place.”
“Well I know that’s how you feel just now but I wish you’d think about it. I don’t want to seem callous—I tell everybody this when they lose an animal and I know it’s good advice.”
“Mr. Herriot, I’ll never have another one.” She shook her head again, very decisively. “Rex was my faithful friend for many years and I just want to remember him. He’s the last dog I’ll ever have.”
I often saw Mrs. Donovan around the town after this and I was glad to see she was still as active as ever, though she looked strangely incomplete without the little dog on its lead. But it must have been over a month before I had the chance to speak to her.
It was on the afternoon that Inspector Halliday of the R.S.P.C.A. rang me.
“Mr. Herriot,” he said, “I’d like you to come and see an animal with me. A cruelty case.”
“Right, what is it?”
“A dog, and it’s pretty grim. A dreadful case of neglect.” He gave me the name of a row of old brick cottages down by the river and said he’d meet me there.
Halliday was waiting for me, smart and businesslike in his dark uniform, as I pulled up in the back lane behind the houses. He was a big, blond man with cheerful blue eyes but he didn’t smile as he came over to the car.
“He’s in here,” he said, and led the way towards one of the doors in the long, crumbling wall. A few curious people were hanging around and with a feeling of inevitability I recognised a gnome-like brown face. Trust Mrs. Donovan, I thought, to be among those present at a time like this.
We went through the door into the long garden. I had found that even the lowliest dwellings in Darrowby had long strips of land at the back as though the builders had taken it for granted that the country people who were going to live in them would want to occupy themselves with the pursuits of the soil; with vegetable and fruit growing, even stock keeping in a small way. You usually found a pig there, a few hens, often pretty beds of flowers.
But this garden was a wilderness. A chilling air of desolation hung over the few gnarled apple and plum trees standing among a tangle of rank grass as though the place had been forsaken by all living creatures.
Halliday went over to a ramshackle wooden shed with peeling paint and a rusted corrugated iron roof. He produced a key, unlocked the padlock and dragged the door partly open. There was no window and it wasn’t easy to identify the jumble inside: broken gardening tools, an ancient mangle, rows of flower pots and partly used paint tins. And right at the back, a dog sitting quietly.
I didn’t notice him immediately because of the gloom and because the smell in the shed started me coughing, but as I drew closer I saw that he was a big animal, sitting very upright, his collar secured by a chain to a ring in the wall. I had seen some thin dogs but this advanced emaciation reminded me of my text books on anatomy; nowhere else did the bones of pelvis, face and rib cage stand out with such horrifying clarity. A deep, smoothed out hollow in the earth floor showed where he had lain, moved about, in fact lived for a very long time.
The sight of the animal had a stupefying effect on me; I only half took in the rest of the scene—the filthy shreds of sacking scattered nearby, the bowl of scummy water.
“Look at his back end,” Halliday muttered.
I carefully raised the dog from his sitting position and realised that the stench in the place was not entirely due to the piles of excrement. The hindquarters were a welter of pressure sores which had turned gangrenous and strips of sloughing tissue hung down from them. There were similar sores along the sternum and ribs. The coat, which seemed to be a dull yellow, was matted and caked with dirt.
The Inspector spoke again. “I don’t think he’s ever been out of here. He’s only a young dog—about a year old—but I understand he’s been in this shed since he was an eight week old pup. Somebody out
“Well I know that’s how you feel just now but I wish you’d think about it. I don’t want to seem callous—I tell everybody this when they lose an animal and I know it’s good advice.”
“Mr. Herriot, I’ll never have another one.” She shook her head again, very decisively. “Rex was my faithful friend for many years and I just want to remember him. He’s the last dog I’ll ever have.”
I often saw Mrs. Donovan around the town after this and I was glad to see she was still as active as ever, though she looked strangely incomplete without the little dog on its lead. But it must have been over a month before I had the chance to speak to her.
It was on the afternoon that Inspector Halliday of the R.S.P.C.A. rang me.
“Mr. Herriot,” he said, “I’d like you to come and see an animal with me. A cruelty case.”
“Right, what is it?”
“A dog, and it’s pretty grim. A dreadful case of neglect.” He gave me the name of a row of old brick cottages down by the river and said he’d meet me there.
Halliday was waiting for me, smart and businesslike in his dark uniform, as I pulled up in the back lane behind the houses. He was a big, blond man with cheerful blue eyes but he didn’t smile as he came over to the car.
“He’s in here,” he said, and led the way towards one of the doors in the long, crumbling wall. A few curious people were hanging around and with a feeling of inevitability I recognised a gnome-like brown face. Trust Mrs. Donovan, I thought, to be among those present at a time like this.
We went through the door into the long garden. I had found that even the lowliest dwellings in Darrowby had long strips of land at the back as though the builders had taken it for granted that the country people who were going to live in them would want to occupy themselves with the pursuits of the soil; with vegetable and fruit growing, even stock keeping in a small way. You usually found a pig there, a few hens, often pretty beds of flowers.
But this garden was a wilderness. A chilling air of desolation hung over the few gnarled apple and plum trees standing among a tangle of rank grass as though the place had been forsaken by all living creatures.
Halliday went over to a ramshackle wooden shed with peeling paint and a rusted corrugated iron roof. He produced a key, unlocked the padlock and dragged the door partly open. There was no window and it wasn’t easy to identify the jumble inside: broken gardening tools, an ancient mangle, rows of flower pots and partly used paint tins. And right at the back, a dog sitting quietly.
I didn’t notice him immediately because of the gloom and because the smell in the shed started me coughing, but as I drew closer I saw that he was a big animal, sitting very upright, his collar secured by a chain to a ring in the wall. I had seen some thin dogs but this advanced emaciation reminded me of my text books on anatomy; nowhere else did the bones of pelvis, face and rib cage stand out with such horrifying clarity. A deep, smoothed out hollow in the earth floor showed where he had lain, moved about, in fact lived for a very long time.
The sight of the animal had a stupefying effect on me; I only half took in the rest of the scene—the filthy shreds of sacking scattered nearby, the bowl of scummy water.
“Look at his back end,” Halliday muttered.
I carefully raised the dog from his sitting position and realised that the stench in the place was not entirely due to the piles of excrement. The hindquarters were a welter of pressure sores which had turned gangrenous and strips of sloughing tissue hung down from them. There were similar sores along the sternum and ribs. The coat, which seemed to be a dull yellow, was matted and caked with dirt.
The Inspector spoke again. “I don’t think he’s ever been out of here. He’s only a young dog—about a year old—but I understand he’s been in this shed since he was an eight week old pup. Somebody out
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