Chapter 19 Summary and Analysis

Farmer Sep Wilkin, a big, brusque man in his 40s with a reputation as a tough man, calls Herriot to his farm to check on Gyp, a sheepdog who has occasional convulsions. Herriot diagnoses epilepsy, adding that there's nothing that can be done for it. Two or three fits a year would be part of the package of an otherwise excellent sheepdog called Gyp, he says. Wilkin, who loves to show his dogs in trials, had given Sweep — Gyp's brother and companion — to George Crossley, a friend who lost his best dog. Gyp carries on alone, without his brother.

Expecting Wilkin to ask that he put Gyp down, Herriot is surprised when he says he'll keep him for a pet and asks for any medicine to control his seizures. Besides his convulsions, Wilkin says, Gyp has the distinction of...