The little dog with a big heart "I think he's got a heart murmur," she replies, frowning out of the window. Now I have no idea what a heart murmur is, but it doesn't sound too good, especially when pronounced by a former intensive care nurse who has gone to fetch her stethoscope. The vet pulls the same frown as Alice did when she examines him. "Look, you can feel it yourself," she says, showing me where to place my fingers. His jerky, prog-rock heartbeat is more of a whoosh than a boom. Yet with Pike so obviously full of beans, she decides that he can still be castrated the following week. This is when things begin to go pear-shaped. I drop Pike off at the vet's surgery, and am about to tell the lady behind the desk about his heart. But she looks busy, and the heart murmur must be on his notes. Besides, it might be insulting to mention something so obvious. Back at La Folie, I have a sudden change of heart, and phone the vet. Too late. "Monsieur Wright, thank goodness you've phoned," says a male voice, sounding tense. I was going to call you. I would never have operated on Pike if I had known the state of his heart. Is he all right? I croak. He survived. But I X-rayed him and his heart is huge and badly congested. It's extremely grave. It emerges that the last thing you should do to a dog with a serious heart condition is give him a general anaesthetic. The poor dog is certainly in a sorry state when I bring him home and, even a few days later, is panting after the shortest walks. I feel stricken to feel him so fragile, trembling in my arms: how could I have done this to him? When I return to the vet's with Pike for a check-up, the entire team, including Monsieur Mazout, the kindly owner, is lined up behind the desk. I think they're expecting a scene. We Anglais are known for being unusually attached to our dogs. "I think he's doing a little better," I announce, and can't help smiling at their collective exhalation of breath. The young female vet who first examined Pike leads me into a consulting room and I start firing questions at her, surprised at the edge in my voice. But soon it's her turn to take me by surprise. "I'm so, so sorry," she says, wringing her hands. When I examined him, he seemed in such good form clinically that I made a mistake. And no, the anaesthetic will have done him no harm. But indeed, with hindsight, his heart is so far gone that we should have not operated. I really am sorry. Her regret is so sincere and, frankly, so un-French, that I can feel all the heat going out of me. Alice once told me about how the doctors at the hospital in Baltimore where she worked were besieged with angry relatives suing them at the drop of a hat. So they began to experiment with the radical idea of apologising when accused of making a mistake. And they found that they were actually sued less often than before. A sense that someone was simply doing the best they knew how, and regrets the outcome, can go a long way towards dampening the flames of indignation fanned by loss. And so we come home, and I just feel so sad that we are likely soon to have to say goodbye. Even so, Alice and I have decided not to wrap Pike in cotton wool for as long as his bashed-up heart can beat. The little blighter is certainly in fine form this morning, when he and I and Digby head out on one of our twice-daily walks. You'd almost think he was just another healthy dog, especially when we spot three gorgeous young roe deer in the field to our right, perhaps 250 yards away. For Pike, this is too much. His nostrils twitch for a moment, and then - bang - he's off. Panicked, I shout his name at the top of my voice. It's not just that I'm worried about his heart. It's that I'm genuinely worried he might catch one of them. The effect of this shout is spectacular. Pike goes right on running. But all three deer stop dead in their tracks, line astern, heads up, flanks towards me. He can't believe his luck. I yell again. And now the deer finally bolt, and Pike redoubles the chase, ears flying in the breeze. I watch, transfixed, as he streaks across the field: a black firework; night mercury; a Messerschmitt in pursuit of three Beaufighters. And for the first time, I stop thinking about him as an invalid. Yes, he is likely soon to die. But so are we all, one day. And in the thin sunlight of this January morning, I am just happy to be watching an animal who is - for this one moment at least - utterly, magnificently and beautifully alive.