Some animals with chronic incurable diseases such as diabetes can, at the best of times, be a challenge to manage. For instance with diabetic dogs or cats the requirement for insulin varies with exercise and dietary changes and regulating the dose requires monitoring of blood and/or urine glucose levels. Many pet owners manage this admirably, regularly testing glucose levels, strictly controlling diet, and ensuring they have regular and consistent exercise. Cats naturally can be more of a challenge but I suspect no more than Toby, the little pug dog I had to deal with.
Toby belonged to a delightful old English gentleman, Mr Scrope, whose career in later life had been to purchase horses for the Royal Mews, the Queen’s London stables. He retired to Blenheim to be nearer to his daughter but some years later after his wife died was forced to enter a very pleasant old people’s home. Toby was allowed to accompany him.
Toby’s problem was that he was a diabetic. Unfortunately a common end result of poorly controlled diabetes is blindness. Toby was therefore a blind diabetic dog in an old people’s home. His other problem was that he had an insatiable appetite and while he might have been blind, his nasal passages worked extremely well. Scraps of food can be easy pickings, even for a blind dog, especially one that has spent some time in an old people’s home. Blind or not, he knew the best routes to the areas where the clumsiest inmates lived and where there was a good chance there could be some tasty morsels. So we had a blind little pug dog with uncontrolled diabetes, a ravenous appetite and thirst, some incontinence at times, and to top it off he didn’t care too much where and when he defecated. Despite significant efforts by the nurses at the home to get the insulin dose right and control his diet, it was really a ‘no-win’ situation. However, he seemed happy enough.
I got into the enjoyable habit of dropping in most Friday evenings on the way home from work to give Toby a check over. It was a pleasure on my part because Mr Scrope had some fascinating stories to tell about his life and he was a great storyteller. We would sit for an hour or two while he spoke and together we would enjoy a nip or two of one of the very good single malts he had stashed away, Toby sleeping peacefully beside the bed.
Mr Scrope seemed to enjoy the visits as well and he became confident that I knew what I was doing with Toby. I didn’t disillusion him with the fact that really there was not much I could do. However, his confidence in my ability to heal grew to the point where one morning I got a ring from him.
‘Peter, Peter, I want you to be my doctor. The others are no damned good around here. I have been very poorly for the last couple of weeks and those darned doctors have not been able to make me feel any better.’
‘Goodness me, Mr Scrope, I don’t think I can legally, ethically or any other way become your doctor. I’m a vet.’
‘Of course you can, my boy. You are just as well trained. James Herriot is a very good friend of mine, you remember, and he’s as good as any doctor. You have much more effective medicines than they have and I want some more of that medicine I have here for Toby. I have been taking some myself.’
My heart dropped — what on earth had he been taking? I thought it pretty safe that he wouldn’t have been injecting himself with insulin, but he had probably been overdosing on Toby’s ‘choc-drops’ — delicious chocolate treats for dogs. I had been bringing a weekly supply for Toby under the strict instructions that he only got a couple a day last thing at night. However, by the quantities he was getting through, either Toby was getting extra helpings or Mr Scrope was also enjoying them. I suspected the latter. Other than choc drops I could not think what he might have been having.
‘Mr Scrope, what medicine of Toby’s have you been taking?’
‘Oh, let me see now. I don’t know what it is called. One minute, my boy, I’ll just go and check.’ I could hear him shuffling around and a short time later he came back on the phone. ‘It’s thick yellow medicine in the little bottle. It’s really good stuff. I have been taking a couple of spoonsful every morning and every evening lately and I am feeling so much better. It really is wonderful stuff. I need some more. I’ve almost finished this bottle.’
‘Ah, Mr Scrope — has the bottle got a label on it? What is it called?’
‘Yes, it has. It is called, let me see now, it’s called “show-off”.’
When I had finished laughing and explained what he had been taking, even he saw the funny side and this lovely chuckle came back over the phone. Twice a day he had been swallowing a spoonful of dog shampoo. Perhaps constipation had been his main issue, and it could have helped, but he sure would have had a shiny bowel.
I managed to avoid becoming his doctor and he did stop taking the shampoo. The choc drops, however, continued their good run.