I lifted the clippers. ‘All right,’ I said wearily, ‘if you won’t have it one way you’ll have it the other.’ And I tucked him under one arm, seized a paw and began to clip.
He couldn’t do a thing about it. He fought and wriggled but I had him as in a vice. And as I methodically trimmed the overgrown nails, wrathful bubbles escaped on either side of the bandage along with his splutterings. If dogs could swear I was getting the biggest cursing in history.
I did my job with particular care, taking pains to keep well away from the sensitive core of the claw so that he felt nothing, but it made no difference. The indignity of being mastered for once in his life was insupportable.
Towards the conclusion of the operation I began to change my tone. I had found in the past that once dominance has been established it is quite easy to work up a friendly relationship, so I started to introduce a wheedling note.
‘Good little chap,’ I cooed. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
I laid down the clippers and stroked his head as a few more resentful bubbles forced their way round the bandage. ‘All right, Magnus, we’ll take your muzzle off now.’ I began to loosen the knot. ‘You’ll feel a lot better then, won’t you?’
So often it happened that when I finally removed the restraint the dog would apparently decide to let bygones be bygones and in some cases would even lick my hand. But not so with Magnus. As the last turn of bandage fell from his nose he made another very creditable attempt to bite me.
‘All right, Mr Beckwith,’ I called along the passage, ‘you can come and get him now.’
My final memory of the visit was of the little dog turning at the top of the surgery steps and giving me a last dirty look before his master led him down the street.
It said very clearly, ‘Right, mate, I won’t forget you.’
That had been weeks ago but ever since that day the very sound of my voice was enough to set Magnus yapping his disapproval. At first the regulars treated it as a big joke but now they had started to look at me strangely. Maybe they thought I had been cruel to the animal or something. It was all very embarrassing because I didn’t want to abandon the Drovers’; the bar was always cosy even on the coldest night and the beer very consistent.
Anyway if I had gone to another pub I would probably have started to do my talking in whispers and people would have looked at me even more strangely then.
How different it was with Mrs Hammond’s Irish setter. This started with an urgent phone call one night when I was in the bath. Helen knocked on the bathroom door and I dried off quickly and threw on my dressing gown. I ran upstairs and as soon as I lifted the receiver an anxious voice burst in my ear.
‘Mr Herriot, it’s Rock! He’s been missing for two days and a man has just brought him back now. He found him in a wood with his foot in a gin trap. He must . . .’ I heard a half sob at the end of the line. ‘He must have been caught there all this time.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry! Is it very bad?’
‘Yes it is.’ Mrs Hammond was the wife of one of the local bank managers and a capable, sensible woman. There was a pause and I imagined her determinedly gaining control of herself. When she spoke her voice was calm.
‘Yes, I’m afraid it looks as though he’ll have to have his foot amputated.’
‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry to hear that.’ But I wasn’t really surprised. A limb compressed in one of those barbarous instruments for forty-eight hours would be in a critical state. These traps are now mercifully illegal but in those days they often provided me with the kind of jobs I didn’t want and the kind of decisions I hated to make. Did you take a limb from an uncomprehending animal to keep it alive or did you bring down the merciful but final curtain of euthanasia? I was responsible for the fact that there were several three-legged dogs and cats running around Darrowby and though they seemed happy enough and their owners still had the pleasure of their pets, the thing, for me, was clouded with sorrow.
Anyway, I would do what had to be done.
‘Bring him straight round, Mrs Hammond,’ I said.
Rock was a big dog but he was the lean type of Setter and seemed very light as I lifted him on to the surgery table. As my arms encircled the unresisting body I could feel the rib cage sharply ridged under the skin.
‘He’s lost a lot of weight,’ I said.
His mistress nodded. ‘It’s a long time to go without food. He ate ravenously when he came in, despite his pain.’
I put a hand beneath the dog’s elbow and gently lifted the leg. The vicious teeth of the trap had been clamped on the radius and ulna but what worried me was the grossly swollen state of the foot. It was at least twice its normal size.
‘What do you think, Mr Herriot?’ Mrs Hammond’s hands twisted anxiously at the handbag which every woman seemed to bring to the surgery irrespective of the circumstances.
I stroked the dog’s head. Under the light, the rich sheen of the coat glowed red and gold. ‘This terrific swelling of the foot. It’s partly due to inflammation but also to the fact that the circulation was pretty well cut off for the time he was in the trap. The danger is gangrene – that’s when the tissue dies and decomposes.’
‘I know,’ she replied. ‘I did a bit of nursing before I married.’
Carefully I lifted the enormous foot. Rock gazed calmly in front of him as I felt around the metacarpals and phalanges, working my way up to the dreadful wound.
‘Well, it’s a mess,’ I said, ‘but there are two good things. First, the leg isn’t broken. The trap has gone right down to the bone but there is no fracture. And second and more important, the foot is still warm.’
‘That’s a good sign?’
‘Oh yes. It means there’s still some circulation. If the foot had been cold and clammy the thing would have been hopeless. I would have had to amputate.’
‘You think you can save his foot, then?’
I held up my hand. ‘I don’t know, Mrs Hammond. As I say, he still has some circulation but the question is how much. Some of this tissue is bound to slough off and things could look very nasty in a few days. But I’d like to try.’
I flushed out the wound with a mild antiseptic in warm water and gingerly explored the grisly depths. As I snipped away the pieces of damaged muscle and cut off the shreds and flaps of dead skin the thought was uppermost that it must be extremely unpleasant for the dog; but Rock held his head high and scarcely flinched. Once or twice he turned his head towards me enquiringly as I probed deeply and at times I felt his moist nose softly brushing my face as I bent over the foot, but that was all.
The injury seemed a desecration. There are few more beautiful dogs than an Irish Setter and Rock was a picture: sleek coated and graceful with silky feathers on legs and tail and a noble, gentle-eyed head. As the thought of how he would look without a foot drove into my mind I shook my head and turned quickly to lift the sulphanilamide powder from the trolley behind me. Thank heavens this was now available, one of the new revolutionary drugs, and I packed it deep into the wound with the confidence that it would really do something to keep down the infection. I applied a layer of gauze then a light bandage with a feeling of fatalism. There was nothing else I could do.
Rock was brought in to me every day. And every day he endured the same procedure: the removal of the dressing which was usually adhering to the wound to some degree then the inevitable trimming of the dying tissues and the rebandaging. Yet, incredibly, he never showed any reluctance to come. Most of my patients came in very slowly and left at top speed, dragging their owners on the end of the leads; in fact some turned tail at the door, slipping their collar, and sped down Trengate with their owners in hot pursuit. Dogs aren’t so daft and there is doubtless a dentist’s chair type of association about a vet’s surgery.
Rock, however, always marched in happily with a gentle waving of his tail. In fact when I went into the waiting-room and saw him sitting there he usually offered me his paw. This had always been a characteristic gesture of his but the
re seemed something uncanny about it when I bent over him and saw the white-swathed limb outstretched towards me.
After a week the outlook was grim. All the time the dead tissue had been sloughing and one night when I removed the dressing Mrs Hammond gasped and turned away. With her nursing training she had been very helpful, holding the foot this way and that intuitively as I worked, but tonight she didn’t want to look.
I couldn’t blame her. In places the white bones of the metacarpals could be seen like the fingers of a human hand with only random strands of skin covering them.
‘Is it hopeless, do you think?’ she whispered, still looking away.
I didn’t answer for a moment as I felt my way underneath the foot. ‘It does look awful, but do you know, I think we have reached the end of the road and are going to turn the corner soon.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, all the under surface is sound and warm. His pads are perfectly intact. And do you notice, there’s no smell tonight? That’s because there is no more dead stuff to cut away. I really think this foot is going to start granulating.’
She stole a look. ‘And do you think those . . . bones . . . will be covered over?’
‘Yes, I do.’ I dusted on the faithful sulphanilamide. ‘It won’t be exactly the same foot as before but it will do.’
And it turned out just that way. It took a long time but the new healthy tissue worked its way upwards as though determined to prove me right and when, many months later, Rock came into the surgery with a mild attack of conjunctivitis he proffered a courteous paw as was his wont. I accepted the civility and as we shook hands I looked at the upper surface of the foot. It was hairless, smooth and shining, but it was completely healed.
‘You’d hardly notice it, would you?’ Mrs Hammond said.
‘That’s right, it’s marvellous. Just this little bare patch. And he walked in without a limp.’
Mrs Hammond laughed. ‘Oh, he’s quite sound on that leg now. And do you know, I really think he’s grateful to you – look at him.’
I suppose the animal psychologists would say it was ridiculous even to think that the big dog realised I had done him a bit of good; that lolling-tongued open mouth, warm eyes and outstretched paw didn’t mean anything like that.
Maybe they are right, but what I do know and cherish is the certainty that after all the discomforts I had put him through Rock didn’t hold a thing against me.
I have to turn back to the other side of the coin to discuss Timmy Butterworth. He was a wire-haired Fox Terrier who resided in Gimber’s Yard, one of the little cobbled alleys off Trengate, and the only time I had to treat him was one lunch time.
I had just got out of the car and was climbing the surgery steps when I saw a little girl running along the street, waving frantically as she approached. I waited for her and when she panted up to me her eyes were wide with fright.
‘Ah’m Wendy Butterworth,’ she gasped. ‘Me mam sent me. Will you come to our dog?’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Me mam says he’s et summat!’
‘Poison?’
‘Ah think so.’
It was less than a hundred yards away, not worth taking the car. I broke into a trot with Wendy by my side and within seconds we were turning into the narrow archway of the ‘yard’. Our feet clattered along the tunnel-like passage then we emerged into one of the unlikely scenes which had surprised me so much when I first came to Darrowby: the miniature street with its tiny crowded houses, strips of garden, bow windows looking into each other across a few feet of cobbles. But I had no time to gaze around me today because Mrs Butterworth, stout, red-faced and very flustered was waiting for me.
‘He’s in ’ere, Mr Herriot!’ she cried and threw wide the door of one of the cottages. It opened straight into the living room and I saw my patient sitting on the hearth rug looking somewhat thoughtful.
‘What’s happened, then?’ I asked.
The lady clasped and unclasped her hands. ‘I saw a big rat run down across t’yard yesterday and I got some poison to put down for ’im.’ She gulped agitatedly. ‘I mixed it in a saucer full o’ porridge then somebody came to t’door and when ah came back, Timmy was just finishin’ it off!’
The terrier’s thoughtful expression had deepened and he ran his tongue slowly round his lips with the obvious reflection that that was the strangest porridge he had ever tasted.
I turned to Mrs Butterworth. ‘Have you got the poison tin there?’
‘Yes, here it is.’ With a violently trembling hand she passed it to me.
I read the label. It was a well-known name and the very look of it sounded a knell in my mind recalling the many dead and dying animals with which it was associated. Its active ingredient was zinc phosphide and even today with our modern drugs we are usually helpless once a dog has absorbed it.
I thumped the tin down on the table. ‘We’ve got to make him vomit immediately! I don’t want to waste time going back to the surgery – have you got any washing soda? If I push a few crystals down it’ll do the trick.’
‘Oh dear!’ Mrs Butterworth bit her lip. ‘We ’aven’t such a thing in the house . . . is there anything else we could . . .’
‘Wait a minute!’ I looked across the table, past the piece of cold mutton, the tureen of potatoes and a jar of pickles. ‘Is there any mustard in that pot?’
‘Aye, it’s full.’
Quickly I grabbed the pot, ran to the tap and diluted the mustard to the consistency of milk.
‘Come on!’ I shouted. ‘Let’s have him outside.’
I seized the astonished Timmy, whisked him from the rug, shot through the door and dumped him on the cobbles. Holding his body clamped tightly between my knees and his jaws close together with my left hand I poured the liquid mustard into the side of his mouth whence it trickled down to the back of his throat. There was nothing he could do about it, he had swallowed the disgusting stuff, and when about a tablespoon had gone down I released him.
After a single affronted glare at me the terrier began to retch, then to lurch across the smooth stones. Within seconds he had deposited his stolen meal in a quiet corner.
‘Do you think that’s the lot?’ I asked.
‘That’s it,’ Mrs Butterworth replied firmly. ‘I’ll fetch a brush and shovel.’
Timmy, his short tail tucked down, slunk back into the house and I watched him as he took up his favourite position on the hearthrug. He coughed, snorted, pawed at his mouth, but he just couldn’t rid himself of that dreadful taste; and increasingly it was obvious that he had me firmly tagged as the cause of all the trouble. As I left he flashed me a glance which said quite plainly, ‘You rotten swine!’
There was something in that look which reminded me of Magnus from the Drovers’, but the first sign that Timmy, unlike Magnus, wasn’t going to be satisfied with vocal disapproval came within a few days. I was strolling meditatively down Trengate when a white missile issued from Gimber’s Yard, nipped me on the ankle and disappeared as silently as it had come. I caught only a glimpse of the little form speeding on its short legs down the passage.
I laughed. Fancy his remembering! But it happened again and again and I realised that the little dog was indeed lying in wait for me. He never actually sank his teeth into me – it was a gesture more than anything — but it seemed to satisfy him to see me jump as he snatched briefly at my calf or trouser leg. I was a sitting bird because I was usually deep in thought as I walked down the street.
And when I thought about it, I couldn’t blame Timmy. Looking at it from his point of view, he had been sitting by his fireside digesting an unusual meal and minding his own business when a total stranger had pounced on him, hustled him from the comfort of his rug and poured mustard into him. It was outrageous and he just wasn’t prepared to let the matter rest there.
For my part there was a certain satisfaction in being the object of a vendetta waged by an animal who would have been dead without my services.
And unpleasantly dead, because the victims of phosphorus poisoning had to endure long days and sometimes weeks of jaundice, misery and creeping debility before the inevitable end.
So I suffered the attacks with good grace. But when I remembered I crossed to the other side of the street to avoid the hazard of Gimber’s Yard; and from there I could often see the little white dog peeping round the corner waiting for the moment when he would make me pay for that indignity.
Timmy, I knew, was one who would never forget.
These stories illustrate the different reactions one receives from different dogs, a subject which has always fascinated me. It is interesting that the sulphanilamide used on Rock’s injury is still a useful wound dressing but would probably be replaced nowadays by an antibiotic powder. Thank heaven we no longer see that zinc phosphide rat poison which Timmy Butterworth swallowed. Modern rodent pesticides such as warfarin have to be used with care, but their effects are not so drastic and we do not have to witness the slow deaths of those horribly jaundiced dogs. I used to feel so helpless in those cases.
22. Last Visit
I suppose there was a wry humour in the fact that my call-up papers arrived on my birthday, but I didn’t see the joke at the time.
The event is preserved in my memory in a picture which is as clear to me today as when I walked into our ‘dining room’ that morning. Helen perched away up on her high stool at the end of the table, very still, eyes downcast. By the side of my plate my birthday present, a tin of Dobie’s Blue Square tobacco, and next to it a long envelope. I didn’t have to ask what it contained.
I had been expecting it for some time but it still gave me a jolt to find I had only a week before presenting myself at Lord’s Cricket Ground, St John’s Wood, London. And that week went by at frightening speed as I made my final plans, tidying up the loose ends in the practice, getting my Ministry of Agriculture forms sent off, arranging for our few possessions to be taken to Helen’s old home where she would stay while I was away.