Foreword by RSPCA Inspector Anthony Joynes

I’VE BEEN AN RSPCA inspector for more than nine years, and it’s the best job in the world. Every day, I and the other 320 inspectors make a difference to the lives of abused and neglected animals, intervening to give them the futures they deserve and need.

Of course, it’s incredibly frustrating at times, and sometimes very sad, and I’ve spent many sleepless nights worrying about animals whose suffering has really got to me and almost broken my heart. It’s not a nine-to-five job, one that you can leave at the door at the end of the day. I’m lucky that I have a very supportive family – my girlfriend, Georgia, and my son, Caleb – as well as our own rescue dog, Bella. They help me to switch off, which isn’t always easy because I feel so passionately about the dogs and other animals I deal with.

When I’m on duty I know that I always achieve something, whether it’s giving the smallest piece of advice to an owner in order to make an animal’s life better, or taking action to rescue an animal from the most terrible circumstances imaginable. In my work I see dogs who’ve been subjected to appalling torture, forced to fight, neglected and starved to the point of death; images that stay with you. I’ve seen the worst of humanity – the owners who carry out these atrocities.

However, I’ve also watched as terrified, shivering and whimpering dogs have been brought back to full health and happy lives through skilled veterinary and behavioural treatment and large amounts of tender loving care. I’ve seen nervous and aggressive dogs gradually learn to trust human beings again, when everything in their past has taught them to expect nothing but savage cruelty. Best of all, I’ve seen animals that have known months and years of misery re-homed with families and owners who give them all the love, companionship and care they deserve.

My job, however terrible at times, is one of hope. I may meet people who’ve inflicted appalling cruelty on animals, but I also meet the staff at the animal centres, the dedicated foster carers, the vets who go above and beyond their duty for these suffering animals, and the new owners who take them on and give them forever homes. All these people are amazing and it’s a privilege to work alongside them.

Every year, 130,000 animals are rescued by the RSPCA – 7,669 of which were dogs in 2017 – and our call centre deals with more than a million calls every year from concerned members of the public. The RSPCA is the oldest animal charity in the world, dedicated to looking after animals since 1824, so I’m following in a proud tradition.

For as long as I can remember, it’s been my dream to do this amazing job. My childhood nickname, given to me by my mum and my stepdad, was Dr Dolittle, because I always seemed more interested in animals than anything else, including humans. Our house, on a council estate close to Tranmere Rovers’ football ground in Birkenhead, was always home to animals: rabbits, cats, and a dog called Sandy, who was my closest childhood friend.

One of my earliest memories, from when I was about five, is of seeing a man in our street kick a dog, and my mum going for him and giving him the sharp edge of her tongue. I was too young to properly understand why I felt so proud of what she did, but the way she stood up for that defenceless animal could be what started the ball rolling for me.

Animals large and small always held great interest for me. Whenever I’d go out fishing with my stepdad I’d take birdseed along with us, and spent most of the time coaxing chaffinches to feed from my hand. I’d bought the seed with my friend Gary, who lived opposite me, and we spent the rest of our saved-up pocket money making bird-feeders to put in our gardens.

When we were about eight or nine, he and I also set up our own animal rescue service, going round the neighbourhood looking for injured animals. A year or so later, when I was around ten, I used to go to a youth club at the bottom of our road, where all the local kids went to play football and snooker. I became a regular there, five nights a week, kicking a ball around with my mates. One evening, close to Bonfire Night, I saw that some older lads, who must have been thirteen or fourteen, had caught a duck (a female mallard) and were trying to attach a firework to her with duct tape. I felt a boiling rage as I watched them and, despite the fact that they were older and bigger, I barged into the middle of their group, grabbed the duck and ran home with her as fast as I could. Mum helped me remove the tape and we put the duck into an empty rabbit hutch for the night, because it was too dark to free her immediately. The next morning we took her to Birkenhead Park, released her, and thankfully she flew on to the pond, safe and well.

I got a lot of stick from other kids at the youth club for what I did, but I was quite tough and I refused to let them intimidate me. I just had an overriding feeling that I’d done the right thing, and it’s the same feeling I get doing my job today, even when I have to stand up to some quite intimidating individuals in the course of things.

It was a couple of years after that incident that I encountered first-hand the work of the RSPCA. About five doors away from us lived a Dobermann and his owner. I never saw the dog being walked, but whenever me and my mates were playing football in the field behind his house we’d hear him barking. He sounded really unhappy. He must have slipped out through the gate one day, because I saw him making his way along the road, emaciated and, apparently, delirious. He was staggering badly and kept bumping into parked cars. The owner came out and coaxed him back to the house, but I shouted to him: ‘Your dog’s ill, it needs to see a vet.’ He ignored me and took the dog back inside.

I immediately went back home and rang the RSPCA cruelty line. The operator assured me that my details wouldn’t be passed on to the owner, but I didn’t care if they were. I wanted the owner to face the consequences of his actions and inactions, and I was proud that I’d done something to make that happen. Mostly, I just wanted that dog to be well again.

A couple of hours later I saw the RSPCA van arrive and a female officer went into the house. I had my nose pressed against the glass of our front window, even though Mum kept telling me to get away. About half an hour later the RSPCA inspector came out with the dog wrapped in a big towel. He probably had to be put to sleep; he was in such a bad way. I felt so sad for him, but even at that age I knew it was better than for him to be suffering. So I also felt energized, realizing that there’s someone you can call to protect animals, and they really will do something.

During my teenage years the only other thing that mattered to me, almost as much as animals, was football. I wanted to play professionally, and I had trials for Tranmere Rovers and Chester City, but eventually I had to face the fact that I wasn’t good enough. Luckily, I’d worked hard enough at school to get good A levels. I went to Liverpool John Moores University and did a degree in biomedical sciences, largely because I was good at science and when I’d read about it in the prospectus it had sounded interesting, but also because I knew it was a subject that would lead to a job.

Halfway through the course, I realized that I didn’t want to work in a laboratory five days a week, testing blood and tissue samples. I wanted to work with animals. When I finished my degree I wrote to Chester Zoo, but they told me I was overqualified for any vacancies they had. So I did what lots of newly qualified students do: I went travelling for six months and came back with greater energy and focus.

On my return home I saw that the RSPCA was recruiting for the Inspectorate, so I – and 4,000 others – applied for the twenty-four jobs that were going. I was convinced I wouldn’t get in, so I also applied to do a PGCE (a Postgraduate Certificate in Education), which would have led to a career in teaching.

Ever since the formation of the RSPCA, its Inspectorate has investigated animal welfare concerns, collecting and rescuing animals that may be suffering. Inspectors are trained and equipped to enforce serious breaches of legislation by using Improvement Notices and, if necessary, formal case investigations, which may result in judicial proceedings.

It’s a job that comes with a great deal of responsibility and it’s unsurprising that the selection process is rigorous. Initially, I went on a selection day with about sixteen other applicants. We were given tasks to do – constructing a paper bridge strong enough to hold a bar of chocolate, for instance – and, as I’m not very practical (I should never be let loose with a hammer and nails), I was sure I’d failed. Of course, they weren’t looking for DIY skills, but at how the candidates interacted with one another; who demonstrated good communication skills and personable qualities.

After some other tests, I was amazed to learn I’d made the shortlist of 150 applicants, and was invited to the RSPCA headquarters near Horsham in West Sussex for two days of further assessments. The physical fitness test was no problem, but I felt that all the other interviews and tests were disasters, and that the assessors probably thought that, at twenty-two years old, I was just too young. I left Horsham deflated, sure that I was going to be a science teacher instead.

It was summer 2008 as I awaited the letter from the RSPCA telling me whether I’d made the cut. Someone had told me that if it was a fail, the letter would come in a normal-sized envelope, and say thanks but no thanks, but if I’d passed, it would be a large packet full of forms and details. In August I went away with some friends to V Festival in Staffordshire and the weather was so bad – torrential rain – that my phone got soaked through the pocket of my jeans. The battery was almost flat – I could get it to work for a few seconds, then it went dead – so when Mum rang to say I’d had a letter through the post, I shouted, ‘Is it thin or thick?’ before the phone cut out. I had to borrow a mate’s phone and move away from the crowds to hear anything. When I got through, my mum and sister were both screaming excitedly, ‘It’s a pack, it’s a thick pack!’

Mum asked me if I wanted her to open it and read it. At first I said no, then I realized I wouldn’t be able to relax until I knew for sure. So she ripped the package open and read out the best words I’d ever heard: ‘We are pleased to offer you the role of inspector.’

The training took a year, and was rigorous. Early on we had to learn how to euthanize a large animal humanely, because that’s something an inspector may be called on to do if a horse or a deer, or another large animal, is badly injured, or if a trailer full of cattle and pigs has overturned on a motorway and the animals are both in danger and causing danger. We were taken to an abattoir and, although I wasn’t looking forward to it, I was determined to learn how to do the deed quickly, humanely and efficiently. Since I qualified I’ve never had to put that aspect of my training to the test, thankfully, but I’m prepared. You never know when those skills will be needed.

I was sent on two different field placements during that year of training. The first was in beautiful, rural Much Wenlock in Shropshire, where I was based at a wildlife sanctuary. I’d be out all day with the chief inspector, who was teaching me the job, and then at night I’d be feeding bats and fox cubs at the sanctuary. The other placement was a complete contrast, in a busy area of the North East, dealing with lots of cases of cruelty and neglect.

When I qualified I was initially posted to North Wales, commuting from Mum’s house on the Wirral, before I transferred to the area I now cover in the North West. I always dreamed of working where I grew up, and I’m now responding to cruelty against animals in a professional capacity in the same area where, as a boy, I ran my own animal rescue club.

It’s one of the busiest areas in England for the RSPCA. There are twelve inspectors in the group covering the Wirral, Cheshire, part of Greater Manchester and a little bit of Derbyshire. Many of the complaints we get from the public are concerns about animals left out in gardens without shelter, that sort of thing – but I never know when I start a shift what I will face that day, and it may be a case of extreme neglect or appalling cruelty. We get many more calls in spring and summer, because the days are longer and people are outside more, so they simply see more. There are lots of calls about injured wildlife, and lots of problems to do with the casual neglect of pets.

In most reported concerns, all the owner needs is some advice and support to bring their pet back to full health and happiness. Caring for an animal takes commitment, time and energy, and sometimes owners are genuinely overwhelmed by other problems in their lives, so the care of their pet can sometimes fall through the cracks. Some owners take on a dog or a cat, with no real knowledge of how to feed or exercise them, or when to seek appropriate veterinary care, and my job is to give these people information and encouragement. However, on occasion, an animal has been so badly neglected that we have no other option but to take it away. That’s an extremely difficult situation to handle, but again, that’s when the training and knowledge of the law kicks in.

Each year I deal with perhaps five or six cases where an animal has suffered a non-accidental injury: in other words, it has been the victim of deliberate cruelty. These are the worst cases I see, because the culprits are often callous, savage brutes, and I struggle to understand their behaviour. I work with the police, and follow the case as it reaches the magistrates’ court if the RSPCA decides to prosecute and the perpetrator goes to court. It’s a tough part of my job, but also one of the most satisfying, especially if the animal is rescued in time for them to be rehabilitated and given a new future.

On one occasion, I had to go to HMP Liverpool to interview a man accused of domestic violence, which included animal cruelty. He’d been brutally assaulting his partner, and when the dog tried to protect her he poured boiling water on it. As I was questioning him in a prison cubicle, I became aware of someone watching me. I looked up, and it was the guy who’d been kicking the dog in our street, all those years ago. We didn’t acknowledge each other, but I could tell he knew who I was. I almost welled up, thinking, ‘Look where you are now, and look where I am.’ I have no idea why he was there, but I feel passionately that we need to take the relationship between animal cruelty and other crimes very seriously: just read Ruby’s story here and you’ll see what I mean.

As RSPCA inspectors, we don’t work in isolation. I start the process, by taking a broken dog away from terrible cruelty or neglect, but after I’ve done my bit, a lot of other dedicated people are also involved. There are vets who work at reduced rates for the RSPCA, because we are a charity and don’t have infinite resources. These vets are sometimes called out to help me and the police take a dog into possession, and they often do it in their spare time. Then there are the dedicated staff and volunteers at the animal centres, who give all the special care and love that these abused animals need to help them flourish and find new homes. It’s a delight to know that in 2017 alone, 8,893 rescued dogs were successfully re-homed. The many people who help make this happen go above and beyond their job descriptions, day after day.

There are also specialists in animal behaviour who work with the dogs to rehabilitate them and bring their behaviour up to the standard necessary for them to be re-homed successfully. The fosterers are amazing too, taking on dogs who are in a bad way, mentally or physically, and giving them the chance of a fresh start. Everything would crash down around our heads without the foster carers, and I admit I can often be cheeky when dealing with them, persuading people to foster a dog I know needs help, playing on the goodness of their hearts, hoping against hope that they simply won’t be able to refuse.

I don’t feel guilty, though, because looking after a dog is always a two-way street. For all the care a dog is given, it will give back in love and affection. Playing with dogs is wonderful therapy, the most uplifting thing you can do if you’re having a bad day or are under stress. I’d go as far as to say I think it should be prescribed on the NHS!

The dogs I rescue are never far from my mind. I often go to the animal centre and check on the dogs I’ve taken in, and there’s always a truly magical moment when I see a beaten, damaged dog begin to show playfulness. It’s great for them, of course – but it also makes me feel good about myself and my job. I’ve enriched their lives, and they’ve enriched mine.

The stories that follow are some of those that make everything we do as inspectors feel worthwhile, and I’m delighted that we’re now sharing them with you here.

CHAPTER 1

Timmy

THE POLICEMAN STANDING guard by the front door warned RSPCA Inspector Anthony Joynes as he approached: ‘It’s pretty horrible in there. You’ll need a peg for your nose.’

He wasn’t exaggerating. The smell hit Anthony before he even crossed the threshold.

Anthony had been into squalid houses many times before to rescue neglected and abused animals, but even he was taken aback when he stepped inside. Even though it was October and cold, there was no heating or electricity in the house and he felt the chill straight away. Outside, there had been warning signs – an overgrown garden full of discarded junk, murky windows – but inside, the ‘home’ (did someone actually live here?) was piled high with rubbish: old food containers spilling out of plastic bags, abandoned junk mail strewn ankle-deep.

The powerful stench Anthony had been warned about was coming from the dog faeces that covered the floor in almost every room. There were mounds of it on every tread of the staircase; on the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom floors. Everything was covered in it, and Anthony and the two policemen with him soon gave up trying to step around it. With dog mess matted into the carpets and smeared up the walls and skirting boards, it was unavoidable. A cloud of black flies swirled above the squalor. It was disgusting, and it was disturbing.

It was the presence of the swarm of flies that had brought the police out in the first place. Firemen, out making routine visits along the road to persuade residents to fit smoke alarms, had peered through the front window of the property, seen the mounds of rubbish and the flies, and asked the next-door neighbour if they knew who lived there. Hearing that nobody had been seen at the house for weeks, they feared the worst – that there was a dead body inside – and called the police.

The police needed to break down the front door to gain entry, but there was no dead body. And that was a relief. However, cowering in the rubbish-strewn living room was a terrible sight – an elderly dog lying pathetically on the filthy sofa. At that point the dog was secured by the police, an emergency call was made to the RSPCA, and Anthony sped to the house. When the call comes in from the police, it’s clear it’s a serious situation.

The appalling state of the house was shocking enough, even for a man who thought he’d seen it all before, but what really made Anthony catch his breath was the enormous tumour on the side of the old dog’s face. It was the size of a tennis ball, red, bloody and ulcerated, and so heavy that the poor dog’s head was weighed down by it, the eye on that side of his face partly obscured and closed.

‘Oh my God, what’s that on your face?’ Anthony asked the frightened animal, as he carefully picked his way through the debris of upended furniture and festering rubbish to reach him. The dog lay with the tumour resting on the sofa, a neglected bone next to him.

Mercifully, it was clear that the dog wasn’t starving, because his body, apart from the tumour, appeared to be in quite good condition. Somebody did indeed live in the house or was, at least, stopping by regularly to give him food and water. Anthony found a washing-up bowl full of water near by, a clue that whoever was responsible for the dog was leaving it alone for long periods.

‘Basic detective work told me the dog hadn’t been completely abandoned,’ remembers Anthony, ‘as it was clear that someone had been in the house recently. But from the state of the place the dog was obviously living there alone, in the dark much of the time. No human being could live in that place.

‘I checked the fridge to see if there was any food, but it was empty – thank goodness, because with no electricity anything in there would have been festering.’

The only room not plastered in faeces was the sitting room where the old dog was found.

‘Bless him, he was clearly a clean animal who couldn’t avoid living among the piled-up rubbish, but kept one room clear of his own mess. He didn’t want to live in his own filth, poor old thing.’

As he always does in instances of neglect, Anthony took a video of the awful conditions in the house. ‘Photographs don’t really do justice to places like that, so I filmed all the rooms to show the sheer wretched level of squalor the sad old dog was sentenced to live in, possibly for months or even years.’

Before he could take the dog away, Anthony needed a vet to agree that the animal was suffering, or likely to suffer. Vet Holly Jones came out and instantly confirmed that the animal was suffering ‘on numerous levels’. The police took possession of him and transferred him to the care of the RSPCA. They also handed over to Anthony the animal welfare investigation into the dog’s owner and the cruel state in which the creature had been living.

‘Everyone who’d met him – the firemen, the police, Holly and me – were keen to get him out of that disgusting place and into somewhere clean and comfortable.’

Anthony led the bewildered and apprehensive dog outside and carefully loaded him into his van. As soon as he was exposed to the world outside his squalid home for the first time in a long while, the dog was so confused and frightened that he pulled on the lead to go back inside – despite everything, the confines of the house were all he knew, and he clearly felt safe there. Adjusting to a new and better environment might take some time.

It was quite late by the time the pair arrived at the RSPCA’s Wirral & Chester Branch Animal Centre, and the old fella was too agitated and unhappy for vet Holly to be able to take blood or do any other tests to assess the tumour. So she simply gave him some pain relief and antibiotics before Anthony settled him down for the night.

‘I just wanted him to know that we were his friends. I didn’t want him to be too stressed. He was terrified, and we wanted him to be out of pain and a bit more relaxed before Holly had a closer look at him.’

Anthony slept badly that night, waking to think about the old dog, the distressing size of the tumour, and the appalling state of the house where he’d been condemned to live alone. This was a case that really distressed him. At home, he was usually able to switch off from his routine work, but he couldn’t wipe his first glimpse of the terrified animal from his mind, and he felt frustrated with the person who had left such a lovely old dog on his own in those conditions. It meant he was up early the next day, determined to track down the owner responsible.

It didn’t take long. He followed leads from neighbours, and from the landlord of the house, and discovered the dog was called Timmy, he was fifteen years old and a collie cross. At this point, interviewing the owner wasn’t a priority: Anthony was more concerned with getting Timmy to Holly’s veterinary practice to see if anything could be done for him. The dog’s welfare was foremost in his mind. Following up with the owner would have to wait.

‘If the lump is cancerous,’ Anthony remembers thinking, ‘it may be that the best option for this old chap is to have a quiet, calm ending, with no more suffering. If he doesn’t make it through today, I’ll be going home wishing I’d been called six months earlier. It never comes any easier to me, no matter how long I do the job. Sometimes I know when I remove a dog from dire circumstances that the chances of them surviving and being re-homed are minute. But if there’s the slightest possibility of full recovery and a new home, I’ll fight for that chance.’

Despite the signs being ominous, Timmy was clearly feeling better when Anthony saw him that morning, thanks to the painkillers, and when he was taken to the vet he enjoyed being outside – a sharp contrast to the previous day – pausing to sniff around some fuchsias.

Anthony let him enjoy the moment. ‘He probably hadn’t had the chance for a little sniff for ages. He’d been cooped up in that awful house for so long.’

The huge tumour was the most obvious of Timmy’s problems, but not the only one. There was no evidence of live fleas, but he’d clearly had untreated fleas at some point in the past. One of his legs was caked in dried blood from where he’d been scratching, and there was fur loss around his bottom, possibly caused by the griminess of the place he’d been living in.

Holly, like Anthony, had been thinking about poor old Timmy overnight, and she came in to the practice on her day off to see if the tumour could be safely removed. She could tell it was ulcerated and infected, and that it was pulling his eye down.

‘He’s very lucky not to have maggots in it,’ she told Anthony. ‘If those flies had laid eggs in his tumour, he’d have been eaten alive by maggots.’

It didn’t bear thinking about. She explained that she was going to sedate Timmy to take an X-ray of his skull. If the tumour was attached to the bone, there would be little hope for her patient. It would be too difficult to remove without taking away a large part of his jaw and cheekbone, and this just wasn’t an option for a dog as old as Timmy. She also planned to X-ray his chest, to check if the cancer had spread there.

As the needle for the anaesthetic went in, Timmy released a huge, heart-rending howl of pain, and Anthony’s eyes filled with sympathetic tears. Then Timmy’s body relaxed as he slipped into a deep, pain-free sleep, which must have been a wonderful release for him. Anthony, too, shared the relief: whatever the outcome of the treatment, Timmy was out of pain right now, probably for the first time in weeks.

The news from the first X-ray was good: the tumour was all in the tissue and not attached to Timmy’s skull. Nonetheless, Anthony and the team working on Timmy still faced an anxious wait for the results of the chest X-ray. When they finally came through, Holly showed the plates to Anthony, explaining that there were some shadows over Timmy’s heart. However, these were normal for a dog of his advanced years. To everyone’s relief, the cancer had not spread.

They had successfully cleared the first hurdle and there was a small sense of elation. However, Holly wisely cautioned Anthony that the major surgery she now needed to carry out to remove the tumour was particularly risky because of Timmy’s age, and the amount of time he spent under anaesthetic would be crucial. It needed to be minimized, and as he’d already been under for some time while the X-rays were carried out, she would need to work quickly. She set to straight away.

‘We’ll get rid of this horrible, ulcerated mass that’s causing him so much discomfort,’ she said determinedly. ‘He’s had it on his face for long enough.’

She faced a difficult job, though. There wasn’t much free skin on the affected side of Timmy’s face, and the tumour was perilously close to his eye and lips. It was all very delicate work. A further risk was that of bleeding, as the area contained a lot of blood vessels, which had to be methodically clamped off as Holly slowly and carefully cut away at the base of the mass.

When the enormous lump eventually dropped into the waiting stainless-steel dish, Anthony felt a huge swell of optimism, realizing Timmy’s odds had improved significantly. He put on surgical gloves and picked up the tumour: ‘I couldn’t believe how heavy it was, and he’d been living with it attached to him. It must have been agony.’

Despite the good news, because of his advancing years Timmy wasn’t yet out of the woods, and he spent the following twenty-four hours being closely monitored at the veterinary practice. Holly had delicately stitched the laceration to give Timmy the best possible cosmetic result, but in those early days the large wound reminded Anthony of The Joker’s smile.

‘Timmy seemed to have a permanent grin on his face,’ he remembers. ‘I was thrilled with the work Holly and her team did that day – they were magnificent. I felt pretty helpless standing around watching, but I wanted to be there for Timmy. The day worked out at the top of my expectations – it was everything I could have wished for. Even though Timmy was going to be uncomfortable at first, I knew it was only a matter of time before he’d feel the full benefit of having that awful thing removed. I went home that night with a big smile on my face too.’

The next day, Anthony took Timmy back to the animal centre, to a comfortable bed in his own kennel and run. Although he knew the old boy was now being well looked after, Anthony realized that, given he was an elderly dog, it was unlikely he would be re-homed easily. After all, he might only have a few weeks or months of life left in him. All Anthony wanted for Timmy was for his remaining life, however short, to be as comfortable as possible. It was the least he deserved.

In the course of his work on another case, Anthony had been dealing with Emma Fishbourne, a vet who teaches herd health and management at Leahurst, the University of Liverpool’s teaching hospital for Veterinary Science, where the RSPCA uses the pathology and other specialist services. The following day he contacted Emma.

‘I’ve picked up this amazing dog, a little old collie. He’s survived a long, tricky operation, but we don’t know how long he’s got – probably not too long – and I really want him to spend his final days in a home environment, as happy as possible, not in kennels. Do you know anyone who would take him?’

That same afternoon, Emma was having tea with a vet colleague, Jo Oultram, and Jo’s husband, Thomas, who runs a dairy farm in Cheshire with his brother. Emma knew Jo and Thomas had another rescued collie cross, Max, and that they’d previously had yet another elderly collie cross, Sheba, who reached the grand old age of seventeen. She read Anthony’s text to them, and within five minutes Jo and Thomas had agreed to foster Timmy.

‘We thought that a nice, little old dog would be good company for my mother-in-law,’ said Jo, whose in-laws also live on the farm, in a house just a few yards away from hers.

‘We also knew that because of the jobs we do, on a pragmatic level we accept the loss of animals, and we weren’t fazed by the fact that we might not have very long with Timmy. A lot of people wouldn’t take him on – with the prospect of his life possibly being very short – but we’re used to seeing the lives of animals come to an end. We thought that whatever we could give him had to be better than him spending the rest of his life in kennels, hoping to be fostered.’

Emma put Jo in touch with Anthony, who was delighted that his new canine friend might now have an unexpectedly happy final chapter to his life. He was thrilled to, in turn, be able to put Jo in touch with Kay, the kennel manager at the animal centre, who immediately invited her to come up and see Timmy.

When Jo arrived, Timmy was sitting on a blanket in the office, and her first thought was that he was the spitting image of her old dog, Sheba. ‘That sold him to me. We’d decided to take him anyway, but that convinced me that he was our dog.’

Kay was happy to let Jo sign the paperwork and foster Timmy there and then. Normally, thorough checks are made on new owners to ensure they’ll be able to cope with the animals they’re taking on, and they’re usually expected to visit the kennels a few times to make sure they’ve bonded with their chosen dog. Kay thought it was best for Timmy to recover somewhere he could be monitored, and the normal fostering procedure be followed until his case was heard and he could be officially re-homed.

‘They knew I was a vet, that I’m used to dogs – especially this breed – and that I’d cope,’ explained Jo. ‘I think everyone felt that the sooner Timmy was settled in a new home, the better. If they’d wanted me to go in every day to see him for a while, I’d have done it – whatever was needed. But I came with recommendations from Emma and Anthony, and it seemed kindest to let him come to his new home as soon as possible.’

The first Anthony knew of it was a phone call from Kay: ‘Timmy’s gone.’

Anthony’s heart sank. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked hurriedly, really worried. His first thought was that Timmy hadn’t made it, that his age and the stress of the operation had caught up with him.

‘Jo’s been in and she’s taken him,’ Kay elaborated. ‘Where better for him to recover than with a vet?’

Where better indeed. Anthony was delighted – and relieved.

Timmy had spent four days at the kennels, and had been sleeping in the reception area all day, where staff could not only make sure he didn’t scratch himself and rip his stitches, but also give him lots of love and affection and try to cheer him up. He was still on considerable pain relief, and for the first couple of days he had struggled to open his mouth to eat and to yawn. However, by the time Jo took him home he was already on the road to recovery. His head was up, his tail was wagging, and he was clearly loving all the fuss he was receiving.

She remembers how he came home wearing a buster collar to prevent him scratching his face wound, but he clearly didn’t like it, so she took it off. She kept an eye on whether he was bothering with his stitches, knowing she could take action if he was, being a vet herself. It made him happier to have the collar off, and he didn’t scratch the wound, although her other dog Max licked it a couple of times.

Happiness was soon in full supply for Timmy and it felt like the first time he’d ever known it. He found a home on the sofa, in a spacious, comfy, clean home, and he and six-year-old Max became great friends from their first meeting. After just a couple of days Timmy was joining Jo and Max for walks through the fields and woods near the farm. If ever Timmy lags behind or wanders off, Jo gives Max the command, ‘Go find Tim,’ and the younger collie trots off to round up elderly Timmy, who is usually enjoying a good sniff at something. Max seems to understand instinctively that his pal can’t go as fast or as far as he can, and he makes allowances for him, always happy to go at his pace … They’re very happy trotting around the farmyard, keeping one another company.

‘We can’t make the whole area dog-proof – that would be impossible,’ says Jo, whose husband and his brother keep 360 cows on the farm. ‘But both dogs know where they’re allowed to go.’

Jo herself specializes in the veterinary care of dairy cattle – she met Thomas when she came to the farm as a vet.