and sitting beside her with my textbooks open on my lap. She had grown painfully thin, but I coaxed her into eating again by gently feeding her sausages, and when she was finally well enough to go home she tottered out of the hospital. All the way home she squealed in the way she did when she wanted a walk, so we knew we had our Tosca back and promised never to complain about her annoying traits again.
We were all thrilled to have her home, and once she was back in her own territory she carried on getting better and soon seemed like her old self. But as the months passed we realised she was losing her sight, and her head had begun to tilt to one side, which meant that she probably did have a slow-growing brain tumour. This may have accounted for the uncharacteristic behaviour that she continued to display, such as hiding in strange places and her gorging episode.
Tosca didn’t appear to be too fazed by losing her sight. She still charged around the house, so we put bubble wrap around the trees in the garden and horse boots on the legs of the dining-room chairs so that she wouldn’t hurt herself when she bumped into them. She never seemed to have a problem finding us – or the dishwasher – and she still demanded our undivided attention.
When I graduated a year later she was still doing well and we were hopeful that she would be with us for some time yet. After my graduation ceremony and the ball that followed and once all the excitement was over, Jacques and I drove down to Cornwall to join my parents and Ross for a holiday. Every year Mum, Dad, Ross and I go to the same little cottage in the Camel Valley Vineyard in north Cornwall for a lazy fortnight of pottering around beaches, walking the dogs, looking at holiday cottages and filling up with cream teas at Viv’s café down the road. This year, Jacques was joining us, and I was looking forward to spending time with him in one of my favourite parts of the country. Jacques and I planned to arrive a few days after the rest of my family, as I had to pack up my house at university and say a sad goodbye to my housemates and friends.
After the long drive from Kent to Cornwall, never less than six hours, Jacques and I pulled up at the vineyard, got out of the car to stretch our aching limbs and lifted our bags out of the boot. We walked down the path towards our cottage to find Mum outside with Tosca lying on the ground beside her in the shade.
I ran towards them. ‘What happened?’
‘Tosca’s been really off colour today,’ Mum said. ‘We knew you were on the way, so we decided to wait and see what you thought before getting help. Especially as it’s Sunday.’
I knelt down and stroked Tosca. She barely responded. Her little tail, seldom still, didn’t even manage a small welcoming wag. There was also a faint rattle coming from her chest as she breathed.
‘She was playing in the sea yesterday,’ Mum said. ‘You know how much she loves dashing in and out of the waves. But she can’t see them coming and I think she’s inhaled some salt water.’
I looked up at Mum. ‘She really looks awful. We need to get her to a vet. I can’t help her, I have nothing with me.’
We got Tosca gently into the car and took her to a very friendly local out-of-hours vet called Sandra, who took her temperature – which was alarmingly high – gave her an antibiotic injection and a Metacam injection to bring her temperature down and asked us to bring her back in the morning.
A diagnosis was difficult. Given that we knew she had cancer, there might well have been tumours in her lungs. But it was also possible that, having inhaled seawater, she had developed pneumonia.
We took her back to the cottage to rest. The vet told us to make sure she was eating and drinking, but we couldn’t persuade her to take anything at all. No small titbit tempted her, not even sausage; she wouldn’t even drink water, so the next morning we took her back and she was put on a drip for 24 hours to rehydrate her.
That helped, but when we took her home again she was still very weak. At worst she simply lay flat; at best she managed a small wag of her tail. We took it in turns to check on her and sit with her. None of us wanted to say it, but we were very afraid that we were losing her.
The following day Dad suggested we take her to the beach. It was her favourite place and Dad reasoned that we would either be taking her for one last visit, if she really was reaching the end, or it would give her a boost and she just might perk up. It was kill or cure time.
We all agreed it was a good idea, and once again we lifted her gently into the car before heading down the road to the sea. When we arrived Jacques carried her from the car to the beach where – to all of our delight and amazement – she lifted her head, sniffed the salt air and immediately launched into a shaky jog towards the sea.
We stood, grinning. It was clear that, weak as she was, she was back with us and ready to fight. I hugged Jacques. ‘She’s tough as old boots,’ I said, wiping away a tear. ‘She’s not ready to go yet.’
‘You’re right, she’s some dog,’ he said, watching her with a look of slight incredulity on his face.
After that Tosca gradually regained some of her energy and vitality. She was still weak, but we could all see that her spirit was undimmed. We took her to the beach every day, where she dug a huge number of holes in the sand and continually tried to scamper off towards the sea, bumping into people on the beach that she couldn’t see.
At the end of the week Jacques had to go back to South Africa. I drove him to Heathrow where for once I didn’t dissolve into tears because I knew that we were only facing a short parting this time; I was going to be joining him for two weeks at the end of August, only a month away.
After seeing Jacques off, I drove to Kent to collect Mum’s parents, Grandma and Grandpa Nevison, who lived next door to us. I’m lucky in having my grandparents so close by. Dad’s parents, Grandma and Grandpa Hardy, only live half an hour from us, so I’ve got all four around me and they’re all absolutely lovely.
Our second holiday week was deliciously peaceful. Tosca was doing well, the sun shone and we enjoyed long walks and plenty of cream teas. I also managed to pop over to visit my old friend Tom, who runs a dairy farm close to where we were staying. A few years older than me, Tom is a quiet country farmer who took over the farm from his parents. Happy to stay settled in one place, Tom loves his farm, his animals and meeting his friends for a pint down at the pub in the evenings. We are very different, but we get on well. We’ve known each other for almost 10 years, ever since I spent a few weeks doing work experience on the farm when I was 16, and it’s always good to catch up.
Tom asked me to give him a hand with diagnosing his cows’ pregnancy, as he had a few he wasn’t sure about. Tom had a really old-school diagnosis method called ‘ballottement of the abdomen’, which is seldom used nowadays because it’s so inaccurate. It consists of pushing your hand against the side of the cow and wobbling the tummy around to see if you come up against something – like a calf. The trouble is, it only really works if the foetus is big enough, so the cow has to be at least halfway through a pregnancy for you to be able to pick up her condition.
There was one cow in particular that Tom was very fond of, a pretty black-and-white Holstein. She produced excellent milk yields and had had several calves in the previous few years, but for some reason she hadn’t become pregnant for quite a while. With dairy farming these days you can’t afford to lose any time. There is a voluntary waiting period of about 40 to 60 days after a cow gives birth when you give her a rest. After that you put her with the bull again, or artificially inseminate her, in the hope that she will fall pregnant within two reproductive cycles of 21 days each. If a cow is not pregnant six months or so after a birth then she becomes expensive to maintain and it’s time to think about slaughter or selling on at market.
Tom
