My Dog Tulip Read Online Free PDF

opening her scissor-like jaws with their bare hands, rammed yards of stomach-pump tubing down her throat, I experienced, besides gratitude and admiration for her self-restraint, a kind of nostalgia for the past. Life was becoming dull and prosaic; something had gone out of it with dear Miss Canvey, some enrichment, some fine flavor. And this, I then knew, was the very knowledge from which, in her wisdom, she had sought to protect me: the death of the legend, the disillusionment of the heart. My Tulip: had it not now to be admitted that she had been seen through, that her bluff had been called, her stature reduced? No tigress she, but—must I face it?—an ordinary dog. Was it not even possible that, in the course of time, under these civilizing processes, she would become so tame, so characterless, so commonplace, that she might one day be found standing in a surgery alone with a thermometer in her bottom?
    Tulip never let me down. She is nothing if not consistent. She knows where to draw the line, and it is always in the same place, a circle around us both. Indeed, she is a good girl, but—and this is the point—she would not care for it to be generally known. So wherever Miss Canvey may be—jogging, I hope, down some leafy lane upon a steed who will let no one mount him but herself—I would like her to know that Tulip is still the kind of good girl of whom she would approve. When, therefore, the little local boys ask me, as they often do, in their respectful and admiring way, though mistaking Tulip’s gender: “Does he bite, Mister?” I always return the answer which she, and Miss Canvey, would wish me to give.
    [1] “Don’t let that dog near me!” shouted a tramp to me one day on Brook Green. “They ain’t to be trusted!”
    â€œYou don’t look particularly trustworthy yourself,” I replied, and might be thought to have hit a nail on the head, for he at once fumbled a jack-knife out of his miscellaneous garments and, opening it with some difficulty, flourished it after me.

2. Liquids and Solids
    In the Journal of General Bertrand,  [1] Napoleon’s Grand Marshal at St. Helena, the entry occurs: “1821, April 12: At ten-thirty the Emperor passed a large and well-formed motion.” I am not greatly interested in Napoleon’s motions, but I sympathize with General Bertrand nevertheless, for Tulip’s cause me similar concern. Indeed, whereas the Emperor’s were probably of only
a posteriori
interest to persons other than himself—that is to say during ill-health—hers require constant supervision. The reason for this is that she has two small anal glands, which Napoleon did not have. These canine glands produce a secretion which is automatically expressed by the passage of a well-formed motion. If, however, a dog is being unsuitably fed, or, from some other cause, is continually loose in its bowels, the glands become congested and are liable to form abscesses. Tulip herself, so willful over diet, developed trouble of this kind; but luckily a penicillin injection put it right. Another dog of my acquaintance had to undergo a severe anal operation from which, although he lived for some time after, he never completely recovered and died at last of a hemorrhage. When it is remembered that dogs express their emotions by moving their tails, it will be readily understood that the aftermath of such an operation must be extremely painful and the surgical wounds difficult to heal.
    These prefatory remarks may help to extenuate the vulgar brawl that took place some years ago on the Embankment at Putney, which is the name of the riverside street below my flat. It was a misty September morning, and I had taken Tulip out at about 8:30 to relieve herself. This she was peacefully doing on the sidewalk beneath the plane trees, while I stood anxiously observing her nearby. She too seldom produced at this period the kind of motions that General