Chapter 34 Summary and Analysis

The importance of companionship in animal relationships becomes apparent in the story of Jingo, a three-year-old, vigorous white Bull Terrier and the aging Corgi, Skipper. They are inseparable, despite the difference in their ages, and Skipper good-naturedly endures the almost constant nibbling and hectoring of the terrier. When James Herriot examines Jingo for a cut caused by an encounter with a barbed wire fence, their master, Jack Sanders, lifts them both to the examination table.

The Corgi was 11 years old and beginning to show his age in stiffness of movement and impairment of sight. The Bull Terrier was only three, at the height of his strength and power. When the ear chewing becomes unbearable, the Corgi simply takes the pup in its mouth and gently moves him away.

When Sanders returns 10 days later with both dogs, he tells Herriot that Jingo...