GOATS AND GIRLS

Volume three entitled Goats and Girls includes additional stories of Niven family life in Scotland, England, and South Africa. Dr Niven's life is loaded with fascinating illustrations of his life dealing with animals and their owners. Often asks the question of which is most difficult to manage. His thrilling description of Brandy, the family pet giving birth to her puppies in his bedroom, brings out the basic humanity vets need to carry on their vocation. The scary frisky ride he took in a wayward car draws on imagination and realisation of how important motor vehicles were for country vets in the seventies and eighties.

When a foxhound involved in a fight lost a testicle it serves as an introduction to how much work aggressive dogs cause.

For a presentation to a Young Farmer's Club his efforts to collect photographs of a cow giving birth on the coldest day of the year bring out how the vagaries of weather affect country life.

But it is in Goats and Girls that Sarah's adventures and misadventures with animals offer pointers to the enormous variety of problems he faced.