Chapter 9 Summary and Analysis

Clancy might not be the largest dog in the world, but he certainly is the biggest one seen at Skeldale House. Siegfried once observed that Clancy looked like a cross between an Airedale and a donkey. Clancy belongs to Joe Mulligan, a transplanted Irishman who is still very Gaelic after many years in England. One afternoon they appear at the clinic with the complaint that the huge dog is vomiting badly.

As Herriot runs his stethoscope over the animal's chest, he hears a deep rumbling sound; and the longer he touches the dog the more his upper lips starts to curl up. The veterinarian decides to take his temperature by grabbing his tail and putting a thermometer into his rectum. Once again, he produced a blank canine stare, a recurrence of the rumbling sound and another quivering lip that exposes huge...