After Sam, I had two dogs together. Hector was a Jack Russell with typical Chippendale legs and a stumpy tail which he wagged furiously. In the car he was never still; he would peer through the windscreen and seem to take in everything that we passed. My other dog, Dan the black Labrador, had a quite different temperament: he would stretch out on the passenger seat, his head on my knee, trusting that I wouldnt miss an opportunity to stop the car somewhere on the moor or in the dale and give them a run.
Dan is on the cover of my book James Herriots Yorkshire: he was an old dog thenyou can just see his graying muzzle against the dark background of the trees in the snowy landscape behind. He is a little dipped in the back, but his eyes are fixed unwaveringnot on me, but on the stick in my hand. Throughout his life, he liked to walk with a stick in his mouth, true retriever-fashion. As he got older, so the sticks he found to carry became smaller, and I knew that his life was coming to an end the day he returned from his walk without a stick.
It is always said that however many wonderful and happy years a dog lives, you know that one day, the day he dies, your dog will break your heart.
I have always advised people to get a replacement as soon as possible after their dog has died: a new and endearing pup helps enormously to fill the gaping void one always experiences after a much-loved dog has gone. But when Hector and Dan died, within a year of each other, but both having had good long lives, I hesitated: Would I ever be able to find a dog to replace them? I was still able to go on walks with a dog because my daughter Rosie, who lives next door to us, has a beautiful yellow Labrador, Polly, and was very happy that I wanted to take on dog-walking duties.
But the car was very empty when I drove out to the farms or visited patients in outlying villages. When I got out to lean over a gate and look down into a valley, there was no one to watch snuffling amongst the heather and the bracken. There was no one to talk toand the conversation may have been somewhat one-sided but my dogs never seemed to mind my chatter!
So I decided to fulfill a longtime ambition, to own a Border terrier. I had loved this breed, with its whiskery face, ever since I had come to work in Yorkshire, but there had never been a litter around when we had wanted a new dog.
This time, however, I was very fortunate to find the last of a litter not far away in Bedale, and so Bodie joined the Herriot household. I dont think any of my other dogs would be too upset if I said that no dog has ever given me so much joy as Bodiewho is lying beside me now as I write. From the moment that I reached down and lifted up the puppy, and he curled his little body round, apparently trying to touch his tail with his nose, I was lost to him.
He has been a wonderful companion to me, especially since I retired and have had more time for walking. He is getting on now, and his coat is almost more white than brown; this has its advantages because I can see him when he is running through the autumn bracken when it is on the turn. When he was younger, he was almost the same color as the russety-red bracken and sometimes the only means I had of knowing where he had got to was by the high-pitched yelps emanating from the thick undergrowth, which meant that he was after another rabbit, which he very rarely caught. I know the chase gave him immense pleasure, however, because he would return to me, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth and a look on his face as if to say, Well, theres always another day!
He is a bit too old now to chase rabbits for real but he still whiffles in his sleep so
I am sure he is chasing them in his dreams.
Tricki Woo Goes Crackerdog
Autumn had slipped into winter, the high tops were streaked with the first snows, and the discomforts of practice in the Dales began to make themselves felt.
Driving for hours with frozen feet, climbing to the high barns in biting winds which seared and flattened the wiry hill grass. The interminable stripping off in drafty buildings and the washing of hands and chest in buckets of cold water, using scrubbing soap and often a piece of sacking for a towel.
This was when some small animal work came as a blessed relief. To step out of the rough, hard routine for a while; to walk into a warm drawing room instead of a cow house and tackle something less formidable than a horse or a bull. And among all those comfortable drawing rooms there was none so beguiling as Mrs. Pumphreys.
Mrs. Pumphrey was an elderly widow. Her late husband, a beer baron whose breweries and pubs were scattered widely over the broad bosom of Yorkshire, had left her a vast fortune and a beautiful house on the outskirts of Darrowby. Here she lived with a large staff of servants, a gardener, a chauffeur, and Tricki Woo. Tricki Woo was a Pekingese and the apple of his mistresss eye.
Standing now in the magnificent doorway, I furtively rubbed the toes of my shoes on the backs of my trousers and blew on my cold hands. I could almost see the deep armchair drawn close to the leaping flames, the tray of cocktail biscuits, the bottle of excellent sherry. Because of the sherry, I was always careful to time my visits for half an hour before lunch.