Tricki’s hospitalization and recovery

Tricki’s hospitalization and recovery show James Herriot changing the conditions around a sick animal rather than treating him with medicine: separated from Mrs. Pumphrey’s lavish feeding and placed among the active dogs at the surgery, Tricki regains his health through restraint, exercise, and social contact. The cure also exposes the affectionate misunderstanding at its center. Mrs. Pumphrey believes she is strengthening a listless pet; Herriot sees that her care has helped make him seriously ill.

The problem at home

When Herriot saw Tricki in the street with Mrs. Pumphrey, the dog had become markedly overweight and appeared listless. Mrs. Pumphrey explained that she had interpreted his lack of energy as malnutrition. To build him up, she had been giving him extra food and supplements between meals, including calf’s foot jelly, malt, cod-liver oil, and Horlick’s at night. This was not a lack of affection but a mistaken response to the problem: more nourishment was being offered to a dog whose condition required less food and more activity.

Herriot asked whether Mrs. Pumphrey had reduced the sweet foods as he had advised, and whether Tricki was getting enough exercise. His walks with her continued, but Hodgkin, who had helped with ring-throwing, was laid up with lumbago, so that activity had stopped. Herriot warned Mrs. Pumphrey that Tricki would become seriously ill unless she sharply reduced his food and increased his exercise. She agreed, though she found the change difficult. As she set off with Tricki in his little tweed coat, Herriot doubted that the new routine would last; the dog had a whole wardrobe for different weather, while his exercise remained limited.

The call came within days. Tricki had stopped eating, even his favorite dishes, and was vomiting. He spent his time lying down and panting, with no interest in walks or other activity. Herriot had already decided that the central difficulty was the home environment: Tricki needed to be taken away from it for a while. He proposed hospitalization for about a fortnight, both to keep the dog under observation and to make a different routine possible.

Removal and adjustment

Mrs. Pumphrey was distraught at the prospect of separation. She had never been apart from Tricki and feared he would pine and die without seeing her each day. Herriot nevertheless insisted that the dog was very ill and that removal was the best way to save him. He carried Tricki, wrapped in a blanket, to the car while Mrs. Pumphrey protested.

The preparations at the house made the scale of her attachment visible. Maids brought out Tricki’s day bed and night bed, cushions, toys, rubber rings, bowls for each meal, and other belongings. Realizing that the car could not hold all of it, Herriot drove off with the dog; Mrs. Pumphrey threw an armful of little coats through the window as he left. The abundance of equipment contrasted with the simpler needs of the treatment. On the journey, Tricki was weak, but made an effort to wag his tail when Herriot patted his head.

At the surgery, the other dogs gathered around the newcomer. Tricki looked at them without interest and, once put down, remained motionless on the carpet. They sniffed him briefly and then ignored him. Herriot made up a bed in a warm loose box beside the dogs’ sleeping quarters. For two days, Tricki had no food but plenty of water. By the end of the second day he began noticing his surroundings; on the third, he whimpered at the sound of the dogs in the yard.

When Herriot opened the door, Tricki trotted out and was met by the other dogs. They inspected him and moved off into the garden, with Tricki following, intrigued despite his surplus weight. The change was gradual enough to be observed in small actions: first interest in the dogs, then following them, and then joining the shared life of the group.

Recovery among the dogs

At feeding time, Tristan put food into the dogs’ bowls. Their usual rush made mealtimes competitive, and Tricki initially walked around the empty bowls, licking at one or two. The next day, an extra bowl was put out for him, and he jostled toward it. His appetite returned in the company of dogs whose quick, communal feeding offered a sharp contrast to the individualized indulgence of his former routine.

From then on, Tricki’s improvement was rapid. He received no medicinal treatment. Instead, he ran about with the dogs, took part in their play, and became accepted as a member of the group. The account emphasizes not simply that he exercised, but that he began participating: he competed for his share at meals and hunted rats in the old hen house at night. The little dog who had arrived with little interest in his surroundings now had an active place in the surgery’s canine company.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Pumphrey remained anxiously involved from a distance, phoning repeatedly for updates. Herriot evaded her questions about whether Tricki’s cushions were being turned and whether he wore the correct coat for the weather. He could give her the more important news that the dog was out of danger and recovering. Her response to the word convalescing was to send provisions intended to rebuild Tricki’s strength: first fresh eggs, two dozen at a time. For a while, the household enjoyed two eggs each at breakfast. Bottles of sherry followed, and then two bottles of Cordon Bleu brandy. These gifts improved the comfort of the people at the surgery, but also preserved the comic tension between the treatment that had worked and Mrs. Pumphrey’s conviction that Tricki needed to be built up.

Return and significance

Herriot was tempted to keep Tricki as a permanent guest, but knew Mrs. Pumphrey was suffering from the separation. After a fortnight, he phoned to say that the dog had recovered and was ready to be collected. A large black car arrived within minutes. Mrs. Pumphrey remained inside, hands clasped and lips trembling, and asked Herriot to tell her whether Tricki was really better. He reassured her and went to fetch him.

When Tricki saw his mistress, he leapt from Herriot’s arms into her lap, licking her face and barking. The reunion confirmed that the separation had not destroyed their bond; it also completed a contrast between her fear of losing him and his vigorous return. The beds, toys, cushions, coats, and bowls that had accompanied him to the surgery were brought back out, none of them having been used there. The essentials of recovery had proved to be a controlled diet, movement, and the company of other dogs, not the comforts Mrs. Pumphrey had sent.

Mrs. Pumphrey thanked Herriot by calling the recovery “a triumph of surgery!” The phrase is affectionate but mistaken: no operation or medicinal treatment had been responsible. Its irony captures the episode’s central distinction between the owner’s understanding of care as provision and Herriot’s practical recognition that, in this case, care meant limiting food, changing surroundings, and letting Tricki join the dogs. The hospitalization succeeds because it alters the habits and social setting that had accompanied his decline, while allowing him to return to the person whose devotion had helped create the problem.