“Oh, he’s choking again! He’s dying! My little Feisty is dying and no one but me cares. He just goes on snoring, and I don’t know what to do and my darling is dying.”
She clutched the lapdog to her as it gagged and strangled. It shook its little head wildly and then seemed to grow calmer. If I hadn’t been able to hear its labored breathing, I’d have sworn it had died in her arms. Its dark and bulgy eyes met mine, and I felt the force of the panic and pain in the little beast.
Easy. “Here, now,” I heard myself saying. “You’re not helping him by holding him that tight. He can scarce breathe. Set him down. Unwrap him. Let him decide how he is most comfortable. All wrapped up like that, he’s too hot, so he’s trying to pant and choke all at once. Set him down.”
She was a head taller than I, and for a moment I thought I was going to have to struggle with her. But she let me take the bundled dog from her arms and unwrap him from several layers of cloth. I set him on the table.
The little beast was in total misery. He stood with his head drooping between his front legs. His muzzle and chest were slick with saliva, his belly distended and hard. He began to retch and gag again. His small jaws opened wide; his lips writhed back from his tiny pointed teeth. The redness of his tongue attested to the violence of his efforts. The girl squeaked and sprang forward, trying to snatch him up again, but I pushed her roughly back. “Don’t grab him,” I told her impatiently. “He’s trying to get something up, and he can’t do it with you squeezing his guts.”
She stopped. “Get something up?”
“He looks and acts like he’s got something lodged in his gullet. Could he have gotten into bones or feathers?”
She looked stricken. “There were bones in the fish. But only tiny ones.”
“Fish? What idiot let him get into fish? Was it fresh or rotten?” I’d seen how sick a dog could get when it got into rotten, spawned-out salmon on a riverbank. If that’s what this little beast had gobbled, he didn’t have a chance.
“It was fresh, and well cooked. The same trout I had at dinner.”
“Well, at least it’s not likely to be poisonous to him. Right now, it’s just the bone. But if he gets it down, it’s still likely to kill him.”
She gasped. “No, it can’t! He mustn’t die. He’ll be fine. He just has an upset stomach. I just fed him too much. He’ll be fine! What do you know about it anyway, kitchen boy?”
I watched the feist go through another round of almost convulsive retching. Nothing came up but yellow bile. “I’m not a kitchen boy. I’m a dog boy. Verity’s own dog boy, if you must know. And if we don’t help this little mutt, he’s going to die. Very soon.”
She watched, her face a mixture of awe and horror, as I gripped her little pet firmly. I’m trying to help. He didn’t believe me. I prized his jaws open and forced my two fingers down his gullet. The feist gagged even more fiercely and pawed at me frantically with his front paws. His claws needed cutting, too. With the tips of my fingers I could feel the bone. I twiddled my fingers against it and felt it move. But it was wedged sideways in the little beast’s throat. The dog gave a strangled howl and struggled frantically in my arms. I let him go. “Well. He’s not going to get rid of that without some help,” I observed.
I left her wailing and sniveling over him. At least she didn’t snatch him up and squeeze him. I got myself a handful of butter from the keg and plopped it into my stew bowl. Now I needed something hooked, or sharply curved, but not too large. I rattled through bins and finally came up with a curved hook of metal with a handle on it. Possibly it was used to lift hot pots off the fire.