Katrice’s Reviews > All Things Wise and Wonderful > Status Update

Animals are the same. They need friends. Have you ever watched two animals in a field? They may be of different species—a pony and a sheep—but they hang together.

Men are like animals. I don’t mean men are “beastly.” The fact is I don’t think animals are “beastly.” What I mean is that no two are exactly alike. Many people think my farm patients are all the same, but cows, pigs, sheep and horses can be moody, placid, vicious, docile, spiteful, loving.

Treating guide dogs for the blind has always seemed to me to be one of a veterinary surgeon’s most rewarding tasks. To be in a position to help and care for these magnificent animals is a privilege, not just because they are highly trained and valuable but because they represent in the ultimate way something which has always lain near the core and centre of my life: the mutually depending, trusting and loving associa

A victory over an animal is a hollow one

Thank God there were moments like this among the traumas of veterinary work; the sudden transition from despair to triumph, from shame to pride.

Vets often wonder after a patient’s recovery just how much credit they might take. Maybe it would have got better without treatment—it happened sometimes; it was difficult to be sure. But when you know without a shadow of a doubt that even without doing anything clever, you have pulled an animal back from the brink of death into the living, breathing world, it is a satisfaction which lingers, flowing like balm over t