Rick Fenny, a veterinary surgeon, is a man of the road – long trips taking him to his vet practices throughout the Pilbara. He is recognised as the keeper of the real version of the legendary Red Dog story – an animal medicine man – equally excited about dealing with a sick puppy in one of his far flung treatment rooms as attending to the veterinary needs of a vast cattle station.
Red Dog Vet – Pip, is the first of four books about the red dogs that punctuated four eras of Rick’s life. He takes the reader into his world as a young boy growing up in the post war years; firstly, on a small farm and orchard in the Hills area of Perth, and later in the coastal town of Albany. Those years formed his love of the bush, the ocean, everything to do with freedom. It is in Albany that, as a ten year old, Pip entered his life and Rick ofttimes refers to him as “my little brother.”