My Dog Tulip (12 page)

Now what to do I did not know. Who would have supposed that mating a bitch could be so baffling a problem? Perhaps, in spite of her coiling tail, she was not ready. I set them together the following day, and the day after, only to watch them go through the same agonizing performance. And now it was her twelfth day. Was there truly something wrong with her, or was I muddling away her third heat like the others? I sent for the local vet. Next morning he came and stood with me while the animals repeated their futile and exhausting antics.

“It's the dog's fault,” he said. “He can't draw.”

This term had to be explained to me. It meant that his foreskin was too tight to enable him to unsheathe, a disability that could have been corrected when he was a puppy. Besides this, the vet announced after examining him, which Mountjoy permitted with extraordinary dignity, he was a “rig” dog, that is to say he had an undescended testicle, a not uncommon thing, said the vet, and a serious disqualification in mating, since it was heritable. It is scarcely necessary to add that neither of these terms, nor any of this information, is mentioned in the dog books, at least in none that I have ever come across. Mountjoy's owners themselves, who had never offered him a wife before, were totally ignorant of these facts, if facts they were, and therefore of the corollary that their noble and expensive beast was relatively worthless.

There was nothing now to be done but to phone Colonel Finch. In the late afternoon Tulip was hustled into a taxi and conveyed to Gunner. Of the outcome of this I never was in doubt and was not therefore disappointed. She would have nothing to do with him at all. He was willing, she was not; it was the bully's turn to be bullied, and when the Colonel decided that his positive lamb had had enough, Tulip reentered her taxi and was driven back to “Mon Repos.”

Dusk was now falling. I restored her to the ravaged garden, and it was while I stood with her there, gazing in despair at this exquisite creature in the midst of her desire, that the dog-next-door emerged through what remained of the fence. He had often intruded before, as often been ejected. Now he hung there in the failing light, half in, half out of the garden, his attention fixed warily upon me, a disreputable, dirty mongrel, Dusty by name, in whom Scottish sheep-dog predominated. I returned the stare of the disconcertingly dissimilar eyes, one brown, one pale blue, of this ragamuffin with whom it had always amused Tulip to play, and knew that my intervention was at end. I smiled at him.

“Well, there you are, old girl,” I said. “Take it or leave it. It's up to you.”

She at once went to greet him. Dusty was emboldened to come right in. There was a coquettish scamper. She stood for him. He was too small to manage. She obligingly squatted, and suddenly, without a sound, they collapsed on the grass in a heap. It was charming. They lay there together, their paws all mixed up, resting upon each other's bodies. They were panting. But they looked wonderfully pretty and comfortable—until Tulip thought she would like to get up, and found she could not. She tried to rise. The weight of Dusty's body, united with her own, dragged her back. She looked round in consternation. Then she began to struggle. I called to her soothingly to lie still, but she wanted to come over to me and could not, and her dismay turned to panic. With a convulsive movement she regained her feet and began to pull Dusty, who was upside down, along the lawn, trying from time to time to rid herself of her incubus by giving it a nip. The unfortunate Dusty, now on his back, now on his side, his little legs scrabbling wildly about in their efforts to find a foothold, at length managed, by a kind of somersault, to obtain it. This advantage, however, was not won without loss, for his exertion turned him completely round, so that, still attached to Tulip, he was now bottom to bottom with her and was hauled along in this even more uncomfortable and abject posture, his hindquarters off the ground, his head down and his tongue hanging out. Tulip gazed at me in horror and appeal. Heavens! I thought, this is love! These are the pleasures of sex! As distressed as they, I hastened over to them, persuaded Tulip to lie down again for poor Dusty's sake, and sat beside them to caress and calm them. It was a full half-hour before detumescence occurred
[3]
and Nature released Dusty, who instantly fled home through the gap in the fence and was seen no more. As for Tulip, her relief, her joy, her gratitude (she seemed to think it was I who had saved her), were spectacular. It was more as though she had been freed from some dire situation of peril than from the embraces of love.

The following day I removed her to London and the haven of my flat. The house agent of “Mon Repos” had been apprised of our activities and was belatedly on the warpath. Even my cousin had had enough. A car was summoned to take us to the station. When all was ready for immediate departure—the engine running, the car door open—I emerged from the ruined bungalow with Tulip on the lead and ran the gauntlet of dogs down the garden path. We rushed into the car, slammed the door, and were off. But the frenzied animals were not so easily balked. They pursued us in a pack so far down the country lanes that, though their number gradually diminished, I was suddenly terrified that the more pertinacious would gain the station and invade the train. If there had been any comedy in the situation ever, it was no longer present; the scene had the quality of nightmare. But the car outstripped them all at last and we got safely away.

[1]
Nevertheless she is degenerate. She cannot digest hard bone. Inbreeding has deprived her of the powerful gastric juices she should have. Bone remains in her stomach or reaches her gut almost unchanged, she screams when she tries to defecate and has to be quickly taken to a vet for an enema.

[2]
Or locked. The dog's penis only reaches full erectal size after entering the bitch. It cannot then be withdrawn until detumescence occurs. Foxes and wolves have the same coital pattern.

[3]
It could have been longer.

Tulip was not a barren bitch. Three weeks after the events described I walked her over to Miss Canvey, who pronounced her pregnant. The tiny buds of her babes could already be felt in her womb. They were not Dusty's only gift to her. A persistent vaginal discharge, slight but noticeable, of a whitish color, also developed. Another visit to Miss Canvey was made. The discharge was politely termed a “catarrh” due to an infection (recalling Dusty's raffish appearance I was not greatly surprised); though not considered dangerous to health, it had to be cleared up in case it miscarried the litter. Pills were provided and treacherously conveyed into Tulip's interior in pieces of meat. They did not work and were changed to bougies—hard, thin and pointed suppositories, two inches long, like half a short pencil—which I was told to insert into the vagina as far as my finger would go, so that they should not pop out again. Many a sorry struggle between Tulip and myself took place over these objects. Whenever she saw a bougie approaching she tucked her tail firmly between her legs and sought refuge on the bed, her back to the wall. From her piercing cries a few seconds later, anyone would have thought that I was doing her a mortal injury—and I began to wonder if I was. A third visit to Miss Canvey seemed advisable.

“Miss Canvey, I'm awfully sorry to bother you again, but where exactly is the vagina?”

“Forward and upwards,” said Miss Canvey briefly. “Downwards leads to the bladder.” A furrow appeared on her brow. “But I don't
think
you can be reaching
that
,” she added.

The struggles were resumed, with a little more confidence on my side, though none on Tulip's, but no bougies that I ever managed to insert stayed in for long. Flexible now but intact, they were discovered a minute or two later on carpet or bed, and attempts to reinsert them in their wobbly and slippery condition never succeeded though often made. Eventually my nerve failed me and I begged Miss Canvey to put them in for me, which she did with enviable dexterity.

Apart from this unforeseen complication, little change was required to be made in Tulip's daily life. She was to be prevented from executing continuous rolls on the grass (which was not, in fact, a trick of hers), for the reason that a bitch's womb hangs in two lobes, like a medieval purse, and half the litter forms in each. The act of rolling, therefore, might cause the two lobes to intertwine and throttle each other. 
[1]
Later on, when she got heavier, she was not to be asked to climb high steps, such as the steps of buses. Sixty-three days was the normal period of gestation, and bitches were said to be clocklike in their punctuality. She was therefore due to whelp on May 16.

As soon as the fact of her pregnancy was established my course of action became clear. Hitherto, the difficulties of allowing her to whelp in my flat had seemed insuperable; I had, indeed, been looking for a country kennel to which I could send her for her confinement. But from the beginning of my relationship with this enchanting beast I had more than once perceived that impossibilities tended to vanish as they were approached, and I knew now that I could not abandon her to strangers at this crisis of her life. Also I was immensely curious to see what happened.

I therefore set about designing a box for her. Not more care and thought were expended upon the building of the Ark than I gave to the construction of this box. I foresaw her needs as though they were my own: that it should have sufficient floor space to allow her to stretch out at full length comfortably on her side; that it should be high enough for her to stand up under its roof, and that it should be provided with a skirting board in front over which she, but not the puppies, could step, removable to facilitate cleaning. When the local carpenter, who had undertaken to make it out of odds and ends for a small sum, had finished it, I was aghast at its size, but it was somehow hauled up the four flights of stairs to my flat and installed, on layers of newspaper, in the darkest corner of my bedroom. At the bottom of it I laid an ancient raincoat, on this a wad of straw, on this again one of Tulip's blankets, for I had somewhere heard, and approved as sense, that bitches should not whelp in straw, which is liable to hamper them by getting mixed up with the umbilical cords of the litter.

The next thing was to habituate Tulip to the use of her box, so that she would go into it when the moment came. This prudent advice came from Miss Canvey. Since Tulip was accustomed to sleep on my bed, she said, she would probably whelp there unless I took precautions. Easier said than done. Tulip evinced a mild curiosity in the box when it arrived, and actually lay down in it for a few minutes in the evening, regarding me with an inscrutable expression over the skirting board. After that she took no further notice of it and, in spite of suggestions to the contrary, slept on my bed as usual. But in truth, I no longer cared what she did; I felt so tender towards the pretty pregnant creature that if she had chosen to whelp on my best suit of clothes I would not have chided her. However, I did not lay it out, and protected my bed to the extent of draping it with another old blanket.

For what seemed an incredible length of time she showed no sign at all of the coming event. Then, quite suddenly, I observed the swell and sag of her belly and, in the first days of May, she began to flag and to take rests during our walks. This touched me. Hitherto, it had always been I who had sometimes felt fatigued, while she with her impatient high spirits had forced and teased me on; now it was she who could not stay the course. Soon Putney Common was as far as she could go, and even on these short strolls she would quietly halt and sink down upon the cool grass. Stretching myself beside her, I would smoke and read until she felt able to continue. A fortnight or so before she was due I asked Miss Canvey to be on hand in case we needed her, for bitches occasionally get into difficulties at their lying-in and require veterinary assistance.

But Tulip took us unawares. She whelped five days before her scheduled time and was alone in my flat when her labor began. The great unstaling pleasure of returning home was the welcome that she never failed to give me; there was no welcome that afternoon when I turned my key in the lock. The place was deathly, like a tomb. I hurried along to my bedroom. For some days I had been keeping the curtains there drawn; she would prefer, I knew, a dark, cool seclusion when her pains started. Standing now in the open doorway, I looked into the penumbrous room.

Tulip was in her box. She had understood its purpose after all. She was lying there in the shadows facing me, the front of her body upright, the rest reclined upon its side. Her ears crumpled back with pleasure at the sight of me; her amber eyes glowed with a gentle, loving look. She was panting. A tiny sound, like the distant mewing of gulls, came from the box, and I could just discern, lying against her stomach, three small rat-like shapes. I think it is Major Hancock who says that a bitch is liable to hold up her labor if she is distracted or watched, and may even devour her children to protect them. I accepted this in a general way; I knew, at the same time, that Tulip was glad that I was there. Nevertheless, I did not approach her box. Moving to a chair at some distance from her, I hid my face in my hands and observed her without seeming to do so. Suddenly she stopped panting, her face took on a look of strain, she uttered a muted, shuddering sound like a sigh, a movement passed over her recumbent body, and she raised her great tail so that it stood out straight and rigid from her rump. Immediately a dark package was extruded beneath it, and to this, with a minimum of general effort, she brought her long nose round. Now I could not clearly see what she was doing, for her head interposed and obscured the operation; but I knew what was happening and I heard her tongue and teeth at work with liquid guzzling noises. She was licking and nosing this package out of herself, severing the umbilical cord, releasing the tiny creature from its tissues and eating up the after-birth. In a few seconds she had accomplished all these tasks and was guiding her fourth child to her teats, cleansing it on the way.