“Mousy smell? And is it there?”
“Yes.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Mange.”
“Oh, dear.” The nurse put a hand to her mouth. “That’s rather nasty, isn’t it.” Then she put her shoulders back in a characteristic gesture. “Well, I’ve had experience of mange before, and I can tackle it. I’ve always been able to clear it up with sulphur baths, but there’s such a danger of infection to the other dogs. It really is a worry.”
I put Amber down and stood up, feeling suddenly weary. “Yes, but you’re thinking of sarcoptic mange, Sister. I’m afraid this is something rather worse.”
“Worse? In what way?”
“Well, the whole look of the thing suggests demodectic mange.”
She nodded. “I’ve heard of that—and it’s more serious?”
“Yes … .” I might as well bite the bullet. “Very often incurable.”
“Goodness me, I had no idea. She wasn’t scratching much, so I didn’t worry.”
“Yes, that’s just it,” I said wryly. “Dogs scratch almost nonstop with sarcoptic mange and we can cure it, but they often show only mild discomfort with demodectic, which usually defeats us.”
The spectre was very large in my mind now, and I use the word literally because this skin disease had haunted me ever since I had qualified. I had seen many fine dogs put to sleep after the most prolonged attempts to treat them.
I lifted the microscope from the back of the car. “Anyway, I may be jumping the gun. I hope I am. This is the only way to find out.”
There was a patch on Amber’s left foreleg which I squeezed and scraped with a scalpel blade. I deposited the debris and serum on a glass slide, added a few drops of potassium hydroxide and put a cover-slip on top.
Sister Rose gave me a cup of coffee while I waited, then I rigged up the microscope in the light from the kitchen window and looked down the eyepiece. And there it was. My stomach tightened as I saw what I didn’t want to see—the dread mite, demodex canis; the head, the thorax with its eight stumpy legs and the long, cigar-shaped body. And there wasn’t just one. The whole microscopic field was teeming with them.
“Ah, well, that’s it, Sister,” I said. “There’s no doubt about it. I’m very sorry.”
The corners of her mouth drooped. “But … isn’t there anything we can do?”
“Oh, yes, we can try. And we’re going to try like anything because I’ve taken a fancy to Amber. Don’t worry too much. I’ve cured a few demodex cases in my time, always by using the same stuff.” I went to the car and fished around in the boot. “Here it is—Odylen.” I held up the can in front of her. “I’ll show you how to apply it.”
It was difficult to rub the lotion into the affected patches as Amber wagged and licked, but I finished at last.
“Now do that every day,” I said, “and let me know in about a week. Sometimes that Odylen really does work.”
Sister Rose stuck out her jaw with the determination that had saved so many animals. “I assure you I’ll do it most carefully. I’m sure we can succeed. It doesn’t look so bad.”
I didn’t say anything, and she went on. “But how about my other dogs? Won’t they become infected?”
I shook my head. “Another odd thing about demodex. It very rarely spreads to another animal. It is nothing like as contagious as the sarcops, so you have very little cause for worry in that way.”
“That’s something, anyway. But how on earth does a dog get the disease in the first place?”
“Mysterious again,” I said. “The veterinary profession is pretty well convinced that all dogs have a certain number of demodex mites in their skins, but why they should cause mange in some and not in others has never been explained. Heredity has got something to do with it because it sometimes occurs in several dogs in the same litter. But it’s a baffling business.”
I left Sister Rose with her can of Odylen. Maybe this would be one of the exceptions to my experiences with this condition. I had to hope so.
I heard from the nurse within a week. She had been applying the Odylen religiously but the disease was spreading further up the legs.
I hurried out there, and my fears were confirmed when I saw Amber’s face. It was disfigured by the increasing hairlessness, and when I thought of the beauty that had captivated me on my first visit, the sight was like a blow. Her tail-wagging cheerfulness was undiminished, and that seemed to make the whole thing worse.
I had to try something else, and in view of the fact that a secondary subcutaneous invasion of staphylococci was an impediment to recovery, I gave the dog an injection of staph toxoid. I also started her on a course of Fowler’s solution of arsenic, which at that time was popular in the treatment of skin conditions.
When ten days passed I had begun to hope, and it was a bitter disappointment when Sister Rose telephoned just after breakfast.
Her voice trembled as she spoke. “Mr. Herriot, she really is deteriorating all the time. Nothing seems to do any good. I’m beginning to think that …”
I cut her off in mid-sentence. “All right, I’ll be out there within an hour. Don’t give up hope yet. These cases sometimes take months to recover.”
I knew as I drove to the sanctuary that my words were only meant to comfort. They had no real substance. But I had tried to say something helpful because there was nothing Sister Rose hated more than putting a dog to sleep. Of all the hundreds of animals that had passed through her hands, I could remember only a handful that had defeated her. Very old dogs, in a hopeless plight with chronic kidney or heart conditions, or young ones with distemper. With all the others she had battled until they were fit to go to their new homes. And it wasn’t only Sister Rose—I myself recoiled from the idea of doing such a thing to Amber. Something about that dog had taken hold of me.
When I arrived I still had no idea what I was going to do, and when I spoke I was half-surprised at the things I said.
“Sister, I’ve come to take Amber home with me. I’ll be able to treat her myself every day, then. You’ve got enough to do, looking after your other dogs. I know you have done everything possible, but I’m going to take on this job myself.”
“But … you are a busy man. How will you find the time?”
“I can treat her in the evenings and any other spare moments. This way I’ll be able to check on her progress all the time. I’m determined to get her right.”
And, driving back to the surgery, I was surprised at the depth of my feeling. Throughout my career I have often had this compulsive desire to cure an animal, but never stronger than with Amber. The young bitch was delighted to be in the car with me. Like everything else, she seemed to regard this as just another game, and she capered around, licking my ear, resting her paws on the dash and peering through the windscreen. I looked at her happy face, scarred by the disease and smeared with Odylen, and thumped my hand on the wheel. Demodectic mange was hell, but this was one case that was going to get better.
It was the beginning of a strangely vivid episode in my life, as fresh now as it was then, more than thirty years ago. We had no facilities for boarding dogs—very few vets had at that time—but I made up a comfortable billet for her in the old stable in the yard. I penned off one of the stalls with a sheet of plywood and put down a bed of straw. Despite its age, the stable was a substantial building and free from draughts. She would be snug in there.
I made sure of one thing. I kept Helen out of the whole business. I remembered how stricken she had been when we adopted Oscar the cat and then lost him to his rightful owner, and I knew she would soon grow too fond of this dog. But I had forgotten about myself.
Veterinary surgeons would never last in their profession if they became too involved with their patients because I knew from experience that most of my colleagues were just as sentimental over animals as the owners, but before I knew what was happening, I became involved with Amber.
I fed her myself, changed her bedding and carried
out the treatment. I saw her as often as possible during the day, but when I think of her now, it is always night. It was late November, when darkness came in soon after four o’clock, and the last few visits were a dim-sighted fumbling in cow byres; when I came home, I always drove round to the yard at the back of Skeldale House and trained my headlights on the stable.
When I threw open the door, Amber was always there, waiting to welcome me, her forefeet resting on the plywood sheet, her long yellow ears gleaming in the bright beam. That is my picture of her to this day. Her temperament never altered, and her tail swished the straw unceasingly as I did all the uncomfortable things to her: rubbing the tender skin with the lotion, injecting her with the staph toxoid, taking further skin scrapings to check progress.
As the days and the weeks went by and I saw no improvement, I became a little desperate. I gave her sulphur baths, derris baths, although I had done no good with such things in the past, and I also began to go through all the proprietary things on the market. In veterinary practice every resistant disease spawns a multitude of quack “cures,” and I lost count of the shampoos and washes I swilled over the young animal in the hope that there might be some magic element in them, despite my misgivings.
Those nightly sessions under the headlights became part of my life, and I think I might have gone on blindly for an indefinite period, until one very dark evening with the rain beating on the cobbles of the yard I seemed to see the young dog for the first time.
The condition had spread over the entire body, leaving only tufts and straggling wisps of hair. The long ears were golden no longer. They were almost bald, as was the rest of her face and head. Everywhere, her skin was thickened and wrinkled and had assumed a bluish tinge. And when I squeezed it, a slow ooze of pus and serum came up around my fingers.
I flopped back and sat down in the straw while Amber leaped around me, licking and wagging. Despite her terrible state, her nature was unchanged.
But this couldn’t go on. I knew now that she and I had come to the end of the road. As I tried to think, I stroked her head, and her cheerful eyes were pathetic in the scarecrow face. My misery was compounded of various things. I had grown too fond of her, I had failed and she had nobody. Only Sister Rose and myself. And that was another thing. What was I going to tell that good lady after all my brave words?
It took me until the following lunchtime to summon the will to telephone her. In my effort to be matter-of-fact about the thing, I fear I was almost brusque.
“Sister,” I said, “I’m afraid it’s all over with Amber. I’ve tried everything, and she has got worse all the time. I do think it would be the kindest thing to put her to sleep.”
Shock was evident in her voice. “But … it seems so awful. Just for a skin disease.”
“I know, that’s what everybody thinks. But this is a dreadful thing. In its worst form it can ruin an animal’s life. Amber must be very uncomfortable now, and soon she is going to be in pain. We can’t let her go on.”
“Oh … well, I trust in your judgment, Mr. Herriot. I know you wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t necessary.” There was a long pause, and I knew she was trying to control her voice. Then she spoke calmly. “I think I would like to come out and see her when I can get away from the hospital.”
“Please, Sister,” I said gently. “I’d much rather you didn’t.”
Again the pause, then, “Very well, Mr. Herriot. I leave everything to you.”
I had an urgent visit immediately afterwards, and a rush of work kept me going all afternoon. I never really stopped thinking about what I had to do later, but at least the other pressures stopped it from obsessing me. It was, as always, pitch-dark when I drove into the yard and opened the garage doors.
And it was like all the other times. Amber was there in the beam, paws on the plywood, body swinging with her wagging, mouth open and panting with delight, welcoming me.
I put the barbiturate and syringe into my pocket before climbing into the pen. For a long time I made a fuss of her, patting her and talking to her as she leaped up at me. Then I filled the syringe.
“Sit, girl,” I said, and she flopped obediently onto her hindquarters. I gripped her right leg above the elbow to raise the radial vein. There was no need for clipping—all the hair had gone. Amber looked at me interestedly, wondering what new game this might be as I slipped the needle into the vein. I realised that there was no need to say the things I always said. “She won’t know a thing.” “This is just an overdose of anaesthetic.” “It’s an easy way out for her.” There was no sorrowing owner to hear me. There were just the two of us.
And as I murmured, “Good girl, Amber, good lass,” while she sank down on the straw, I had the conviction that if I had said those things, they would have been true. She didn’t know a thing between her playfulness and oblivion, and it was indeed an easy way out from that prison which would soon become a torture chamber.
I stepped from the pen and switched off the car lights, and in the cold darkness the yard had never seemed so empty. After the weeks of struggle, the sense of loss and failure was overpowering, but at the end I was at least able to spare Amber the ultimate miseries: the internal abscesses and septicaemia that await a dog suffering from a progressive and incurable demodectic mange.
For a long time I carried a weight around with me, and I feel some of it now after all these years. Because the tragedy of Amber was that she was born too soon. At the present time we can cure most cases of demodectic mange by a long course of organo-phosphates and antibiotics, but neither of these things was available then when I needed them.
It is still a dread condition, but we have fought patiently with our modern weapons and won most of the battles over the past few years. I know several fine dogs in Darrowby who have survived, and when I see them in the streets, healthy and glossy-coated, the picture of Amber comes back into my mind. It is always dark, and she is always in the headlight’s beam.
Chapter
16
“JUST LOOK AT THAT,” the farmer said.
“At what?” I was “cleansing” a cow (removing the afterbirth), and my arm was buried deep in the cow’s uterus. I turned my head to see him pointing at the byre floor beneath my patient. I saw four white jets of milk spurting onto the concrete from the animal’s udder.
He grinned. “That’s a funny thing, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t, really,” I said. “It’s a reflex action caused by my hand twiddling the uterus about. This acts on a gland in the brain which causes the milk to flow. I often see cows letting their milk down like that when I’m cleansing them.”
“Well, that’s a rum ’un.” The farmer laughed. “Any road, you’d better get finished quick or you’ll have a few pints of milk to knock off your bill.”
That was in 1947, the year of the great snow. I have never known snow like that before or since, and the odd thing was that it took such a long time to get started. Nothing happened in November and we had a green Christmas, but then it began to get colder and colder. All through January a north-east wind blew, apparently straight from the Arctic; usually after a few days of this sort of unbearable blast, snow would come and make things a bit warmer. But not in 1947.
Each day we thought it couldn’t get any colder, but it did, and then, borne on the wind, very fine flakes began to appear over the last few days of the month. They were so small you could hardly see them, but they were the forerunners of the real thing. At the beginning of February, big, fat flakes started a steady, relentless descent on our countryside, and we knew, after all that buildup, that we were in for it.
For weeks and weeks the snow fell, sometimes in a gentle, almost lazy curtain that remorselessly obliterated the familiar landmarks, at others in fierce blizzards. In between, the frost took over and transformed the roads into glassy tracks of flattened snow over which we drove at fifteen miles an hour.
The long garden at Skeldale House disappeared under a white blanket. There was a single deep cha
nnel by the wall-side where I fought my way daily to my car in the yard at the top.
The yard itself had to be dug out every day and the opening of the big double doors into the yard was a back-breaking job. One day I found the doors were jammed immovably in high mounds of frozen snow. There was nothing I could do about it so they were left standing open for the rest of the winter.
To get to our cases we did a lot of walking since so many of the farm tracks were blocked wall to wall. On the very high country there were some farms we couldn’t reach at all, and that was very sad because there was no doubt that many animals died for lack of veterinary help. It was around the middle of March when helicopters were dropping food on these isolated spots that Bert Kealey telephoned me.
He was one of those out of reach on a high moor that was bleak even in summertime, and I was surprised to hear his voice.
“I thought your phone wires would be down, Bert,” I said.
“Naw, they’ve survived, God knows how.” The young farmer’s voice was cheerful, as always. He ran a small suckling herd on the high tops and was one of the many who scratched a living from the unfriendly soil.
“But ah’m in trouble,” he went on. “Polly’s just had a litter, and she hasn’t a drop of milk.”
“Oh dear, that’s unfortunate,” I said. Polly was the only pig on the Kealey farm.
“Aye, it’s a beggar. Bad enough losin’ the litter—there’s twelve smashin’ little pigs—but it’s Tess I’m bothered about.”
“Yes … yes …” I was thinking of Tess, too. She was Bert’s eight-year-old daughter, and she had a thing about little pigs. She had persuaded her father to buy her an in-pig sow for her birthday so that she could have a litter of her own. I could remember Tess’s excitement when she showed me her birthday gift a few days after its arrival.
“That’s Polly Pig,” she said, pointing to the sow nuzzling the straw in its pen. “She’s mine. My dad gave her to me.”
I leaned over the pen. “Yes, I know. You’re a lucky girl. She looks a fine pig to me.”