The plough horse's spectacles

As soon as the Cat's-food-Man told everyone that John Dolittle was becoming an animal doctor, old ladies brought their pet pugs and poodles who'd eaten too much cake, and farmers came from miles away with sick cows and sheep.

One day a plough horse (a horse that pulls the plough in the fields) was brought in. He was so glad to find a man who spoke horse language! "That vet over the hill knows nothing. He's been treating me for six weeks for something or other. What I need is spectacles. I'm going blind in one eye."

"There's no reason horses shouldn't wear glasses, like people. But that stupid man never even looked at my eyes. He kept giving me big pills. I tried to tell him, but he couldn't understand a word of horse language."

He even chose the colour: "A pair like yours, only green. They'll keep the sun out of my eyes while I'm ploughing." "Certainly," said the Doctor. "Green ones you shall have."

On his way out, the horse said the line that gives the story its point: "Anybody thinks he can doctor animals, just because the animals don't complain. In fact, it takes a much cleverer man to be a good animal doctor than a good people's doctor." (Think: an animal can't tell you where it hurts!)

The Doctor got him big green spectacles, and the horse could see as well as ever. Soon farm animals in Puddleby wearing glasses became a common sight, and a blind horse was unknown!

It was the same with every animal: once they found he spoke their language, they told him where it hurt, so curing them was easy. They told their friends, and harvest mice, badgers and bats came too.

So many came that he had special doors: 'HORSES' over the front door, 'COWS' over the side door, 'SHEEP' on the kitchen door, and a tiny tunnel for the mice into the cellar, where they waited patiently in rows. Birds flying to other countries in winter spread his name, and he became famous among animals all over the world.