Clumsy Luna the greyhound and her fragile front legs, the tortoise in need of a prosthetic leg, Jock, the St Bernard and his problematic eyelashes; the burly farmer and the world’s tiniest chihuahua.

Christchurch vet nurse Jade Pengelly’s new book is about a life devoted to saving our beloved and unconditional friends.

Below is an edited extract about a dog who fought against all odds at a Hampshire clinic where she was working in the UK.

A soot-covered dog

When I arrived at work first thing on Monday, I was blissfully unaware of the drama that had unfolded over the weekend.

 “Hope you’re ready for a busy day,” Hannah, the night nurse, said. “You’ve got all the usual in-patients and surgical patients in the kennels to oversee. And then you’ve got Duke.”

And that was when I learned about the soot-covered woman and her dog. The moment she’d passed Duke over to my colleague, the whole team had kicked straight into gear.

The big black dog was barely breathing, so they hooked him up to high-flow oxygen and gave him medication to try to take some pressure off his lungs, monitoring him closely and hoping against hope that he’d regain consciousness.

Meanwhile, Duke’s owner had drunk her cup of tea and calmed down enough to share the full story. Earlier that morning, she’d ducked out to run some errands at the local shops. It was raining outside, so she’d left her beloved dog in her warm, dry conservatory around the back of the house. On her way home just half an hour later, she saw a red fire engine speeding down the street ahead of her, sirens blaring and lights flashing. Only as she drew closer to her house, did she realise where the red truck was headed. When she finally pulled up outside, she was met with a terrifying sight: smoke was pouring from every window of her home.

She leaped out of her car and sprinted around the back to the conservatory. Angry flames licked up its walls, and a haze of smoke billowed against the glass. Aghast, she saw a firefighter emerge from the roiling grey clouds, holding her unresponsive dog.

“Duke!” she cried. “Is he dead?”

The firefighter shook her head. “He’s still alive, ma’am, but he’s barely breathing.”

Another firefighter ran over, bearing an oxygen mask and tank. Without speaking, the two firefighters got to work, gently lying Duke down on the ground then putting the mask over his muzzle in an attempt to get him oxygen and revive him.

Pengelly with one of her five dogs, Chug.

“It’s no good,” the first firefighter said after a couple of moments. “He needs to see a vet as soon as possible.”

“I’ll take him right now,” Duke’s owner said. She bent down and hoisted up her dog, dashing back to her car and bundling him into the back seat. That was when she tore down to the vet clinic.

Stabilising

By the time Duke’s owner had finished sharing this harrowing story with our receptionist, her dog had thankfully started responding to the veterinary team’s life-saving efforts. He came to, and once he’d had time to stabilise, the vet nurses gave him a gentle bath. That was when they discovered that Duke wasn’t, in fact, a black dog at all. He was a border collie, his proud white chest and stomach only revealing themselves as the nurses carefully washed all that soot away.

Somewhat restored to his former glory, but still very much the worse for wear, Duke was moved through to a kennel in the hospital ward. One of the nurses set up a large, comfortable bed for him to rest in, and the team continued to care for him intensively throughout the remainder of the weekend.

“He’s by no means in the clear,” Hannah told me. “It’ll take a miracle to pull him through after such a horrific ordeal.”

“How awful”. I was shocked. In my many years as a vet nurse, I’d never encountered an animal that had survived such a crisis. “Do we know how the fire started?”

“It seems it was an electrical fault in the conservatory. A neighbour noticed the smoke and called the fire service. Not a moment too soon, either.”

“And how’s Duke right now?” I asked.

“Well, he’s been stable for most of the night. His heart rate and temperature are within normal ranges, but over the past couple of hours, he’s been struggling to breathe again. His gums are still a bit red, but less so than when he came in. Sasha’s due to arrive shortly, and she’s going to see if she can work out what’s going on. But otherwise, it’s really a matter of continuing to monitor him closely, treating him as needed, and making sure he’s comfortable.”

“Okay,” I said. “I can take it from here.” While I waited for Sasha to arrive, I went to meet Duke and see how he was doing for myself. As I approached Duke’s kennel, he looked up and locked his big brown eyes on mine.

“Hello, Duke,” I said. “Aren’t you beautiful? Look at that glossy coat.”

Pengelly, pictured with her horse Jasper, has been a vet nurse in New Zealand and the UK.

It was immediately evident that he was having trouble breathing, but he still wagged his tail when he heard my voice. My heart broke for him. This big, sweet dog had been through the most terrifying experience imaginable. He would have seen and smelled the fire coming for him, but wouldn’t have been able to do anything to escape to safety. Then, he’d woken up in this unfamiliar and busy place, surrounded by strangers and gasping for breath. I gently scruffed his ears.

While I checked his gums, then his heart and respiration rates, I spoke softly to him. His fluffy tail wagged the whole time. I quickly felt a bond with him. It was hard not to. He was one of those dogs.

When Sasha came in, she was as immaculately put-together as always — you never would have guessed she’d spent most of the preceding 72 hours at the clinic, barely sleeping and doing everything she could to save Duke’s life.

She quickly checked Duke over. “Well, the good news is he looks much better than he did when I last saw him,” she said.

“Is he eating?”

“Yes, he’s showing interest in food again,” I replied. “And Hannah said he’s walking around a bit—he made it over to the door there and back.”

“That’s impressive,” she said. She watched him for a moment.

“I’m concerned about his breathing, though. Any improvement there?”

“No. Apparently, it’s deteriorated over the past few hours.”

Sasha’s brow furrowed. “That’s not good.” She looked as worried as I felt. “That could mean he’s developing pneumonia. It wouldn’t be surprising, given the beating his lungs have had.”

She paused, gathering her thoughts. “Let’s get a stretcher for him and get some chest X-rays.’

Demi, the surgical nurse, and I manoeuvred Duke on to a stretcher, then we carried him through to Sasha, who was already waiting in the X-ray room.

About half an hour later, Demi and Sasha came to return Duke to the kennels and give me a handover. “He unfortunately does have some pneumonia developing,” Sasha said.

Pneumonia is an umbrella term for severe inflammation or infection of the lungs, and it can be caused by bacteria, fungi, or inhaling smoke or chemicals. In Duke’s case, pneumonia was always going to be a risk due to the large amount of smoke he’d inhaled.

“We need to begin treating it aggressively now,” Sasha said.

“I’ll start him on antibiotics, and we can use the nebuliser throughout the day as well.

“Let’s get him back on oxygen. If we can keep an oxygen mask on him for 24 hours, then hopefully it will give his lungs enough extra support for the medication to work quickly and effectively.”

The oxygen mask was one specifically designed to fit snugly over a dog’s nose and mouth, but we normally only used them when an animal was sedated or unconscious. The moment I’d got the mask fitted to his muzzle, he pawed it off. I tried putting it on once more, this time holding it until he stopped fighting it, but as soon as I let go he just shook it off again.

Demi didn’t have any more luck than me.

We were at an impasse. As much as we wanted Duke to get the supplementary oxygen his lungs desperately needed, we also didn’t want to cause him any extra stress, because that would potentially make things much worse. When an animal is stressed, their respiration effort increases in response, and that could be catastrophic for Duke’s already weak lungs.

Sasha’s solution was a larger mask. “A looser fit might be more comfortable for him,” she said, “and he’ll still receive some oxygen.”

Duke tolerated the bigger mask for longer … but after ten minutes proceeded to shake it off again.

Demi dashed away, and soon returned brandishing some nasal oxygen prongs. “I saw these hidden away at the back of a drawer a while ago. I knew they’d come in handy at some point!”

“Are they … human prongs?” I asked.

Demi nodded, a big grin on her face.

The prongs were a couple of centimetres long, and one sat in each nostril. They were held in place by a piece of tubing that wrapped round the back of Duke’s head. We soon got them on him, and he was much more content with this method of oxygen delivery.

But they kept slipping off, since his muzzle was obviously much smaller than a person’s.

But this brave dog had already survived a fire. We weren’t going let a pair of prongs be the end of him.

Within moments, we’d grabbed every potentially useful item we could find within hand’s reach and rigged a complex contraption that successfully held the prongs in place. Duke looked like Franken-dog, with various clips and pegs poking out the side of his head, but he was happy.

And, most importantly, he finally had precious extra oxygen going to his lungs.

Being optimistic

The next afternoon, when Sasha came to check on Duke’s oxygen concentration levels, she was cautiously optimistic.

“His levels are better,” she said. “So I’m willing to try taking him off the supplementary oxygen, but I want to continue monitoring his levels.”

To the entire team’s delight, Duke’s oxygen concentration held well over the following hours. What’s more, his respiratory effort was significantly less than the day before. He was clearly finding it easier to breathe.

From that point on, Duke continued to rally. By the end of the week, he was taking short walks outside the practice.

Tales of a Vet Nurse by Jade Pengelly.

Every single day, his owner visited him. Sometimes she came twice a day. Always good-natured, Duke was especially delighted to see her. The moment he spied her coming, his shaggy tail would bat away at his bed and he’d grin goofily up at her. These two were clearly devoted to one another. Without a doubt, the reason Duke was still here was down to his owner’s quick reactions. She had got him to us as quickly as humanly possible — she hadn’t even stopped to think about trying to save precious photographs or mementoes from her burning home.

Finally, after a couple of weeks, Duke was well enough to go home. It was with some sadness that we farewelled him — I wasn’t the only one who’d got attached to our fire-surviving dog — but it was nothing to the feeling of wonder we shared, seeing him skipping out beside his owner, his tail wagging happily. His recovery had been so much better than any of us could have expected. Sure, he would never have the same lung capacity again and he’d have to take shorter walks, but he had survived against all odds.

He was a walking miracle.

Tales of a Vet Nurse by Jade Pengelly, out March 8, published by HarperCollins NZ, RRP $40