IT was nearly forty years ago that I heard it and it changed my life.

It wasn't her fault and, with the benefit of hindsight, I should probably have thanked her.

She was a secretary really and not a receptionist, as she would now be called.

She wrote up the farm work, which was the overwhelming majority of the practice's workload, and she organised the complicated routes for the three vets to take as we drove manically up and down narrow country lanes, visiting dairies, beef herds, flocks of sheep and the occasional horse. And all without the help of Google maps and satellite systems.

She remained alone at the surgery, the lady of the manor, answering calls from farmers and directing us to emergencies, as we all phoned in from each and every red phone box we passed on the road.

Your day started with her handing you a big bag of ten pence pieces and woe betide you if you failed to check in and had to waste fuel and time by having to back track. Additionally, farmers who needed you but were without a phone (and there were quite a few), would put up a flag at their road end, knowing someone would see it and let us know.

Once a week, on a Wednesday morning only (because they were not viewed as being important), small animals, being at the time mainly dogs (generally a heady mixture of Westies, farm Collies and Labradors), and very rarely cats, and certainly not anything else, were operated on by the most junior member of staff (at the time, that being me, as I was straight off the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies conveyor belt of around fifty graduates per year).

And that was when I heard it.

The secretary answered the door to a young couple who were carefully and tearfully clutching a small dog in their arms.

After a little bit of impatient muttering, she turned and shouted down the corridor to me, ‘Neil. Can you come and get the bitch spay?’ Inside my chest, my joyous, enthusiastic, newby veterinary heart groaned. My head dropped.

The couple looked aghast. And more tears flowed. While the secretary turned on her heels and clopped back into her office, I mulled the words over in my head. ‘The bitch spay.’ ‘The bitch spay.’ The secretary really didn't mean any harm. After all, she had spent a career dealing with animals not as individuals but merely as parts of a herd or flock. There were no separate identities. Single animals meant and mattered little.

But the world was definitely changing. Vets and their secretaries might have considered spaying a bitch as routine, but they needed to understand that, for the client, it might be a first in a lifetime experience and extremely stressful and important.

I am very happy to report that, the following week, after heated debate and discussion, the wonderful secretary summoned me with a cry of ‘Neil. If her cosy hospital bed is ready, can you come and meet darling Tootsie, who is going to be spayed by you today?’

Even if her teeth were slightly gritted.