In her latest column for Pets Magazine, broadcaster Carole Malone takes Murphy to see the Supervet, Prof Noel Fitzpatrick, and says she’d do anything to make her four-legged best friend feel better.

I’m probably not alone in this, but I never feel as helpless or as scared as I do when I know Murphy is ill or in pain, suffering from something I don’t know how to fix.

I look into his big, beseeching eyes, which bore into me as if to say:

“Please fix me. I’m hurting.”

And it feels like my heart is breaking into a million pieces.

I know that if someone said I could take on his pain or his illness, I’d do it in a nanosecond. And that’s not because I’m brave, because anyone who knows me will vouch for the fact that I’m an abject coward and hypochondriac. But if it was for my doggie, I’d do it without hesitation.

That’s because when they’re ill, animals don’t know what’s happening to them and they look to us to sort it out so they can go back to chasing balls and tearing their toys apart.

And, of course, because we love them madly, we do whatever it takes to fix them.

I was incredibly lucky a few years ago to meet Supervet Noel Fitzpatrick and, this week, The Husband and I found ourselves driving to his state-of-the-art clinic in Guildford, Surrey, to find out why Murphy had suddenly started limping badly on his back left leg.

Of course, when he started doing it, me being the hypochondriac I am, I dived straight into catastrophe mode, terrified it was the precursor to something serious and I might lose him. And if you’ve ever lost a beloved pet, which I have, you’ll know only too well what losing them feels like.

Anyway, The Husband told me to get a grip and book an appointment to see Noel.

Which we did.

Noel and I met years ago when I was interviewing him for my newspaper and we became instant pals. Never in my life had I met another human who was so in tune with the animals he treated that it was humbling. It’s like he can see into their souls and, believe me, it’s reciprocal. They trust him instantly and let him do whatever needs to be done.

When I saw him work all those years ago, I vowed then that any dog or pet I ever had would always be taken care of by him, even if I had to sell my handbags to pay for it.

Because it’s not just the affinity he has with animals that’s awesome, it’s what he knows and what he can do for animals when their survival, or even a normal life, seems impossible.

Noel Fitzpatrick makes it possible. He implants limbs onto dogs who have lost them. He makes pets with spinal injuries walk again. Animals that have been hellishly hurt in accidents, he heals them.

The man’s nothing short of a miracle worker.

It was Noel who, two years ago, told us Murphy had arthritis in his shoulders. He was just five at the time and had been limping badly on one of his front legs. I thought five was ludicrously young to get arthritis, but Noel made it clear that animals are like humans: much of what they get is genetic, as this degenerative arthritis was. And he said that while it wasn’t going to kill or cripple Murphy, we’d have to deal with it and keep him out of pain.

Back then, before we’d taken him to Noel to be assessed, one vet had said he needed a big, invasive operation on one shoulder and various bone splinters removed. Thank God we didn’t listen.

Noel said what he needed was to be injected with his own doggie stem cells, which Noel harvested from Murphy’s body. Sounds space age? Well, it is. And not many vets can do it. But Noel can and it bloody worked.

Murph hasn’t limped on his front legs since. The stem cells can’t cure his condition but, for now, they’re alleviating the symptoms.

So, when Murphy started to limp on his back left leg a few weeks ago, I needed to know what it was. I was immediately imagining cancer or something that was going to take him from us. But we do that, don’t we? It’s the fear that we might lose them.

It didn’t take long for Noel to discover the problem was a bulging disc in Murphy’s spine, and it was all to do with his condition. He took him off, knocked him out and gave him a steroid injection, which may or may not do the trick. It’s a wait-and-see game.

But whatever happens, I know that Noel will always do his very best for Murphy. And that’s the best any of us can ever hope for: to find a vet who cares about our beloved pets as much as we do, a vet who isn’t motivated by money or big business, a vet who just loves and wants to save all animals.

And Murphy and I got lucky. We found one!!!!

Carole is a TV broadcaster, Daily Express columnist, and an Ambassador for medical weight loss company, Juniper. Follow Carole on Instagram @thecarolemalone.

This column was first featured in the September 2026 edition of Pets Magazine.