I called and repeated the injection on the following day. There wasnt much change. I injected him for four more days and the realization came to me sadly that Brandy was like so many of the othershe wasnt responding. The temperature did drop a little but he ate hardly anything and grew gradually thinner.
As the days passed and he continued to cough and pant and to sink deeper into a blank-eyed lethargy, I was forced more and more to a conclusion which, a few weeks ago, would have seemed impossible; that this happy, bounding animal was going to die.
But Brandy didnt die. He survived. You couldnt put it any better than that. His temperature came down and his appetite improved and he climbed onto a plateau of twilight existence where he seemed content to stay.
He isnt Brandy anymore, Mrs. Westby said one morning a few weeks later when I called in. Her eyes filled with tears.
I shook my head. No, Im afraid he isnt. Are you giving him the halibut-liver oil?
Yes, every day. But nothing seems to do him any good. Why is he like this, Mr. Herriot?
Well, he has recovered from a really virulent pneumonia, but its left him with a chronic pleurisy, adhesions, and probably other kinds of lung damage. It looks as though hes just stuck there.
She dabbed at his eyes. It breaks my heart to see him like this. Hes only five, but hes like an old, old dog. He was so full of life, too. She sniffed and blew her nose. When I think of how I used to scold him for getting into the dustbins and muddying up my jeans. How I wish he would do some of his funny old tricks now.
I thrust my hands deep into my pockets. Never does anything like that now, eh?
No, no, just hangs about the house. Doesnt even want to go for a walk.
As I watched, Brandy rose from his place in the corner and pottered slowly over to the fire. He stood there for a moment, gaunt and dead-eyed, and he seemed to notice me for the first time because the end of his tail gave a brief twitch before he coughed, groaned, and flopped down on the hearth rug.
Mrs. Westby was right. He was like a very old dog.
Do you think hell always be like this? she asked.
I shrugged. We can only hope.
But as I got into my car and drove away I really didnt have much hope. I had seen calves with lung damage after bad pneumonias. They recovered but were called bad doers because they remained thin and listless for the rest of their lives. Doctors, too, had plenty of chesty people on their books; they were, more or less, in the same predicament.
Weeks and then months went by and the only time I saw Brandy was when Mrs. Westby was walking him on his lead. I always had the impression that he was reluctant to move and his mistress had to stroll along very slowly so that he could keep up with her. The sight of him saddened me when I thought of the lolloping dog of old, but I told myself that at least I had saved his life. I could do no more for him now and I made a determined effort to push him out of my mind.
In fact I tried to forget Brandy and managed to do so fairly well until one afternoon in February. On the previous night I felt I had been through the fire. I had treated a colicky horse until 4:00 A.m. and was crawling into bed, comforted by the knowledge that the animal was settled down and free from pain, when I was called to a calving. I had managed to produce a large live calf from a small heifer, but the effort had drained the last of my strength and
when I got home it was too late to return to bed.
Plowing through the morning round I was so tired that I felt disembodied, and at lunch Helen watched me anxiously as my head nodded over my food. There were a few dogs in the waiting room at two oclock and I dealt with them mechanically, peering through half-closed eyelids. By the time I reached my last patient I was almost asleep on my feet. In fact I had the feeling that I wasnt there at all.
Next, please. I mumbled as I pushed open the waiting room door and stood back waiting for the usual sight of a dog being led out to the passage.
But this time there was a big difference. There was a man in the doorway all right and he had a little poodle with him, but the thing that made my eyes snap wide open was that the dog was walking upright on his hind limbs.
I knew I was half-asleep but surely I wasnt seeing things. I stared down at the dog, but the picture hadnt changedthe little creature strutted through the doorway, chest out, head up, as erect as a soldier.
Follow me, please, I said hoarsely and set off over the tiles to the consulting room. Halfway along I just had to turn round to check the evidence of my eyes and it was just the samethe poodle, still on his hind legs, marching along unconcernedly at his masters side.
The man must have seen the bewilderment on my face because he burst suddenly into a roar of laughter.
Dont worry, Mr. Herriot, he said. This little dog was circus trained before I got him as a pet. I like to show off his little tricks. This one really startles people.