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 nad 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 lunch time 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 judgement, 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 on to 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 as 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,’ as 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 of failure was overpowering, but at the end I was at least able to spare Amber the ultimate miseries: the internal abscesses and septicaemia which 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 were 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 headlights’ beam.
Even in these modern times my heart sinks when I see a dog with bare patches on its legs and face and a mousy smell, although the prognosis is rather better than it used to be. But demodectic mange is a dreaded condition because it is an appalling, almost unacceptable thought that an animal can lose its life because of a skin condition. I often wonder why the memory of Amber should be so vivid and painful. She was a cheerful and lovable little creature throughout her illness, but I have known many dogs like that. Perhaps she would not have stayed in my memory so clearly if I had treated her in one of the steel kennels in our present-day surgery and not under the primitive conditions which were available then. That old stable is never used now, but whenever I wander up to the yard, I look into the dark doorway and remember that long struggle which Amber and I both lost.
47. Counting Blessings
‘Was there no peace in a vet’s life?’ I wondered fretfully as I hurried my car along the road to Gilthorpe village. Eight o’clock on a Sunday evening and here I was trailing off to visit a dog ten miles away which, according to Helen who had taken the message, had been ailing for more than a week.
I had worked all morning, then spent an afternoon in the hills with the children and some of their friends, a longstanding weekly event during which we had managed to explore nearly every corner of the district over the years. Jimmy had set a brisk pace with his hardy young pals and I had had to carry Rosie on my shoulders up the steepest slopes. After tea there was the usual routine of baths, story-reading and bed for the two of them, then I was ready to settle down with the Sunday papers and listen to the radio.
Yet here I was back on the treadmill, staring through the windscreen at the roads and the walls which I saw day in, day out. When I left Darrowby the streets of the little town were empty in the gathering dusk and the houses had that tight-shut, comfortable look which raised images of armchairs and pipes and firesides, and now as I saw the lights of the farms winking on the fell-sides I could picture the stocksmen dozing contentedly with their feet up.
I had not passed a single car on the darkening road. There was nobody out but Herriot.
I was really sloshing around in my trough of self-pity when I drew up outside a row of greystone cottages at the far end of Gilthorpe. Mrs Gundall, Number 4, Chestnut Row, Helen had written on the slip of paper, and as I opened the gate and stepped through the tiny strip of garden my mind was busy with half-formed ideas of what I was going to say.
My few years’ experience in practice had taught me that it did no good at all to remonstrate with people for calling me out at unreasonable times. I knew perfectly well that my words never seemed to get through to them and that they would continue to do exactly as they had done before, but for all that I had to say something if only to make me feel better.
No need to be rude or ill-mannered, just a firm statement of the position, that vets liked to relax on Sunday evenings just like other people; that we did not mind at all coming out for emergencies but that we did object to having to visit animals which had been ill for a week.
I had my speech fairly well prepared when a little middle-aged woman opened the door.
‘Good evening, Mrs Cundall,’ I said, slightly tightlipped.
‘Oh, it’s Mr Herriot.’ She smiled shyly. ‘We’ve never met but I’ve seen you walkin’ round Darrowby on market days. Come inside.’
The door opened straight into the little low-beamed living-room and my first glance took in the shabby furniture and some pictures framed in tarnished gilt, when I noticed that the end of the room was partly curtained off.
Mrs Cundall pulled the curtain aside. In a narrow bed a man was lying, a skeleton-thin man whose eyes looked up at me from hollows in a yellowed face.
‘This is my husband, Ron,’ she said cheerfully, and the man smiled and raised a bony arm from the quilt in g
reeting.
‘And here is your patient, Hermann,’ she went on, pointing to a little Dachshund who sat by the side of the bed.
‘Hermann?’
‘Yes, we thought it was a good name for a German sausage dog.’ They both laughed.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Excellent name. He looks like a Hermann.’
The little animal gazed up at me, bright-eyed and welcoming. I bent down and stroked his head and the pink tongue flickered over my fingers.
I ran my hand over the glossy skin. ‘He looks very healthy. What’s the trouble?’
‘Oh, he’s fine in himself,’ Mrs Cundall replied. ‘Eats well and everything, but over the last week he’s been goin’ funny on ’is legs. We weren’t all that worried, but tonight he sort of flopped down and couldn’t get up again.’
‘I see. I noticed he didn’t seem keen to rise when I patted his head.’ I put my hand under the little dog’s body and gently lifted him on to his feet. ‘Come on, lad,’ I said. ‘Come on, Hermann, let’s see you walk.’
As I encouraged him he took a few hesitant steps, but his hind end swayed progressively and he soon dropped into the sitting position again.
‘It’s his back, isn’t it?’ Mrs Cundall said. ‘He’s strong enough on ’is fore legs.’
‘That’s ma trouble, too,’ Ron murmured in a soft husky voice, but he was smiling and his wife laughed and patted the arm on the quilt.
I lifted the dog on to my knee. ‘Yes, the weakness is certainly in the back.’ I began to palpate the lumbar vertebrae, feeling my way along, watching for any sign of pain.
‘Has he hurt ’imself?’ Mrs Gundall asked. ‘Has somebody hit ’im? We don’t usually let him out alone but sometimes he sneaks through the garden gate.’
‘There’s always the possibility of an injury,’ I said. ‘But there are other causes.’ There were indeed – a host of unpleasant possibilities. I did not like the look of this little dog at all. This Syndrome was one of the things I hated to encounter in canine practice.
‘Can you tell me what you really think?’ she said. ‘I’d like to know.’
‘Well, an injury could cause haemorrhage or concussion or oedema – that’s fluid – all affecting his spinal cord. He could even have a fractured vertebra, but I don’t think so.’
‘And how about the other causes.’
‘There’s quite a lot. Tumours, bony growths, abscesses or discs can press on the cord.’
‘Discs?’
‘Yes, little pads of cartilage and fibrous tissue between the vertebrae. In long-bodied dogs like Hermann they sometimes protrude into the spinal canal. In fact I think that is what is causing his symptoms.’
Ron’s husky voice came again from the bed. ‘And what’s ’is prospects, Mr Herriot?’
Oh, that was the question. Complete recovery or incurable paralysis. It could be anything. ‘Very difficult to say at this moment,’ I replied. ‘I’ll give him an injection and some tablets and we’ll see how he goes over the next few days.’
I injected an analgesic and some antibiotic and counted out some salicylate tablets into a box. We had no steroids at that time. It was the best I could do.
‘Now then, Mr Herriot,’ Mrs Cundall smiled at me eagerly. ‘Ron has a bottle o’ beer every night about this time. Would you like to join ’im?’
‘Well . . . it’s very kind of you but I don’t want to intrude . . .’
‘Oh, you’re not doing that. We’re glad to see you.’
She poured two glasses of brown ale, propped her husband up with pillows and sat down by the bed.
‘We’re from South Yorkshire, Mr Herriot,’ she said.
I nodded. I had noticed the difference from the local accent.
‘Aye, we came up here after Ron’s accident, eight years ago.’
‘What was that?’
‘I were a miner,’ Ron said. ‘Roof fell in on me. I got a broken back, crushed liver and a lot o’ other internal injuries, but two of me mates were killed in the same fall so ah’m lucky to be ’ere.’ He sipped his beer. ‘I’ve survived, but doctor says I’ll never walk no more.’
‘I’m terribly sorry.’
‘Nay, nay,’ the husky voice went on, ‘I count me blessings and I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Ah suffer very little and I’ve got t’best wife in the world.’
Mrs Cundall laughed. ‘Oh, listen to ’im. But I’m right glad we came to Gilthorpe. We used to spend all our holidays in the Dales. We were great walkers and it was lovely to get away from the smoke and the chimneys. The bedroom in our old house just looked out on a lot o’brick walls but Ron has this big window right by ’im and he can see for miles.’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘This is a lovely situation.’ The village was perched on a high ridge on the fell-side and that window would command a wide view of the green slopes running down to the river and climbing high to the wildness of the moor on the other side. This sight had beguiled me so often on my rounds and the grassy paths climbing among the airy tops seemed to beckon to me. But they would beckon in vain to Ron Cundall.
‘Gettin’ Hermann was a good idea, too,’ he said. ‘Ah used to feel a bit lonely when t’missus went into Darrowby for shoppin’ but the little feller’s made all the difference. You’re never alone when you’ve got a dog.’
I smiled. ‘How right you are. What is his age now, by the way?’
‘He’s six,’ Ron replied. ‘Right in the prime o’life, aren’t you, old lad?’ He let his arm fall by the bedside and his hand fondled the sleek ears.
‘That seems to be his favourite place.’
‘Aye, it’s a funny thing, but ’e alius sits there. T’missus is the one who has to take ’im walks and feeds ’im but he’s very faithful to me. He has a basket over there but this is ’is place. I only have to reach down and he’s there.’
This was something that I had seen on many occasions with disabled people: that their pets stayed close by them as if conscious of their role of comforter and friend.
I finished my beer and got to my feet. Ron looked up at me. ‘Reckon I’ll spin mine out a bit longer.’ He glanced at his half-full glass. ‘Ah used to shift about six pints some nights when I went out wi’ the lads but you know, I enjoy this one bottle just as much. Strange how things turn out.’
His wife bent over him, mock-scolding. ‘Yes, you’ve had to right your ways. You’re a reformed character, aren’t you?’
They both laughed as though it were a stock joke between them.
‘Well, thank you for the drink, Mrs Cundall. I’ll look in to see Hermann on Tuesday.’ I moved towards the door.
As I left I waved to the man in the bed and his wife put her hand on my arm. ‘We’re very grateful to you for comin’ out at this time on a Sunday night, Mr Herriot. We felt awful about callin’ you, but you understand it was only today that the little chap started going off his legs like that.’
‘Oh, of course, of course, please don’t worry. I didn’t mind in the least.’
And as I drove through the darkness I knew that I didn’t mind – now. My petty irritation had evaporated within two minutes of my entering that house and I was left only with a feeling of humility. If that man back there had a lot to be thankful for, how about me? I had everything. I only wished I could dispel the foreboding I felt about his dog. There was a hint of doom about those symptoms of Hermann’s and yet I knew I just had to get him right . . .
On Tuesday he looked much the same, possibly a little worse.
‘I think I’d better take him back to the surgery for X-ray,’ I said to Mrs Cundall. ‘He doesn’t seem to be improving with the treatment.’
In the car Hermann curled up happily on Rosie’s knee, submitting with good grace to her petting.
I had no need to anaesthetise him or sedate him when I placed him on our newly acquired X-ray machine. Those hindquarters stayed still all by themselves. A lot too still for my liking.
I was no expert at interpreting X-ray pict
ures but at least I could be sure there was no fracture of the vertebrae. Also, there was no sign of bony extoses, but I thought I could detect a narrowing of the space between a couple of the vertebrae which would confirm my suspicions of a protrusion of a disc.
Laminectomy or fenestration had not even been heard of in those days so I could do nothing more than continue with my treatment and hope.
By the end of the week hope had grown very dim. I had supplemented the salycilates with long-standing remedies like tincture of nux vomica and other ancient stimulant drugs, but when I saw Hermann on the Saturday he was unable to rise. I tweaked the toes of his hind limbs and was rewarded by a faint reflex movement, but with a sick certainty I knew that complete posterior paralysis was not far away.
A week later I had the unhappy experience of seeing my prognosis confirmed in the most classical way. When I entered the door of the Cundalls’ cottage Hermann came to meet me, happy and welcoming in his front end but dragging his hind limbs helplessly behind him.
‘Hello, Mr Herriot.’ Mrs Cundall gave me a wan smile and looked down at the little creature stretched frog-like on the carpet. ‘What d’you think of him now?’
I bent and tried the reflexes. Nothing. I shrugged my shoulders, unable to think of anything to say. I looked at the gaunt figure in the bed, the arm outstretched as always on the quilt.
‘Good morning, Ron,’ I said as cheerfully as I could, but there was no reply. The face was averted, looking out of the window. I walked over to the bed. Ron’s eyes were staring fixedly at the glorious panorama of moor and fell, at the pebbles of the river, white in the early sunshine, at the criss-cross of the grey walls against the green. His face was expressionless. It was as though he did not know I was there.
I went back to his wife. I don’t think I have ever felt more miserable.
‘Is he annoyed with me?’ I whispered.
‘No, no, no, it’s this.’ She held out a newspaper. ‘It’s upset him something awful.’
James Herriot's Dog Stories Page 46
