Barlby Grange, on the outskirts of Darrowby, is the substantial country house Mrs. Pumphrey inhabits with her household staff and Tricki Woo. It serves both as a place of veterinary care and as a domestic world of comfort and abundance, where Herriot’s professional visits become entangled with the Pumphrey household’s affectionate, comic rituals.

The House and Its Household

Mrs. Pumphrey is an elderly widow whose late husband, a brewery and pub owner with businesses throughout Yorkshire, left her a vast fortune and the beautiful house. She lives there with a large staff, a gardener, a chauffeur, and Tricki, a Pekingese who is the centre of her attention.

The house’s interiors make a marked contrast with the rough routine of Herriot’s farm work. A maid welcomes him as an honoured guest and leads him into a drawing room filled with expensive furniture, glossy magazines, and the latest novels. Mrs. Pumphrey sits in a high-backed chair by the fire; Herriot, arriving with cold hands, anticipates the warm room, cocktail biscuits, and excellent sherry. He times his visits for half an hour before lunch, making the domestic comforts part of the visit’s familiar pattern.

Veterinary Visits and Tricki’s Care

The comfortable setting does not make the work merely social. Mrs. Pumphrey summons Herriot when Tricki is suffering from what she calls another bout of “flop-bott.” Herriot treats the dog’s blocked anal glands, lifting him onto a table and evacuating them with a cotton-wool pad. Tricki greets him with such pleasure that Herriot marvels at the dog’s lack of resentment toward an operation that involves painful handling. He regards Tricki as intelligent and even-tempered, and is genuinely attached to him.

The visits also reveal the recurring problem behind Tricki’s poor condition. After the treatment, Herriot notices extra weight and flesh padding the dog’s ribs. He tells Mrs. Pumphrey that she has overfed him again and reminds her to stop giving him cake and offer more protein. She protests that Tricki is tired of chicken. Her anxious devotion and the dog’s excessive feeding coexist: the house’s abundance is a comfort to its human guest, but a source of concern in Tricki’s care. Herriot performs a ritual handwashing after treatment in the palatial bathroom, where a private guest towel and expensive soap await him.

Gifts and the Honorary Uncle

At Barlby Grange, Herriot’s relationship with Tricki extends beyond the examination table. Mrs. Pumphrey has introduced him to the dog as his uncle, and he accepts the designation, recognizing its advantages. Tricki sends him oak-smoked kippers when he goes to the seaside, greenhouse tomatoes when they ripen, regular tins of tobacco, and sometimes a photograph with a loving inscription. Mrs. Pumphrey insists that the gifts come from Tricki, not herself, and that the dog should receive the thanks.

A Christmas hamper from Fortnum and Mason’s prompts Herriot to write directly to his canine nephew. In his letter he thanks Tricki for the gifts and suggests using the black powder Herriot prescribes if the festive food upsets his digestion. Mrs. Pumphrey later reports that Tricki treasured the letter but was affronted by its formal address to Master rather than Mister. The small correction makes the household’s affectionate fiction of Tricki’s personhood part of its everyday manners. Back at Skeldale House, Siegfried teases Herriot about working himself to the bone at Barlby Grange for another hamper, turning the house’s generosity into a running joke as well as a sign of the bond formed there.