It's duck hunting season in the countryside, and hunter Tom fires his bullets at a flock of mallards migrating south for the winter, ultimately gunning down a duckling and spraining his wing in the process. This attracts the attention of Jerry, who puts the duckling's wing in a cast and tries his absolute darndest to keep him from potentially becoming a roast duck dinner for Tom. However, the duckling is so hellbent on rejoining his kind that he constantly rushes out into the open where Tom can see him, resulting in even more danger for him.

Tropes:

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Befitting his role as a hunter in the cartoon, Tom wears a deerstalker cap on his head.
• Alliterative Title: The Duck Doctor.
• Anvil on Head: Tom is hit by the anvil the duckling is tied to four times, the last of which kills him.
• Ash Face: Tom, after Jerry plugs up the barrel of his rifle with a reed to stop him from shooting the duckling.
• Black Comedy Burst: Tom's defeat near the end of the cartoon involves him digging a grave in the ground and allowing the falling anvil to hit him, after which he falls over into it and is buried. As a final touch, the anvil lands at the head of the grave and serves as Tom's tombstone.
• Determinator: The duckling will not let his crippled wing nor Jerry stop him from joining his brethren, who are migrating to the south. Likewise, Tom continues to come after the duckling after successfully shooting him at the beginning, intent on making sure he's dead.
• Detrimental Determination: The duckling keeps trying to rejoin the flying flock of ducks every time he hears them, despite his clearly crippled arm and Jerry's warnings, and almost gets himself killed by Tom several times because of it.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After having to run from Tom and avoid being shot by him any further, the mallard duckling's injuries eventually heal and he is able to rejoin his kind on their southbound journey.
• Expy: The mallard duckling is undoubtedly Quacker in design and voice^note even being portrayed by the same voice actor as him, but not coloration.
• Finger in a Barrel: When the mallard duckling tries to return to his flock for the first time and is chased down by Tom with his rifle, Jerry intervenes and shoves a reed into the barrel, resulting in the blast backfiring on Tom.
• Forcibly Formed Physique: Tom is squashed into a weird pointy shape after the pig he accidentally shot in the rear lands on him, and ends up shaped like a table after the anvil swings around a tree and hits him.
• Hunting Is Evil: In one of his outright antagonistic roles, Tom is a hunter pursuing the mallard duckling.
• Ignoring the Doctor: Jerry rescues and treats the injuries of a duckling who got shot by Tom while he was flying south for the winter with his flock. For the rest of the short, the duckling keeps trying to leave the tree stump Jerry is using as a shelter and get back to his flock, even though Jerry is trying to tell him his wing hasn't healed and it's not safe with Tom running around outside.
• Injured Limb Episode: The conflict of the short is driven by the duckling's wing being sprained as a result of Tom shooting him and Jerry's efforts to heal it.
• Instant Gravestone: Played with. Tom prepares for his eventual defeat by digging a grave and standing by it to smoke a cigarette before the anvil lands on him. Tom then tips over into the grave, his collision causing the dug-up dirt to jump and bury him, while the anvil lands on the grave and becomes Tom's tombstone.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Tom accepts defeat when he sees the falling anvil following his every move and even prepares a grave for himself in advance.
• One Last Smoke: Tom smokes a cigarette before the falling anvil finally lands on him and kills him.
• Pain to the Ass: The duckling's second attempt to rejoin the flying flock of mallards in the sky gets his rear end blasted by Tom. Jerry, of course, remedies that by bandaging it up, only for it to be shot again when the duckling goes out and is hunted down by Tom for a third time. This leads right up to Tom accidentally shooting a pig in the behind as he continues to chase after the duckling, resulting in said pig leaping up into the air and landing on top of him.
• Parental Obliviousness: The duckling's flock (which presumably includes his parents) don't even seem to notice he's gone when he gets shot down. Thankfully, they stick around long enough that he's able to rejoin them flying south for winter.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Being tied to an anvil does not stop the mallard duckling from running around effortlessly in his final^note and ultimately successful attempt to rejoin the flock of ducks.
• The Runt at the End: The duckling is the only young member of the flying flock of ducks.
• Squashed Flat: When the duckling tries again to rejoin his flock with an anvil Jerry has tied him to, said anvil hits Tom in the face before being dragged over the rest of him, flattening him.
• Standard Snippet: "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" briefly plays after Tom is hit by the anvil a third time and knocked backwards into a water pump, as does Chopin's funeral march after he is hit for the fourth and final time by it and killed.
• Water Wake-up: After the duckling is shot by Tom for the first time and crash-lands to the ground, Jerry resuscitates him with a bucket of water.
• Would Hurt a Child: Of the many ducks he tries to shoot at the beginning, Tom successfully blasts the duckling and continues to hunt him down throughout the remainder of the short.