THE FOSTER-MOTHER
Finn's first adventure came to him when he was no more than about
thirty-seven hours old, and, of course, still blind as any bat.
That being so, it may be taken that the grey whelp was not
particularly interested. Still, the event was important, and
probably affected the whole of Finn's after life. This was the way
of it:--
Early on the second morning of his life in this beautiful world,
Finn was lying snugly asleep between his mother's hind-legs on the
great bed at the stove-end of the outside den. When a litter of
puppies are lying with their mother there is always one place which
is snugger, and in various ways rather better than any other place.
You would have said that the little more or less shapeless, blind
lump of gristle and skin that was Finn, at this stage, had no more
intelligence or reasoning power than a potato; but it is to be
noted that, from the very beginning, this best place had been
exclusively occupied by him; and if while he slept one of his
wakeful brothers or sisters crawled over him and momentarily
usurped his proud position, then, in the very moment of his
awakening, that other puppy would be rolled backward, full of
gurgling and futile protestation, and Finn would resume the picked
place. Whatever was best in the way of warmth, and food, and
comfort, that Finn obtained, even at this absurdly rudimentary
stage, by token of superior weight, energy, and vitality. Also,
though the last to be born, Finn was the first to approach the
achievement of standing, for an instant, upon his own little pink-padded
feet, and the first, by days, to dream of the impertinence
of blindly pawing his mother's wet satin nose, while that devoted
parent washed her family.
But Finn and the rest were sound asleep, and Tara was dozing with
one brown eye uncovered, when the Master came into the den on that
second morning and spoke invitingly to his beloved mother of
heroes. The great bitch rose slowly and with gentle care, and Finn,
with the other sucklings, rolled helplessly on his back, sleepily
cheeping a puny remonstrance, though he had no idea what he wanted.
Then, in his ridiculously masterful way, Finn grovellingly burrowed
under the other puppies, that he might have the benefit of all
their warmth, and was asleep again. Tara eyed the blind things for
a moment with maternal solicitude, and then, seeing that all was
well with them, followed the Master out into the bright, fresh
sunshine of the stable-yard. She did not think about it, but she
was perfectly well aware that it was desirable for her to take
fresh air, and move about a little to stretch her great limbs.
"Come and see the Mistress, old lady; come along and stretch
yourself," said her friend.
And so Tara strolled round the yard twice, and then across to the
back-kitchen door, where, inside the house, she had some warm bread
and milk with the Mistress of the Kennels. Tara lapped steadily and
conscientiously, but without much appetite. Suddenly, when the
basin was about three-quarters empty, she realised with a start
that the Master had left her. One quick look she gave to right and
left, and then, the mother anxiety shining in her brown eyes, she
reached the outer door in a bound.
"Look out for Tara!" cried the Mistress through the open window.
And: "All right! I'm clear now. Let her in, will you?" answered the
Master, from beyond the gate leading to the coach-house.
So the Mistress opened the house door, and in three cat-like bounds
Tara reached the door of the den, and stood erect, her fore-paws
against the door, more than six feet above the ground.
"There, there, pet; your children are all right, you see," said the
Mistress, as she let Tara into the den.
In a moment, lighter of foot than a terrier, for all that she
weighed as much as an average man, Tara was in the midst of the big
bed, where she saw her puppies bunched snugly and asleep. She
looked up gratefully at the Mistress, as the roused pups (she had
touched them with her nose) came mewing about her feet, and coiled
down at once to nurse them, apparently unconscious of the fact that
there were only four mouths to feed instead of five. One cannot say
for certain whether or not she missed Finn then. She licked the
four assiduously while they nursed; and, in any case, four gaping
little mouths, and four wriggling, helpless little bodies,
represent a considerable claim upon a Wolfhound mother's attention
and strength; also, it may be, that if she did notice that the big
grey whelp was missing, she was too wise and devoted a mother and
nurse to allow herself to injure the remaining four by fretting and
worrying over matters beyond her immediate control. One must
remember, too, that Tara lived in an atmosphere of the most
implicit confidence, in which she never even heard an unkind word.
On the other hand, if there had been no puppies at all on that bed,
when Tara returned from her brief excursion to the back-kitchen,
then it is likely that the big den would not have been strong
enough to have held her for long within its wooden walls. The room
had windows, and match-boarding and weather-board are not like
iron.
Having seen Tara comfortably settled down with her family of four,
the Mistress hurried back to the house in time to see the Master
unwrapping little Finn from a soft old blanket, and placing him
carefully in the midst of three puppies of perhaps half his size,
in a hamper near the kitchen stove. Finn bleated rather languidly
for two minutes in his new environment, and then, being very full
of milk, and very warm, forgot what the trouble was and fell
asleep. The Master closed the lid of the hamper then, and said:--
"I'll let them have a good two hours together there. Finn ought to
assimilate the smell of the others pretty well by then. What do you
think of the foster?"
"Oh, I like her," said the Mistress of the Kennels. "She seems a
nice affectionate little beast, and I think she has quite recovered
from the effects of that awful journey."
[Illustration: Finn and his foster-mother]
"Um! Yes, twelve or fourteen hours' travelling with three new-born
pups must be rather awful--poor little beast! Did she take her
breakfast?"
"Yes; a first-rate meal. And I think she will be a good mother. She
seems to have any amount of milk--more than is comfortable for her,
poor little thing!"
"Yes; that's exactly what I want. I want her to be uncomfortably
heavy for the time, and then she will be the less likely to resent
my great big Finn's introduction. It's only discomfort, you know,
not pain; and we shall put it right in a couple of hours."
"Then you have decided to put Finn to the foster-mother?"
"Yes. You see, poor old Tara--well, she----"
"Yes, I know; she's poor old Tara--spoiled darling!"
The Master chuckled. "Well, perhaps it is partly that. And, any
way, she deserves it. The old girl has done a good share of prize-winning,
and nursing, and the rest of it. I think of her as a lady
who has earned repose, particularly after----"
"Yes, I know; the illness, you mean."
"Well, anyhow, I think four pups quite enough for her to nurse.
And, as a matter of fact, I am none too comfortable about that. You
know I have always believed that that awful bout of mammitis
permanently affected her; her heart, and----and other things, too.
Four days with a temperature of over a hundred and five, you know;
and, mind you, the vet. said she must die. It was, so to say, in
spite of Nature that we pulled her through. I am not at all sure
that we may not have to take them all from her. We shall see better
by to-night."
"Yes; I see." The Mistress of the Kennels was thoughtfully
balancing on the tip of her fore-finger a big wooden spoon, used in
the mixing of Tara's meals. "But why do you choose Finn for the
foster?"
"Well, now, that's rather a nice point, and involves a conviction
of mine which I know you'll resent, because you rightly think Tara
the perfection of all that a Wolfhound should be. But the
conviction is right, all the same. A mongrel's milk is far
stronger, heartier food than the milk of so highly-bred a great
lady as dear old Tara. Tara gives the most aristocratic blood in
the world; but when you come to food, the nourishment that is to
build up bone and muscle, and hardy health--that's different. Also,
I only mean to give the foster this one pup, though I dare say she
is capable of rearing two or three. Therefore that one pup ought to
do exceedingly well with her. Now Finn, as you see him, is the
biggest pup I ever knew, and I want to give him every chance of
growing into the biggest Irish Wolfhound living. That's why he is
going to have this sheep-dog foster all to his little self, and,
unless I'm mistaken, you'll find him in a week the fattest little
tub of a pup in all England--the fatter the better at this stage,
so the food's wholesome and digestible."
In about one hour from that time, Finn woke among his strange
bedfellows, and trampled all over them, in a vain and wrathful
search for his mother's dugs. Then he bleated vigorously for three
minutes; and then the warmth of that snug corner of the kitchen
sent him off to sleep again.
Another hour passed, and when Finn woke this time one could tell
from the furious lunges he made over the little bodies of his
foster-brothers that he had arrived at a serious determination to
let nothing stand any longer between himself and a good square
meal. He would take one indignant step forward (as it might have
been a rather gouty and very choleric old gentleman, prepared to
tear down his bell-rope if dinner were not served that minute);
then his podgy little fore-legs would double up, and the next few
inches of progress would be made on blunt little pink nose, and
round little stomach, his hind-legs being flattened out behind him
in the exact position of a frog's while swimming. Several times
Finn quite thought he had at length found a teat, and, in its
infantile, impotent way, the blind fury he displayed was quite
terrible, when he discovered that he was merely chewing the muzzle
of one of the other pups. On one of these occasions, Finn
spluttered and swore so vehemently that the effort completely
robbed him of what rudimentary sense of balance he had, and he
rolled over on his back, leaving all his four pink feet wriggling
in the air in a passion of protest.
It was in this undignified position that the Master presently found
the grey whelp, and he chuckled as he picked up Finn, with two of
the other pups, and wrapped them together in a warm blanket. The
remaining puppy was handed over to the gardener and seen no more in
that place; so it is safe to assume that this little creature's
life embraced no sorrows or disillusions. The next thing Finn knew
was that his gaping mouth, held open by the Master's thumb and
forefinger, was being pressed against a soft surface from which
warm milk trickled. "At last!" one can imagine Finn muttering, if
he had been old enough to know how to talk. Immediately his little
hind-legs began to work like pistons, and his fore-paws to knead
and pound at the soft udder from which the milk was drawn. Finn,
with his two foster-brothers, was at the dugs of the foster-mother,
a soft-eyed little sheep-dog, then occupying a very comfortable
corner of the big bed in the coach-house.
The Master sat watchfully beside the sheep-dog. She was very glad
to be eased of some of her superabundance of milk, and curved her
elastic body forward to simplify matters for the pups. Then she
began to lick the back and flank of the pup nearest her head; one
of her own. The Master leaned forward. The foster's sensitive nose
passed over the back of the first pup to the wriggling tail of
Finn; and her big eyes hardened and looked queerly straight down
her muzzle at the fat grey back of the stranger; a back twice as
broad as those of her own pups. The black nostrils quivered and
expanded, expressing suspicious resentment. No warm tongue curled
out over Finn's fat back; but, instead, a nose made curiously harsh
and unsympathetic pushed him clear away from the place he had
selected, after spluttering hurried investigation, and out upon the
straw of the bed.
Immediately then, and almost before Finn's sticky mouth could open
in a bleat of protest, the Master's hand had returned him to the
warm dugs. Again came the harsh, suspicious nose of the foster
about Finn's tail, and this time a low growl followed the resentful
sniff, and blind, helpless, unformed little jelly that Finn was,
instinct made him wriggle fearfully from under that cold nose. The
language in which bitches speak to the very young among puppies is
simplicity itself. The Master, human though he was, had not failed
to catch the sense of this observation of the foster's, which was:--
"Get out of here, you lumping great whelp! You're not mine, and I
won't nurse you. Get out, or I'll bite. It's true you've somehow
got the smell of mine; but--you can't deceive me. Gr-r-r-! Get
out!"
But, though Finn instinctively wriggled his hind-quarters from
under that cold muzzle, his mouth and fore-feet vigorously pursued
their business; and, before the threatened bite came, the Master's
hand (a firm one, and soothing to dog people) had caressingly
pressed the foster's head back upon the straw, and held it there.
"There, there, little woman," he said, good-humouredly. "Let him
have his chance; he's a good pup, and will do you great credit
presently."
His hand continued to rest on the sheep-dog's neck or head, till
the three pups were comfortably full, and the foster herself was
comfortably eased of her bounteous milk-supply. Then, gently, he
removed his hand, and the foster proceeded to lick her own two pups
with exemplary diligence. Out of consideration for the Master, whom
she found an obviously well-meaning person, she refrained from
taking any active steps against the big grey pup, but she very
pointedly ignored him. And when, in due course, Finn came
galumphing about her neck, with all the doddering insolence of the
full-fed pup, she turned her head in the opposite direction with
cool superciliousness, and exhaled a long breath through her nose,
as though she found the air offensive. But the Master petted her,
and gave her a very little warm bread and milk. Then he took the
three puppies away in the warm blanket and handed one of them to
some one who waited outside the door of the back-kitchen. Finn,
with one sleepy foster-brother, was replaced in the hamper near the
kitchen stove.
A couple of hours later, the foster-mother began to worry, and to
wish that her puppies would come and take another meal. At about
the same time Finn and his diminutive companion in the hamper began
to worry, and to wish that they could have another meal. Ten
minutes after that they were carried down to the coach-house, and
put to nurse again. While they fed vigorously, the foster,
apparently by accident, touched Finn once or twice with her tongue,
in process of licking her own pup; and she did not growl.
"Good!" said the Master, and he sat down on a little barrel of
disinfectant powder to fill a pipe.
Then both puppies began to grovel and slide about the foster's legs
and body; this being the natural order of things for very young
puppies: to feed full, to grovel and wriggle, to sleep; and then to
begin again at the beginning. But for the complete comfort and
well-being of puppies at this age, certain maternal attentions,
apart from the provision of nourishment, are requisite. For several
minutes the foster-mother plied her own offspring with every good
office, and severely ignored the rotund and would-be playful Finn.
Then the sheep-dog lay flat on her side, and breathed out through
her nostrils a statement to the effect that:--
"That is really quite as far as I can be expected to go. This big
grey creature has fed beside mine, and I have suffered it, as a
matter of charity; but---no more. The great clumsy thing must shift
for itself now."
But Finn appeared to think otherwise. His mode of progression was
rather that of an intoxicated snake, or an over-fed turtle on dry
land; but he managed to stagger along as far as the foster's
muzzle, and swayed there on his little haunches within reach of her
warm breath. Instinct guided the pup so far, and left him waiting
vaguely uncomfortable.
The Master watched closely, but nothing happened, save that the
bitch ostentatiously closed her eyes. Then instinct moved again,
strongly, in shapeless little Finn, and he straddled the foster's
nose, so that his round stomach pressed on her nostrils. There he
wriggled helplessly. Then a curious thing happened, while the
Master leaned forward, prepared to snatch the pup from danger. The
sheep-dog emitted a low, angry growl, which filled Finn with
uncomprehending fear, and toppled him over on his fat back. But,
even while she growled, maternity asserted its claim strongly in
the kindly heart of this soft-eyed sheep-dog. Finn did not know in
the least what he wanted; but the wise little sheep-dog did; and,
her growl ended, she rolled Finn into the required position with
her nose, and gave him the licking and tongue-washing which his
bodily comfort demanded, with quiet, conscientious thoroughness.
When this was over, Finn, feeling ever so much more content, sidled
back to a place beside the other pup, and in a minute the pair of
them were fast asleep in the warm shelter of the foster's flank.
Then the Master laid down his pipe, and bent forward to stroke and
fondle the little sheep-dog for two or three minutes, chatting with
her, and establishing firmly the friendship already begun between
them. And then, feeling quite safe in the matter, now that the
foster had once licked Finn into comfort, he went away, and left
the three together while he paid a visit to Tara.
Next morning, while the foster-mother was being petted and fed in
the garden, some one removed her own little puppy from the bed, and
when she returned to the coach-house, full of the contentment
inspired by a good meal, a little exercise, and a deal of kindly
petting, it was to find her bed occupied only by the big grey
whelp. But she showed no more than momentary surprise and
uneasiness, and within the minute was busily engaged in giving Finn
his morning tubbing and polishing, after which she disposed herself
with great consideration in a position which made nursing an easy
delight for Finn, and enabled his assiduous foster-mother to watch
the undulations of his fat back, out of the tail of her left eye,
while apparently sleeping.
[Illustration]