What was so wrong that the dog couldn’t move?

He’d laid the dog on the doormat and the dog had slumped so his legs were facing the wall. Now Dom carefully pulled the mat around-with dog attached-so he could get a clear view of the dog’s joints. A smashed leg would explain immobility.

But his legs were fine. Or…not. Here at last was information to enter in his patient’s history. In Dom’s expert medical opinion, these were her legs.

‘What’s your dog’s name?’ he called back into the sitting room.

‘You tell me and we’ll both know,’ the woman muttered, and Dominic thought he needed to give her something for pain.

But suddenly his attention switched back to the dog. For, as he watched, a ripple ran across its limp body. The muscle contraction was unmistakable.

From a little bit of information suddenly he had a lot of information. Too much. This dog was not male and she was not fat. She was heavily pregnant and by the look of her body she was in labour.

Great, Dom thought. Fantastic. Half an hour ago he’d been bored to snores. Now he had a wounded woman lying on his sitting-room settee, and a pregnant bitch who was showing every sign of dying unless he could do something about it. And the last vet had left Bombadeen back in 1980. Via the graveyard.

Okay, he needed a history. He rose, striding swiftly back into the sitting room. ‘I need to know…’ he started, but at the look on Erin’s face he changed priorities again and headed for his surgery. That foot would be excruciatingly painful. His surgery was at the back of the house, accessed through his study. Two minutes later he was back, hauling his bag open, retrieving what he needed.

‘Sorry,’ he said, kneeling beside Erin and lifting the rug back a little. ‘I shouldn’t have let the dog distract me. I’m giving you something for the pain. Are you allergic to anything?’