the crooked legs remain as a testimony to those early days of ill-treatment. After the five months, when Michael returned to work and I left to find my next job, Slug came with me. I couldn’t imagine life without her now and I laugh when I remember that my initial reaction to her was ‘What an ugly dog’. How very wrong I was!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GETTING STUCK IN

  I paused, and closed my fingers around the large, soft mass at the angle of the horse’s jaw. With an air of brave decisiveness that I certainly didn’t feel, I plunged the sharpened blade deep into the softest point and jumped sideways as an arc of bloody pus spewed out of my incision.

  An enthusiastic roar from the assembled onlookers, with exclamations of ‘Jaysus, Missus, ye’ll bleedin’ kill ’im!’ and ‘I think I’m gonna puke!’ rewarded my efforts, as the crowd scattered to avoid the discharge which had by now reduced to a trickle. I gently massaged the area with a swab to ensure that the last of the discharge had drained. An abscess is not uncommon in a horse and in most cases poses no great threat to the animal. In this case, however, it was located in the deadliest of positions, between a maze of major nerves and arteries; the slightest slip of the blade and I would have been making arrangements to have the body taken away.

  The piebald shook himself and looked around as though wondering what all the fuss was about. Bursting the abscess had brought about instant relief from pain and he happily lowered his head to pick at the grass.

  I was delighted with myself to have brought about such a spectacular improvement with a minimum of input. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Justin was already out calving a cow when this call had come in, I undoubtedly would have shied away from going out to what had sounded like a very sick horse.

  Johnny, the sixteen-year old who owned the piebald, turned to me with an earnest look on his face. ‘Thanks very much, Missus! Me Da gave me Charlo de nigh’ before ’e was kilt. ’E means a lot te me, ’e does.’

  Johnny’s father had been found dead one night, in the rough waste ground at the back of the estate, in what was probably a drugs-related crime.

  As we walked back across the fields, I noted with relief that my car was still where I had left it and nothing appeared to have been tampered with. During my first week in the practice, I had spent over an hour in a neighbouring estate, painstakingly stitching a horse that had got caught on the railway line, only to be rewarded by finding my car-radio ripped out. Justin was sympathetic, but warned me that if I got the name of being a so
ft touch in the area, I wouldn’t last long. With this in mind, I had left Johnny’s older brother minding the car with the threat that if anything was missing on my return, they could find another vet to do their work. All was in order.

  I was surprised when Johnny pulled a wad of tattered twenty-euro banknotes out of his back pocket. ‘How much, Missus?’ He paid me the sixty euro and I went on my way.

  I left clear instructions about how to bathe and clean the wound and I didn’t expect to hear any more from them. So I was surprised to see young Johnny sitting outside the surgery wall that evening, carrying a bulky-looking parcel, carelessly wrapped in rough brown paper.

  ‘How’s Charlo doing?’ I called out, trying not to sound alarmed.

  He smile broadly. ‘Shur, he’s aytin’ everythin’ dat’s put in front of ’im. He must ’ave been half-starved with all de poison in ’is blood. Paddy on the green said he’d ’ave been in de knackers’ yard by now if ye hadn’t come out.’ With that, he dropped the parcel into my hands and then quickly disappeared around the corner without looking back.

  I was bewildered, not to say a little alarmed, as to what the contents of the parcel might be, but I didn’t get a chance to have a look until later on in the evening, when the rush at the surgery had calmed to a manageable level. Cautiously, I put my hand in the bag and gasped in horror when I realised what it was: a brand new car-radio, freshly ripped out of some other unfortunate’s car, wires still attached. The neighbours in inner-city estates had a great sense of loyalty to their own. Clearly, Johnny’s gang now considered me one of theirs. I found myself in a total quandary. While I didn’t want to accept stolen property, neither did I want to offend Johnny’s sense of loyalty – however misguided. Either way, it was highly unlikely that the owner of this car-radio, among the dozens that would have been stolen that day, would ever be reunited with his or her property. Hurriedly, I stuffed the radio back in its bag and hid it among a pile of junk in a drawer in the surgery. But one problem still remained: how would I ever explain today’s returns in the first meeting scheduled with the accountant next week? And what was the VAT rate on payment by means of stolen car radios?

  CHAPTER SIX

  BRUNO’S LAST HOURS

  ‘We have yer man in the van, luv,’ said the man who had just appeared on the door-step of the surgery.

  ‘Will ye do ’im in for us?’ added his companion.

  I gulped, trying not to appear too taken aback. Looking at the pair of them, I suddenly wished I hadn’t arrived in early, before either Liz or Justin.

  ‘Yer man?’ I repeated nervously.

  ‘Yeah, yer man I was tellin’ ye about last night on the phone.’

  ‘Oh, of course, the old dog,’ I replied, as the memory of the bizarre phone call I had received some hours previously came flooding back.

  I had been in a deep sleep when the phone had rung, and I paused just long enough to glance at the clock before pressing the answer button: the digital light flashed 4.38am.

  As I held the phone to my ear, all I could hear was loud, thumping, heavy-metal music and the sounds of a party in full swing. Please, please, I thought to myself, let it be a wrong number.

  ‘Is tha’ de doctor?’ roared a suspiciously high-sounding voice over the background din.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, by now getting used to my honorary status. ‘What can I do for you?’ I continued as abruptly as possible in my state of semi-slumber, anticipating a long story.

  And a long story it was.

  Ten minutes later, I was still being regaled with the story of a stray dog who had been adopted by the local community and now, at sixteen years of age, they decided it was time to have him put to sleep – at 4.38 in the morning.

  At least three voices were enthusiastically filling me in on all the sordid details.

  ‘He’s been around since I got me first moped, Missus. An’ ye wouldn’t wanna see de poor aul’ brute sufferin’, like.’

  ‘An’ we ’ave the money an all, we had a bit of a whip around for ’im there tonight. So dere’s no problem with tha’ end a things.’

  ‘It’s just that,’ the initial spokesman was back, a slight catch in his voice this time, ‘he’s like a son to me …’ and the voice trailed off.

  ‘Ah Jaysus, would ye give us back de phone, Gerry, ye girl’s blouse ye! Will ye do it for us, Doc? Will ye do ’im in for us?’

  ‘You say he’s sixteen years old, but is he in a lot of pain or anything?’

  ‘Ah no, love, it’s just that the auld legs are goin’ on ’im and he’s pissin’ on ’imself an’ there isn’t a pick on ’im.’

  ‘Well, it certainly sounds like his quality of life is gone,’ I began, trying to sound sympathetic, ‘but I don’t really see that he needs to be put to sleep right now.’

  ‘Ah Jaysus, no love! Sure we don’t even know where de fecker is. Goes off wanderin’ after birds at night ’e does. Still a bit of a boyo – although I don’t think ’e could get de leg over now,’ he added with a bawdy laugh.

  ‘Naw, me and the lads was just ’aving a few joints and we got talkin’ and we just wanned to know if ye’d do de job for us. Shur, ye couldn’t come out now, luv – it’s after four in the morning, ye know,’ he added, sounding a bit concerned about my state of consciousness.

  ‘What was all that about?’ asked Donal blearily as I put the phone down. He looked at me disbelievingly as I filled him in. ‘You do have some strange clients!’ was his only comment before sinking back into the pillows.

  The next morning, I had a vague recollection of the conversation, but as this was mixed together with my later dreams of aged Collies smoking joints while roaring round the local estates on motorbikes, I wasn’t quite sure what was fact and what was fiction.

  ‘Will ye come an’ have a look at Bruno? See what ye think?’

  I followed the pair out to the back of the van and there, on a well-worn but comfortable blanket, lay your typical ‘street dog’. No fancy collars or name tags adorned the shaggy neck. He was a mongrel – a remote pure-blooded ancestor had doubtlessly had his wicked way with some unknown mate of indeterminate breed, probably late one night in a dark alleyway. His thick, matted coat had faded from what had once been a glossy black to a dull, reddish brown.

  ‘Come on, Bruno, let’s have a look at you,’ I coaxed.

  He thumped his tail good-naturedly as I hoisted him up. He didn’t object as I ran my hands over him, noting the wasted muscles of his hind-quarters and the smelly, soiled coat – a sure sign of his incontinence. As I pulled out my stethoscope to listen to the rhythmic swishing of what had once been a healthy heart, he coughed deeply as though to confirm my diagnosis.

  ‘Yes,’ I said thoughtfully, turning to face the two men. ‘He’s had a long life but he’s come to the end of the road now. Do you want to bring him on into the surgery?’

  ‘Ah no way. Shur, de lads would kill us if we didn’t bring ’im back. We just brought ’im out to see what ye thought. Will ye come back to the house with us and do it? All de lads are waiting.’

  No amount of persuading would convince them it made much more sense for me to do the job there and then. Somehow, this old dog had gone from being a stray, surviving on the occasional scraps thrown out to him, to enjoying the status of a revered pet who had now come to the end of the line and required a home death and burial – and, by the sound of things, a wake.

  Reluctantly, I gathered my clippers, syringes and a bottle of the pleasantly pink-tinted lethal injection.

  It wasn’t until I was following them out across the city that my thoughts began to turn to the task ahead. Although at this stage I had amassed a vast sixteen weeks’ experience as a practising vet, I had never yet had to put an animal to sleep.

  In college, we had often discussed how awful it must to have to do it with an owner present. ‘Relax,’ said one of the students dismissively. ‘Sure, how could it go wrong? It’s not as if you can make a balls of it. Aren’t we meant to be killing the
m?’

  His words didn’t console me as we headed into a fairly rundown estate and I mentally rehearsed the horrors of not being able to find a vein, or of blowing a vein, or of the dog, or the owner, or both, getting hysterical.

  I could have been forgiven for thinking that there was a mini street-festival going on as we reached the last house in the cul-de-sac. An array of old motorbikes and clapped-out bangers filled the narrow road. I had to park at the far end and make my way up behind Mikey and Joe as they carried Bruno through the crowds.

  ‘These are de lads dat ’ad de whip around to do the job,’ explained Joe, seeing my bewildered face. ‘Dey all wanted to be in on it.’

  There was just about room for me to squeeze in beside Bruno as he lay up on the kitchen table, looking slightly bewildered by his new-found, elevated status within the community.

  I passed over the lead from the electric clippers. Enthusiastic hands somehow managed to pull it to the nearest socket without strangling anyone.

  With Bruno’s vein clipped and my syringe loaded, I stood poised over the aged dog, grateful, at least, that he seemed to be enjoying life to the end. Mikey whipped a piece of well-worn elastic out of his pocket and handed it to me knowingly as I went to raise the vein. I tied the band around the leg and waited for the vein to pop up at me. I poked at the hardened skin, trying to differentiate the muscles from the vessels and although I could name not only the individual muscles but also their nerve and blood supplies, I couldn’t for the life of me find the vein.

  An expectant hush fell on my audience as I untied the elastic and clipped a bit more, first right and then left of the initial area. This time, I thought I could finally feel the vein and holding my breath, I poked the needle in the general direction, waiting for the gush of rich blood. Bruno didn’t flinch. I peered at the needle, willing some blood to appear, but nothing happened.