James Herriot's Dog Stories

by James Herriot

  His wife laughed and opened the door and as we stepped out into the silent scented night she gripped my arm and looked up at me roguishly.

  ‘I suppose this is your young lady,’ she said.

  I put my arm round Helen’s shoulders.

  ‘Yes,’ I said firmly, ‘this is my young lady.’

  That night marked the birth not only of Susie’s new family but of my whole married life, because up till then everything had gone wrong in my courtship of Helen. From that time on my course was set for the most important of all things, and as I look back over nearly forty-five years of our life together I am thankful for the happy fate which worked for me at the Daffodil Ball. It is good, too, to be reminded of the very personal way in which we dealt with our patients in those days – sitting in a cottage throughout a whelping. This is a romantic story and technical things seem to be of no great matter, but I must just mention that we very rarely use whelping forceps now.

  13. Jock

  I had only to sit up in bed to look right across Darrowby to the hills beyond.

  I got up and walked to the window. It was going to be a fine morning and the early sun glanced over the weathered reds and greys of the jumbled roofs, some of them sagging under their burden of ancient tiles, and brightened the tufts of green where trees pushed upwards from the gardens among the bristle of chimney pots. And behind everything the calm bulk of the fells.

  It was my good fortune that this was the first thing I saw every morning; after Helen, of course, which was better still.

  Following our unorthodox tuberculin-testing honeymoon we had set up our first home on the top of Skeldale House. Siegfried, my boss up to my wedding and now my partner, had offered us free use of these empty rooms on the third storey and we had gratefully accepted; and though it was a makeshift arrangement there was an airy charm, an exhilaration in our high perch that many would have envied.

  The front room was our bed-sitter and though it was not luxuriously furnished it did have an excellent bed, a carpet, a handsome side table which had belonged to Helen’s mother and two armchairs. It had an ancient wardrobe, too, but the lock didn’t work and the only way we kept the door closed was by jamming one of my socks in it. The toe always dangled outside but it never seemed of any importance.

  I went out and across a few feet of landing to our kitchen-dining-room at the back. This apartment was definitely spartan. I clumped over bare boards to a bench we had rigged against the wall by the window. This held a gas ring and our crockery and cutlery. I seized a tall jug and began my long descent to the main kitchen downstairs because one minor snag was that there was no water at the top of the house. Down two flights to the three rooms on the first storey, then down two more and a final gallop along the passage to the big stone-flagged kitchen at the end.

  I filled the jug and returned to our eyrie two steps at a time, I wouldn’t like to do this now whenever I needed water, but at that time I didn’t find it the least inconvenience.

  Helen soon had the kettle boiling and we drank our first cup of tea by the window looking down on the long garden. From up here we had an aerial view of the unkempt lawns, the fruit trees, the wistaria climbing the weathered brick towards our window, and the high walls with their old stone copings stretching away to the cobbled yard under the elms. Every day I went up and down that path to the garage in the yard but it looked so different from above.

  ‘Wait a minute, Helen,’ I said. ‘Let me sit on that chair.’

  She had laid the breakfast on the bench where we ate and this was where the difficulty arose. Because it was a tall bench and our recently acquired high stool fitted it but our chair didn’t.

  ‘No, I’m all right, Jim, really I am.’ She smiled at me reassuringly from her absurd position, almost at eye-level with her plate.

  ‘You can’t be all right,’ I retorted. ‘Your chin’s nearly in among your cornflakes. Please let me sit there.’

  She patted the seat of the stool. ‘Come on, stop arguing. Sit down and have your breakfast.’

  This, I felt, just wouldn’t do. I tried a different tack.

  ‘Helen!’ I said severely. ‘Get off that chair!’

  ‘No!’ she replied without looking at me, her lips pushed forward in a characteristic pout which I always found enchanting but which also meant she wasn’t kidding.

  I was at a loss. I toyed with the idea of pulling her off the chair, but she was a big girl. We had had a previous physical try-out when a minor disagreement had escalated into a wrestling match and though I thoroughly enjoyed the contest and actually won in the end, I had been surprised by her sheer strength. At this time in the morning I didn’t feel up to it. I sat on the stool.

  After breakfast Helen began to boil water for the washing-up, the next stage in our routine. Meanwhile I went downstairs, collected my gear, including suture material for a foal which had cut its leg, and went out the side door into the garden. Just about opposite the rockery I turned and looked up at our window. It was open at the bottom and an arm emerged holding a dishcloth. I waved and the dishcloth waved back furiously. It was the start to every day.

  And, driving from the yard, it seemed a good start. In fact everything was good. The raucous cawing of the rooks in the elms above as I closed the double doors, the clean fragrance of the air which greeted me every morning, and the challenge and interest of my job.

  The injured foal was at Robert Corner’s farm and I hadn’t been there long before I spotted Jock, his sheepdog. And I began to watch the dog because behind a vet’s daily chore of treating his patients there is always the fascinating kaleidoscope of animal personality and Jock was an interesting case.

  A lot of farm dogs are partial to a little light relief from their work. They like to play and one of their favourite games is chasing cars off the premises. Often I drove off with a hairy form galloping alongside, and the dog would usually give a final defiant bark after a few hundred yards to speed me on my way. But Jock was different.

  He was really dedicated. Car chasing to him was a deadly serious art which he practised daily without a trace of levity. Corner’s farm was at the end of a long track, twisting for nearly a mile between its stone walls down through the gently sloping fields to the road below, and Jock didn’t consider he had done his job properly until he had escorted his chosen vehicle right to the very foot. So his hobby was an exacting one.

  I watched him now as I finished stitching the foal’s leg and began to tie on a bandage. He was slinking about the buildings, a skinny little creature who, without his mass of black and white hair, would have been an almost invisible mite, and he was playing out a transparent charade of pretending he was taking no notice of me – wasn’t the least bit interested in my presence, in fact. But his furtive glances in the direction of the stable, his repeated criss-crossing of my line of vision gave him away. He was waiting for his big moment.

  When I was putting on my shoes and throwing my Wellingtons into the boot I saw him again. Or rather part of him; just a long nose and one eye protruding from beneath a broken door. It wasn’t till I had started the engine and begun to move off that he finally declared himself, stealing out from his hiding place, body low, tail trailing, eyes fixed intently on the car’s front wheels, and as I gathered speed and headed down the track he broke into an effortless lope.

  I had been through this before and was always afraid he might run in front of me, so I put my foot down and began to hurtle downhill. This was where Jock came into his own. I often wondered how he’d fare against a racing Greyhound because by golly he could run. That sparse frame housed a perfect physical machine and the slender limbs reached and flew again and again, devouring the stony ground beneath, keeping up with the speeding car with joyful ease.

  There was a sharp bend about half-way down and here Jock invariably sailed over the wall and streaked across the turf, a little dark blur against the green, and having craftily cut off the corner he reappeared like a missile zooming over the grey stones lo
wer down. This put him into a nice position for the run to the road and when he finally saw me on to the tarmac, my last view of him was of a happy panting face looking after me. Clearly he considered it was a job well done and he would wander contentedly back up to the farm to await the next session, perhaps with the postman or the baker’s van.

  And there was another side to Jock. He was an outstanding performer at the sheepdog trials and Mr Corner had won many trophies with him. In fact the farmer could have sold the little animal for a lot of money but couldn’t be persuaded to part with him. Instead he purchased a bitch, a scrawny little female counterpart of Jock and a trial winner in her own right. With this combination Mr Corner thought he could breed some world-beating types for sale. On my visits to the farm the bitch joined in the car-chasing, but it seemed as though she was doing it more or less to humour her new mate and she always gave up at the first bend leaving Jock in command. You could see her heart wasn’t in it.

  When the pups arrived, seven fluffy black balls tumbling about the yard and getting under everybody’s feet, Jock watched indulgently as they tried to follow him in his pursuit of my vehicle and you could almost see him laughing as they fell over their feet and were left trailing far behind.

  It happened that I didn’t have to go there for about ten months, but I saw Robert Corner in the market occasionally and he told me he was training the pups and they were shaping well. Not that they needed much training; it was in their blood and he said they had tried to round up the cattle and sheep nearly as soon as they could walk. When I finally saw them they were like seven Jocks – meagre, darting little creatures flitting noiselessly about the buildings – and it didn’t take me long to find out that they had learned more than sheep herding from their father. There was something very evocative about the way they began to prowl around in the background as I prepared to get into my car, peeping furtively from behind straw bales, slinking with elaborate nonchalance into favourable positions for a quick getaway. And as I settled in my seat I could sense they were all crouched in readiness for the off.

  I revved my engine, let in the clutch with a bump and shot across the yard, and in a second the immediate vicinity erupted in a mass of hairy forms. I roared on to the track and put my foot down and on either side of me the little animals pelted along shoulder to shoulder, their faces all wearing the intent fanatical expression I knew so well. When Jock cleared the wall the seven pups went with him and when they reappeared and entered the home straight I noticed something different. On past occasions Jock had always had one eye on the car – this was what he considered his opponent; but now on that last quarter mile as he hurtled along at the head of a shaggy phalanx he was glancing at the pups on either side as though they were the main opposition.

  And there was no doubt he was in trouble. Superbly fit though he was, these stringy bundles of bone and sinew which he had fathered had all his speed plus the newly minted energy of youth, and it was taking every shred of his power to keep up with them. Indeed there was one terrible moment when he stumbled and was engulfed by the bounding creatures around him; it seemed that all was lost but there was a core of steel in Jock. Eyes popping, nostrils dilated, he fought his way through the pack until by the time we reached the road he was once more in the lead.

  But it had taken its toll. I slowed down before driving away and looked down at the little animal standing with lolling tongue and heaving flanks on the grass verge. It must have been like this with all the other vehicles and it wasn’t a merry game any more. I suppose it sounds silly to say you could read a dog’s thoughts but everything in his posture betrayed the mounting apprehension that his days of supremacy were numbered. Just round the corner lay the unthinkable ignominy of being left trailing in the rear of that litter of young upstarts, and as I drew away Jock looked after me and his expression was eloquent.

  ‘How long can I keep this up?’

  I felt for the little dog and on my next visit to the farm about two months later I wasn’t looking forward to witnessing the final degradation which I felt was inevitable. But when I drove into the yard I found the place strangely unpopulated.

  Robert Corner was forking hay into the cows’ racks in the byre. He turned as I came in.

  ‘Where are all your dogs?’ I asked.

  He put down his fork. ‘All gone. By gaw, there’s a market for good workin’ sheepdogs. I’ve done right well out of t’job.’

  ‘But you’ve still got Jock?’

  ‘Oh aye, ah couldn’t part with t’awd lad. He’s over there.’

  And so he was, creeping around as of old, pretending he wasn’t watching me. And when the happy time finally arrived and I drove away, it was like it used to be with the lean little animal haring along by the side of the car, but relaxed, enjoying the game, winging effortlessly over the wall and beating the car down to the tarmac with no trouble at all.

  I think I was as relieved as he was that he was left alone with his supremacy unchallenged; that he was still top dog.

  There are many Jocks in Yorkshire, many dogs who lurk in corners until I am ready to drive away from the farm. But none that I can recall had such an airy race-track like Jock, winding for such a long way down that green hillside, and none had his utter dedication to his job. Most of them consider they have done their duty if they chase me off the premises for a short distance, then stand barking till I am out of sight. Whether that barking means ‘good riddance’ or ‘nice to have seen you’ I have never been able to decide. However, one of these little animals, Matty by name, had me worried. He worried the farmer too, because he didn’t only chase cars, he nibbled at the speeding tyres. It was obvious that it was only a matter of time till he was run over. It was my twelve-year-old son, Jimmy, who cured the dog of his habit and probably saved his life. He came with me on my rounds whenever possible and on Matty’s farm he filled a 100-cc syringe with water and when we drove away and the dog homed in on our tyres, he leaned out and squirted the water in his face. The effect was dramatic. Matty pulled up immediately, and as I looked in the mirror I could see him watching us in silence, an expression of deep puzzlement on his face. It had such a lasting effect that the farmer asked us to repeat the procedure another day. We did so and Matty was cured. He never went for tyres again.

  14. Sexual Harassment

  You could hardly expect to find a more unlikely character in Darrowby than Roland Partridge. The thought came to me for the hundredth time as I saw him peering through the window which looked on to Trengate just a little way up the other side of the street from our surgery.

  He was tapping the glass and beckoning to me and the eyes behind the thick spectacles were wide with concern. I waited, and when he opened the door I stepped straight from the street into his living-room, because these were tiny dwellings with only a kitchen in the rear and a single small bedroom overlooking the street above. But when I went in I had the familiar feeling of surprise. Because most of the other occupants of the row were farmworkers and their furnishings were orthodox; but this place was a studio.

  An easel stood in the light from the window and the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with paintings. Unframed canvases were stacked everywhere and the few ornate chairs and the table with its load of painted china and other bric-à-brac added to the artistic atmosphere.

  The simple explanation was, of course, that Mr Partridge was in fact an artist. But the unlikely aspect came into it when you learned that this middle-aged velvet-jacketed aesthete was the son of a small farmer, a man whose forebears had been steeped in the soil for generations.

  ‘I happened to see you passing there, Mr Herriot,’ he said. ‘Are you terribly busy?’

  ‘Not too busy, Mr Partridge. Can I help you?’

  He nodded gravely. ‘I wonder whether you could spare a moment to look at Percy. I’d be most grateful.’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘Where is he?’

  He was ushering me towards the kitchen when there was a bang on the outer do
or and Bert Hardisty the postman burst in. Bert was a rough-hewn character and he dumped a parcel unceremoniously on the table.

  ‘There y’are, Rolie!’ he shouted and turned to go.

  Mr Partridge gazed with unruffled dignity at the retreating back. ‘Thank you very much indeed, Bertram, good day to you.’

  Here was another thing. The postman and the artist were both Darrowby born and bred, had the same social background, had gone to the same school, yet their voices were quite different. Roland Partridge, in fact, spoke with the precise, well-modulated syllables of a barrister-at-law.

  We went into the kitchen. This was where he cooked for himself in his bachelor state. When his father died many years ago he had sold the farm immediately. Apparently his whole nature was appalled by the earthy farming scene and he could not get out quickly enough. At any rate he had got sufficient money from the sale to indulge his interests and he had taken up painting and lived ever since in this humble cottage, resolutely doing his own thing. This had all happened long before I came to Darrowby, and the dangling lank hair was silver now. I always had the feeling that he was happy in his way because I couldn’t imagine that small, rather exquisite figure plodding round a muddy farmyard.

  It was probably in keeping with his nature that he had never married. There was a touch of asceticism in the thin cheeks and pale blue eyes and it was possible that his self-contained imperturbable personality might denote a lack of warmth. But that didn’t hold good with regard to his dog, Percy.

  He loved Percy with a fierce protective passion and as the little animal trotted towards him he bent over him, his face alight with tenderness.

  ‘He looks pretty bright to me,’ I said. ‘He’s not sick, is he?’

  ‘No . . . no . . .’ Mr Partridge seemed strangely ill at ease. ‘He’s perfectly well in himself, but I want you to look at him and see if you notice anything.’