The Village Vet (19 page)

‘Jack, really, there’s no need. Anyway, I could do with picking up a few groceries at the same time. I’ve got a list as long as my arm of things we need for the Fun Day: drinks, a banner and balloons, which reminds me, I must get in touch with Jennie to ask her if she’ll donate some cupcakes.’

‘We could run up to Overdown Farmers for dog and cat food too,’ Jack says.

I give in graciously. ‘That would be useful. Thanks.’

‘I’ll be here at eight.’ With one easy move, Jack wraps his arms around the dog and lifts her back down to the floor. He hands me the end of the lead and Tia follows me into the kennel where I squat down beside her and slip the rope over her head.

‘Good girl. I’ll get you some dinner.’ I turn to Jack, who towers above me, his combats smeared with dried mud and grass stains. ‘Do you know what she has? Dried food or tinned, or a mixture?’

‘I asked, but she didn’t have a clue.’ Jack folds his arms across his chest. ‘It looks as if Tia eats pretty well anything from the size of her. She’d make a handy coffee table for someone.’

‘Jack, that’s mean,’ I say lightly.

‘Sometimes you have to laugh or else you’d cry. Besides, the dog isn’t offended – I don’t think she can hear. Or see,’ he adds, as Tia takes a stumbling step to the left and bumps her nose on the wall.

‘She needs a guide dog,’ I say. I walk her out to the run and make sure she’s checked out the bowl of fresh water and the bed I’ve put together for her, a plastic one that’s raised off the ground so it’s draught-proof. She clambers stiffly onto the top of the cushion inside it, turns around a couple of times and lies down, trembling and whining, her nose tucked into her tail. ‘It’s such a shame that this had to happen to her. She’s petrified.’

Jack hands me a crumpled tissue.

‘Thanks,’ I say, blowing my nose. ‘I’ve got a touch of hay fever. It must have something to do with the straw I put down for the ducklings.’ I don’t know why I have to hide my feelings from Jack when he seems almost as upset for Tia as I am. ‘Do you think it’s fair to leave her in a kennel?’ I ask him. ‘I doubt she’s ever been away from home before.’

‘I’ll feed her, and see if she settles.’ Jack fetches a bowl of dog food, which makes Buster next door want some and he starts to bark. ‘He’s getting more confident.’

‘I’ve been doing a lot of work with him.’

‘I wish someone would give me that much attention.’

‘Don’t I talk to you?’ I say archly.

‘I wasn’t just thinking of talking,’ he says, making me blush.

I try to make light of it, continuing, ‘I’ll take you for a walk if you like now and again. You’ll have to be on a lead though!’

‘I wouldn’t run away, Tess,’ he says in a low voice, and although I don’t quite catch it, I think he adds, ‘I promise,’ and my heart flutters briefly like a butterfly settling on a flower.

‘I think Jack’s trying to seduce me, but a man’s promise doesn’t mean anything, does it?’ I say to Buster much later when I’m taking him out for one last stroll around the copse. We walk up the hillside, past the stand of conifers and mature trees, stopping at the top to look at the view of the sun setting behind the hills in the distance, and I wonder if Gloria Brambles ever came up here to do the same. It’s beautiful. Buster tenses, sniffing the air, and a deer leaps across the path only a few metres away from us before disappearing into the bushes opposite. I squat down beside Buster with my arm around his neck, considering myself to be, in spite of everything, a very lucky woman.

How could anyone do such a thing? Hanging on to Buster by the collar as he strains to get to the crate on the doorstep the following morning, I count the heads that peer nervously out of the top. There are three of them: gorgeous puppies with floppy ears, wavy golden coats, long tails and oversized paws.

‘Please, Buster, leave them alone,’ I say, losing patience with him. ‘You can’t have them for breakfast and that’s that. Come on.’ I drag him away and shut him in the bedroom, so I can assess the new arrivals. They have apparently been abandoned overnight without anyone – even Buster – noticing until about ten minutes ago, when he began snuffling about at the front door.

‘You poor little things.’ I bring the crate indoors, worried they might jump out, but they are too
confused
, happy for the attention yet apprehensive, as well they might be with Buster’s style of welcome. I yell at him to stop when he starts scratching at the bedroom door, asking to be let out. He doesn’t like other dogs and he isn’t all that keen on people, but solitary confinement doesn’t suit him.

I pick the puppies out one at a time, two girls and a boy, and give them each a cuddle, breathing their scent, which reminds me of damp earth and Marmite. They nuzzle at my hands and lick my nose, making me smile. Although their pot bellies suggest an infestation of worms, and they have a few fleas between them, overall they’re in good condition, which makes it seem even more incomprehensible that anyone could do such a thing. I glance out of the window where the clouds scud across a blue sky. At least they chose a warm night.

I decide to take the puppies to the kennels and call the vets to see if they can give me a longer appointment this morning, but they are fully booked. It isn’t a problem though – it never is for them – and they promise to fit the puppies in with Tia.

‘Call yourself a guard dog,’ I tell Buster when I return to the bungalow. ‘You’re all mouth and no trousers. You didn’t make a sound last night.’ He looks up at me, all sheepish. ‘I don’t mean it,’ I say, apologising. ‘Come on, let’s go for a—’ I don’t have to say the word, because he’s off, scampering around the bungalow like a demon, leaping up and down and barking to go out. I don’t have much time before Jack turns up with the van to go to the vet’s, so I don’t bother to get dressed, taking a stroll around the paddock in my wellies and dressing gown and quickly returning Buster to his kennel, only to find Jack coming across the car park towards me.

‘Hi, Tess.’

My heart sinks, because there may be some truth in my aunt’s opinion that there are times when one really should keep up one’s appearance, and this occasion might just be one of them.

‘What time do you call this?’ Jack says, tapping his wristwatch.

‘I’m all behind.’

‘I should say so, like the cow’s tail.’ He smiles.

‘We should get going,’ I say. ‘Maz will be expecting us.’

‘Don’t you think you ought to get dressed first?’ Jack says, amused. ‘You seem to be in a bit of a flap.’

I explain about the new arrivals as we get ready to leave. I’m sure he can manage the trip to the vet’s by himself, but it’s a good excuse to spend time with Tia and the puppies and, if I’m honest, with Jack.

‘What have we here?’ Maz says, her wedding ring on a chain around her neck and a pen tucked into the pocket of her paw-print top, when we’re squeezed into the consulting room at Otter House. She looks into the crate that Jack has placed on the table. ‘A veritable squirmish of puppies? How sweet!’

‘Someone abandoned them on the doorstep at the Sanctuary last night,’ I say. ‘I don’t understand why Buster didn’t bark.’

‘You mean the black dog,’ Maz says, stroking the puppies with both hands. ‘I expect he thinks he doesn’t need to bother now he’s got his paws firmly under the table. Are you any closer to finding him a home yet?’

‘He lives with you, Tess,’ Jack points out when I shake my head. ‘He might as well be your dog.’

‘It’s part of his rehabilitation,’ I say, grinning.

‘Sure,’ Jack says.

‘I’ve heard that one before,’ Maz says, picking one of the puppies up out of the crate and hugging it to her chest. ‘You vet nurses are so predictable, making the same excuses to take unwanted animals home.’ She plants a kiss on top of the puppy’s head. ‘You won’t have any trouble finding homes for these guys. You’ll have people fighting over them.’

‘We have a waiting list for puppies. It’s a shame so few people are looking for adult dogs,’ I observe.

‘Do you know anything at all about their background?’ Maz asks.

‘I found a note tucked in the side of the crate. They were the last of a litter of nine and surplus to requirements. They’re seven weeks old, their mum was a cocker spaniel and their dad a Standard poodle.’

‘So they’re cockapoos,’ Maz says, smiling.

‘I can’t keep up with all these odd crosses,’ says Jack. ‘A dog is a dog, as far as I’m concerned.’

‘It’s very fashionable at the moment,’ Maz says, ‘but it’s gets confusing when people start crossing the crosses, a cockapoo with a springador, for example. It’s supposed to reduce the incidence of breed-related genetic conditions like hereditary cataracts and hip dysplasia, but I can’t help wondering if it will end up multiplying them and making the situation worse.’

She goes on to examine the three puppies and pronounces them fit and healthy before giving them their first vaccinations to help protect them against infectious diseases during their stay in kennels. Jack returns them to the van while I talk to Maz about Tia.

‘I’d be ashamed if I were her owner,’ I say as Tia plants her bottom heavily on my feet. ‘The elderly lady who had her has been ill, and no one in the family appears to have taken responsibility for the dog.’

Maz suggests that we weigh her on the scales in the waiting room, where it takes the two of us to lift her on.

‘I don’t believe it.’ Maz presses the reset button three times. ‘No, that’s right. Don’t listen, Tia,’ she goes on, turning to me, and adding in a low voice, ‘She’s gross.’

‘How much does she need to lose?’ I say, trying to read the display.

‘At least one third of her body weight, and I’d really like to see her become half the dog she is.’

‘I don’t know anything about her history, whether or not she’s always been overweight. Jack thought that she used to be one of Talyton Manor’s patients, but she can’t have been to see a vet for years.’

‘She seems a sweet enough dog – by nature I mean, not by smell. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to bring myself to kiss her.’ Maz chuckles as we take Tia waddling back to the consulting room and heave her onto the table. ‘Some of my clients think I’m mad kissing my patients.’

She talks through her findings as she examines the dog. ‘She has a nasty infection in that ear, and her mouth is disgusting. Most of those teeth are going to have to come out. I’ll scale and polish the rest and put her on some antibiotics. We’ll give her a pedicure while she’s under anaesthetic and trim the mats from her ears, paws and tail. Maybe a bit of pampering will make her feel better.’

‘Thanks, Maz,’ I say, sorry that I have to leave Tia with her. ‘Best of luck, old dog,’ I tell her as one of the nurses comes to take her through to the kennels to await her dental.

‘I’m not intending to kill her,’ Maz says, sounding slightly affronted.

‘I know you’ll look after her,’ I say. She hasn’t been
at
the Sanctuary long – only a day – but I already feel as if she’s part of the family there, my extended family, and she’s old and not in the best of health.

‘Go on, Tessa,’ Maz says, smiling, ‘call after three and I’ll let you know what time you can collect her.’

Jack and I head back to the Sanctuary to settle the puppies in one of the kennels before going out again for the shopping. Much later, when Jack has returned Tia, looking drunk and disorderly, to the Sanctuary, I try to cheer her up with some boiled chicken chopped into tiny pieces. When I drag her into her kennel, she looks as though she might hang herself, she’s so depressed, so I take her off to the bungalow with me to join Buster, leaving the puppies curled up together asleep with a ticking clock to mimic the comfort of their mother’s heartbeat. Although I’m worried that Buster will turn on her, it seems as though he knows what she’s been through and recognises in her a kindred spirit, because he sits by her bed, watching over her while she sleeps off the anaesthetic.

However, when I wake in the middle of the night, I find them both on the end of my bed and the duvet damp around my feet. When I switch the light on and discover that Tia has been dribbling from both ends, my heart sinks, because there appears to be more to this abandonment than meets the eye. Who will take on a depressed old dog that’s obese, smelly and incontinent? How on earth will we find her a new home?

Chapter Nine

Wild Horses

THE PONY WILL
not be caught. Libby, Jack and I try for another week – one person at a time, so as not to overwhelm her – tempting her with carrots, apples, mints and pony nuts, but to no avail. It isn’t until the eighth day, when I’m regretting not putting her into one of the stables in the barn, that she deigns to put her head in the bucket and let Libby snap a lead-rope to the head-collar to bring her inside. She baulks in the doorway, but with Jack shooing her in from behind she walks in and I can close the stable door on her with a sigh of relief.

‘She’s a nightmare,’ I observe. ‘It’s no wonder Mr Maddocks couldn’t look after her properly – she probably wouldn’t let him.’

‘Well, I suggest you call the vet and the farrier out today while we’ve got her trapped,’ says Jack.

‘Yes, boss,’ I say sarcastically, ‘I’ll get that organised. Well done, Libby. You are the Sanctuary’s secret weapon, Talyton St George’s very own horse whisperer. What did you say to her?’