Chapter 37 Summary and Analysis

Mrs. Ridge ushers Herriot into her house with a big smile. When she tells him with a big smile that someone has stolen their car, Herriot is puzzled.

Just 10 days previously, Mrs. Ridge had run in tears into Skeldale House to announce that her beloved Cairn Terrier, Joshua, had been run over by a tractor. The injured dog rested on a blanket kin the back seat of her car while the veterinarian examined him very gently. Joshua seemed to have survived without internal hemorrhage or broken limbs. An X-ray confirmed a pelvic fracture, for which the only treatment is rest.

When Herriot visits the dog two days after the accident, he finds the dog listless and—worst of all—silent. "Oh, if only he'd bark," Mrs. Ridge says. "Just once! I think it would mean he was getting better...