A Deer Called Dotty

by Helen Peters

  Dad sighed again and took his truck keys from the hook on the wall. “I’ll go and collect the deer now, before I check the sheep.”

  “Thanks, Michael,” said Mum, as he left the kitchen.

  “Are those scales for weighing Dotty?” asked Jasmine.

  Nadia smiled. “Dotty, is it? That’s a sweet name.”

  As if she knew they were talking about her, Dotty started frantically scuffling around in the oven. She kicked with her front legs until they dangled out of the oven door. She planted her tiny front hooves on the kitchen tiles and heaved herself into a sitting position, looking out at them.

  “Oh, she’s so pretty!” said Nadia. “Look at that gorgeous little face. I hope we can keep her.”

  Jasmine frowned. “You can’t give her away. You said I could look after her.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Mum. She gave Jasmine a serious look. “It’s just that roe deer fawns are very difficult to look after. People say they’re one of the hardest wild animals to handrear if they’re orphaned. We’ll do our very best, but you’ll need to be prepared for the fact that she might not survive. And if she doesn’t, you absolutely mustn’t blame yourself. Promise me that.”

  Jasmine gazed at the beautiful little fawn. What was Mum talking about?

  “There’s nothing wrong with her,” she said. “She’s perfect. And she’s already trying to stand up.”

  “She looks great,” said Mum, “but it can be very hard to get them to feed, apparently. They don’t always take to a bottle.”

  “I’m sure she’ll let me feed her,” said Jasmine. “I’ll try now.”

  “Let’s just weigh her first,” said Mum, setting the scales on the floor.

  Jasmine took a notepad and pen from the drawer to write down Dotty’s weight. It was important to weigh baby animals every day when you were hand-rearing them. It was the only way to tell whether they were eating enough and growing properly.

  “How much should she weigh?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure, to be honest,” said Mum. “We can look it up.”

  “I wish Tom was here,” said Jasmine. “Can I phone him?”

  Mum laughed. “It’s too late to phone now. Wait until morning.”

  “I can’t wait to tell him,” said Jasmine. “He’ll be so excited.”

  Tom was Jasmine’s best friend, and they were planning to run an animal rescue centre when they grew up. They had already rescued several animals. But Tom was away this weekend, so he would have to wait to meet Dotty.

  Dotty kicked out her back legs and pushed herself forward. She shook her head and heaved her way out of the oven. As her back legs emerged, her front legs wobbled and she flopped to her knees on the tiles.

  Jasmine knelt in front of the Aga. “Come on, Dotty,” she whispered. “You can do it.”

  The little deer stretched out her neck and licked Jasmine’s hand.

  “Oh, she’s bonded with you already,” said Nadia. “That’s wonderful.”

  Dotty wobbled to her feet again, with her front legs crossed over each other and her back legs splayed wide apart. Jasmine held her breath as the fawn carefully uncrossed her front legs until they were planted in the right position, underneath her shoulders. She swayed from side to side. Then she collapsed on to her knees again.

  “It looks like such hard work for her,” said Jasmine.

  “It’s amazing, though, isn’t it?” said Mum.

  “It takes human babies a year to stand up, yet animals can do it in less than an hour. Right, let’s get her on the scales, and then you can try her with that colostrum.”

  They sat her on the scales. “One point eight kilograms,” said Jasmine. “That’s nothing!”

  “Half the size of you when you were born,” said Nadia.

  “When I’ve fed her, I’ll make a proper chart, with her weight and the amount she drinks at every feed,” Jasmine said. “And then I’m going to look up everything about roe deer fawns.”

  Nadia smiled. “You might want to get some sleep at some point too.”

  “It’s half term,” said Jasmine. “I can sleep any time.”

  She lifted Dotty off the scales and gently lowered her to the ground. Dotty immediately began scrabbling to her feet again.

  “She’s very independent,” said Jasmine approvingly. “She’s determined to stand on her own.”

  As if to prove Jasmine’s point, Dotty carefully planted her feet apart to balance herself. And there she stood, wobbly but upright, looking up at her foster mother.

  “Well done, Dotty!” said Jasmine, bending down to stroke the little fawn. “Look, Mum, she’s properly standing.”

  “That’s great,” said Nadia. “A very good sign.”

  Jasmine fetched the bottle. “Now, here’s some lovely warm colostrum. This will make you really strong.”

  She pulled up her sleeve and shook a little of the colostrum on to her wrist to test the temperature. The milk felt the same temperature as her skin, which meant it was just right.

  She turned to her mother. “Should I sit her on my lap to feed her?”

  “No, fawns should always be fed standing up,” Nadia said.

  “Well, it’s lucky you’re standing then, Dotty,” said Jasmine.

  “Hold the bottle at an angle and keep it above her, so she has to stretch her neck and head to feed,” said Mum. “It might not look comfortable, but it’s how they feed in the wild.”

  Dotty was so tiny that her head only came up to Jasmine’s knee. Jasmine crouched in front of her and held the teat just above her mouth, but Dotty turned away. Jasmine held her head gently with one hand and squeezed the teat until a few drops of colostrum dribbled out on to Dotty’s lips.

  This trick usually worked with lambs. A little taste would encourage the animal to open its mouth, and then you could slip the teat in and with any luck they would start to suck.

  It didn’t work with Dotty, though. Her mouth stayed firmly shut.

  “Come on, Dotty,” said Jasmine. She dribbled a bit more colostrum between Dotty’s lips but the fawn jerked her head away again. Jasmine gently pulled her lips apart but Dotty wouldn’t open her mouth. Using a bit more force, Jasmine opened it enough to slip the whole teat in. But Dotty just spat it out.

  Mum’s phone rang and she went into the other room to answer it. Jasmine kept talking softly and stroking the little deer as she tried to encourage her to drink in every way she knew. But Dotty seemed completely uninterested. Eventually, she swayed and sank to her knees again.

  “Oh, Dotty,” sighed Jasmine.

  The kitchen door opened and Dad appeared with a sack full of hay. “There you go,” he said, stuffing hay into the crate. “That should keep her comfortable.”

  “She’s refusing to suck,” Jasmine said. “Even if I get the teat into her mouth, she just spits it out again.”

  “Give her time,” said Dad. “You can try again in a while. Just wipe that milk from around her mouth. Don’t want her getting sore.” He went back out to the lambing barn.

  Jasmine found a cloth in the scullery, where Mum kept a bag of old clothes to use as rags. She dampened the cloth with warm water and wiped the milk from Dotty’s face. Dotty seemed to like having her face washed. She licked Jasmine’s hand again. Jasmine stroked her big soft ears.

  “You’re so lovely,” she murmured. “But you need to drink your milk, OK?”

  Mum came back into the kitchen, holding her phone.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said, “but I’ve got to go out. That was Matthew Evans on the phone. His dog’s very ill and he thinks she might have picked up some poison. Dad will be in the lambing barn if you need him.”

  Jasmine’s worry must have shown on her face, because Mum said, “Why don’t you phone Mira? She’ll be able to give you some advice.”

  Mira was Mum’s friend at the Wildlife Trust. She had helped Jasmine and Tom when they had rescued an otter cub the previous summer.

  “Isn’t it a bit late
to phone her?” asked Jasmine.

  Mum laughed. “No, she’ll still be up, don’t worry about that.”

  “Can you call her?” asked Jasmine. She wasn’t keen on phoning people she didn’t know well.

  “I would,” said Mum, “but I have to go. Just give her a call. She’ll be delighted to hear from you. And I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  The pinboard on the kitchen wall was a jumble of photos, messages, school letters and emergency phone numbers. Jasmine found Mira’s name and number scrawled on the back of an old receipt. With a tight feeling in her stomach, she picked up the phone.

  To her relief, Mira sounded pleased to hear from her.

  “I’m sorry it’s so late,” Jasmine said. “But it’s an emergency.” And she explained the situation as briefly as she could.

  “Have you tried a syringe?” asked Mira.

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, that’s what I’d do. Feed her with a one-mil syringe for as long as it takes. Some fawns will start sucking on it very quickly, and some take ages. They’re all different. But once she starts to suck on the syringe, you can switch to a bottle.”

  “How much should I give her?” asked Jasmine.

  “Ten millilitres every two hours, in one-mil shots. She might try to spit the syringe out, so put it in the corner of her mouth. That way the milk’s more likely to go down her throat.”

  “Is that just in the daytime, or during the night as well?” asked Jasmine.

  “All through the night too, I’m afraid,” said Mira. “After about a week, you can increase the amount and reduce the feeds to every three hours, and then to every four hours, and so on as she gets older.”

  “What if she won’t feed from a syringe either?”

  “Then you’ll have to tube-feed her. But I’d leave that as a last resort.”

  “OK,” said Jasmine. “Thank you so much, Mira.”

  “You’re going to be exhausted, I’m afraid,” said Mira. “Orphaned fawns need so much from you. They have to bond with just one person, so you’re going to have to do all her feeds yourself. And she’ll be permanently attached to your knee, like a shadow. You won’t even be able to go to the toilet without her standing outside the door squeaking. I’ve got two children and, I can tell you now, babies are easier than fawns.”

  “Fawns are much cuter, though,” said Jasmine, and Mira laughed.

  “What about the dogs?” Jasmine asked. “Will they get on together?”

  “I’d try to keep them apart as much as possible,” said Mira. “They should be fine with her, but it wouldn’t be good for her to get too friendly with them. A lot of young deer are killed by dogs, so you don’t want her running up to strange dogs once she’s back in the wild.”

  “No,” said Jasmine. “Definitely not.”

  But that wasn’t going to be easy, she thought. If Dotty needed to be with her the whole time, when would she be able to walk Sky?

  She said goodbye to Mira and fetched a one-mil syringe from the animal medicine cupboard. Then she sat down with the laptop to find out more about roe deer while Dotty slept.

  Half an hour later, a rustling sound came from the puppy crate. Dotty raised her head and looked around enquiringly. Jasmine crouched in front of her.

  “Hello, Dotty,” she said, opening the door and stroking her. “Did you have a nice snooze?”

  Dotty scuffled her twig-thin legs about in the hay, trying to get to her feet.

  “Good girl,” said Jasmine, kissing the top of her head. “You stand up, and then I can feed you.”

  She boiled the kettle, poured the hot water into a jug and stood the feeding bottle in it to warm up the colostrum.

  As if she understood what was needed, Dotty shakily got to her feet. She daintily uncrossed her tiny front hooves and planted them beneath her shoulders.

  “Well done, Dotty,” said Jasmine. “I’m going to feed you with a syringe now. I’ll drop the milk in the corner of your mouth, so you won’t have to suck.”

  She laid some sheets of newspaper on the floor to catch any mess. She had discovered from her reading that mother deer lick their babies’ bottoms during or after feeding, to encourage their toileting. Newborn fawns need this help from their mothers for a couple of weeks, until they learn to do it by themselves.

  Jasmine wasn’t planning to go that far, obviously, so she followed the advice she had read and dampened a piece of kitchen towel to wipe Dotty with instead. Then she lifted Dotty out of the crate and set her down on the newspaper. Dotty swayed slightly but she stayed upright.

  Jasmine gave the bottle a good shake, pinching the teat so the milk didn’t leak out. Then she tested the temperature on her wrist again.

  “Perfect,” she said. “Now you can have a lovely drink.”

  She unscrewed the top of the bottle, dipped the tiny syringe into the colostrum and drew up a millilitre of the thick yellowy liquid.

  “Please don’t spit the syringe out, Dotty. You really need this food.”

  Holding Dotty’s face with one hand, she inserted the plastic nozzle into the corner of the fawn’s mouth and quickly pushed the plunger before Dotty could protest. Then she withdrew the nozzle and watched.

  And, to her joy, she saw the little deer swallow!

  “Finally!” whispered Jasmine, with a sigh of relief. “Well done, Dotty. Just nine more to go.”

  It took ages, but finally Dotty had swallowed ten millilitres of liquid in one-millilitre shots. As she swallowed the last drop, Jasmine suddenly felt exhausted.

  “Two hours until your next feed,” she said. “Time for sleep.”

  Her legs were stiff as she got to her feet. She fetched the puppy crate to take it to her room. Then she turned to tell Dotty she would come back to fetch her. But Dotty wasn’t there.

  Jasmine frowned in puzzlement.

  “Dotty?”

  A little wet tongue licked her hand. Jasmine looked down and there was Dotty, standing at her knee, gazing up at her adoringly.

  “Oh, you’re following me around already! Clever girl. I’m not sure you’re going to be able to walk upstairs, though. Come on.”

  And she tucked the fawn into the crook of her arm and made her way to bed.

  Nadia looked up as Jasmine walked into the kitchen the following morning, cradling Dotty in her arms.

  “Oh, well done, Jasmine,” she said. “So you got her to feed.”

  “I used a syringe,” said Jasmine, and she told Nadia about Mira’s advice and the two-hourly feeds all through the night.

  “You must be exhausted,” said Nadia. “Why don’t you go back to bed and let me do the next feed?”

  Jasmine shook her head. “Roe deer fawns will only feed from one person.”

  Mum raised her eyebrows. “Well, in that case, I think you might be in for a very tiring half term.”

  “It’s OK,” said Jasmine. “I’ll sleep when she sleeps, in between her feeds.”

  “And what about your other animals?” said Nadia. “Who’s going to look after them?”

  Just then, Ella walked in. Her eyes widened in delight as she saw the little fawn. “Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed. “Where did it come from?”

  Then her look changed to one of horror. She clapped her hands over her mouth.

  “Oh, no! Is this… Is she…? Oh, I killed her mother, didn’t I!”

  She dashed out of the room, ran upstairs and slammed her bedroom door shut.

  Nadia sighed. “I’ll go up and see her.”

  While Jasmine knelt on the kitchen floor feeding Dotty and talking to her encouragingly, she was also thinking. By the time Dotty had finished, Jasmine had a plan. She scooped the tiny deer into her arms and carried her up to Ella’s room.

  Ella was curled up on her bed, sobbing. Mum was sitting beside her, trying to comfort her.

  “It was an accident,” Mum was saying. “And we managed to save the fawn.”

  “I made her an orphan,” sobbed Ella. “She’d be out in the wild w
ith her mother if it wasn’t for me. I’ve ruined her life.”

  “You haven’t ruined her life,” said Nadia. “She’s got Jasmine to look after her. Any animal that has Jasmine to look after it is very lucky.”

  Jasmine walked over to Ella. Nadia shifted along so she could sit next to her sister.

  “She’s called Dotty,” said Jasmine. “Look at her, Ella.”

  Ella shook her head. She was still curled up in a ball.

  “I’ll do everything I can to be as good a mother as her real mother would have been,” said Jasmine. “And when she’s grown-up she’ll go back into the wild. So she’ll have just as good a life.”

  “But she won’t have a mother,” said Ella, in a muffled, choked voice.

  “I’m her mother now,” said Jasmine. “I’ve been with her since she was born and she’s imprinted on me. I’ll do everything her real mother would.”

  “But you’ve got all your other animals to look after.”

  “Yes,” said Jasmine. “I was thinking about that.” She paused, avoiding eye contact with her mum. Nadia would think this was a crazy idea.

  “I’m going to have to be with Dotty all the time this week,” she said. “And Mira said I should keep her away from dogs. So I was wondering if you might be able to help out with my other animals.”

  Ella finally took her head out of her hands. She gave Jasmine a startled stare.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, why not? It’s only walking Sky, and feeding and mucking out Truffle. I know you’re revising for your exams, but you need a break sometimes, and Mum always says it’s good to get fresh air and exercise.”

  She risked a glance at Nadia. As she had predicted, Nadia was gazing at her as though she had completely lost her mind. Ella was most definitely an indoor person, happiest when absorbed in a book or writing an essay. She was not somebody who mucked out pigs or took sheepdogs for walks.

  Jasmine shrugged. “It was just an idea. If you wanted to do something to help.”