Tag Archives: Kelpies

It’s Raining Cats and Dogs! – (warning contains bad language and talking animals!)

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THE STORM

We are currently as I type, starting a thunder storm – lightening is lighting up my pathway, deep rumbles of thunder can be heard despite the TV being loud and Rocky who is trying so hard to prove himself as head man over Brutus, has been reduced to a quivering wreck and as I can’t afford a thunder jacket for him, I am trying to find alternative ways like singing stupid songs to my animals (yes really).

Brutus is looking perplexed and confused by the loud clap of thunder we have just had, but even more offended by me singing ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’, Rocky didn’t care and was shaking the shit out of himself by my feet and Gordon just told me to piss right off with that noise and that he preferred the sound of thunder.

ImageNothing phases Gordon

‘Jesus Christ on a bike, we are all going to die, save yourselves and your kittens’ Rocky shrieked in a high pitched voice as I tried to eat my apple.

Deciding that I had to share my apple with Rocky as he loves apples, I bit off a piece ‘one for you, and one for me’ I told him.

‘What about me?’ Brutus shouted, oh god, it meant giving the Diarrhoea Brother a new food and trying him on a piece of apple and praying he didnt crap the bed later.

(lightening followed by loud clap of thunder)

‘Bugger me, that is awful!’ Brutus screamed loudly and looked at the ceiling as though it had assaulted him.

‘And some apple for Brutus’ I said in a happy voice – bloody hell, I could feel Rocky shaking.

‘You two are nothing but a pair of girls, you want loud? You wanna be in the hold of a Qantas jet like I was when I flew here from London’ Gordon said smugly and lit up a cigarette – bastard, he knows he can’t smoke in the house.

‘Brutus, we need to build an air raid shelter – get the supplies in before the rains come and we can sing war songs’ Rocky said literally sobbing, yet trying to remain all ‘alpha’.

‘Bollocks to this, this cannot be normal’ Brutus shouted – his little head creased with concern at the noise – which was probably more from me singing the second verse of the song.

ImageBrutus is not amused with the thunder

‘We are all going to die!’ Rocky cried.

‘Fuck me, I have only just got my big dog teeth through and I haven’t had a chance to use them’ Sobbed Brutus, totally wound up by Rocky while I just simply stopped singing and turned up the TV and ignored them.

‘Don’t you care?’ Brutus shouted and then added ‘You will when we run out of puppy meal and we all starve to death and have to eat bones from the garden’

‘You don’t half talk shit Brutus’ Gordon sighed and then flashed him his bum, knowing that Brutus likes to clean it of an evening. Brutus however was not interested in this fine display of feline ginger bottom.

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Gordon tells Brutus all kinds of horror stories about thunder

‘Damn it, I am dead – I have been shot by God from the skies, I am sure I have’ Rocky whimpered and then superglued himself to my feet by the table while checking his belly for gunshot wounds by God.

By now I am swigging my tea (nice cup of Yorkshire tea with one sugar) and watching some animation film on 7Two, while waiting for my crime series to start, when I could hear the sounds of the heavens opening.

‘God is taking a pee!’ Gordon yelled happily, he was so excited – he loves watching storms from the window.

Brutus looked horrified and then looked up at me and said ‘I don’t want God peeing on my head’

‘Brutus, it’s rain – just ignore Gordon, he is teasing you’ I told him firmly.

‘Oh my god, build Noahs Arc, we are going to die – go and get the Zebra!’ Rocky cried noisily from beneath my feet.

Gordon was snorting with laughter at the commotion and then went into the story of how he played Poker with some zoo animals in the hold of the plane from London to Singapore – how true that is I don’t know as I only have Gordon’s word for it, still, it makes for a nice story.

(sounds of farting and smells of shit)

‘Who did that?’ Gordon spluttered from the sofa, and put his ginger paw over his nose and started making choking noises while trying to comfort Brutus.

ImageGordon and Brutus discuss Rocky’s wind problem

‘Sorry, it’s my stomach, my nerves have kicked in – are we dead yet?’ Rocky replied.

‘I didn’t know I was dead, Mum – tell him, am I dead? Please tell me I am not dead!” Brutus yelped as the thunder rattled.

‘Will you all stop it now! Brutus, Rocky is talking shit, Rocky – stop talking shit and stop smelling of shit, you are not dead and Gordon stop stirring shit!’ Honestly, it was like dealing with children.

‘Oh that’s it, I am going!’ Gordon made vomiting sounds as he gagged, and even Rocky blushed at his own wind.

‘Ooops, I think it may have been my heartworm chew coupled up with my nerves and the thunder’ Rocky replied going red at his own smell.

ImageRocky admits his wind problem and puts it down to nerves

‘Fuck me you stink Rocky, go to the toilet now!’ Gordon shouted from the safety of his bedroom.

Even Brutus looked mortified and disgusted at the smells that came from his brothers arse ‘You do Rocky, you smell of bad stomach’.

‘Will you all be quiet and calm down – it is only a thunder storm and it will be over shortly’ (I said hopefully).

(sounds of silence)

‘Mum?’ Brutus asked.

Taking another mouthful of my nearly cold tea, I replied ‘Yes Brutus?’

Brutus stared at me with his cute little pinhead (he has a pinhead) ‘Do you fart when you are scared?’

(sounds of Gordon laughing from the spare room)

Rocky looked up and forgot his fear for a bit and sniggered.

Oh dear god, Dogs ask the most embarrassing of questions don’t they?

‘Yes Brutus but mine smell of roses’. I told him.

‘Awesome’ Brutus said and put his head down in his basket.

‘You are so going to hell for that lie’ Rocky whispered to me as he lay in his basket, he knew the truth.

ImageRocky knows the truth…

And all you could hear after that were the sounds of Gordon gulping with laughter from his bedroom.

ImageGordon found the whole episode hilarious!

Now I shall finish my tea and as it has gone cold, I shall be a devil and make another one and hopefully this time I will get to drink it in peace.

Samantha Rose (C) Copyright May 2013

Owning a pet – the good, the bad and the heartbreaking

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Some of the animals of the past

‘I am never having another dog again’ I sobbed – at the tender age of 23, my heart had been broken when my greyhound called Caesar had peacefully died in his sleep – an ending most of us could wish for when it comes to our pets.

Fast forward to 2007 – I am holding my beautiful blue whippet bitch, 12 years old with kidney failure – her time had come to let her go and suddenly every single memory I had of her was flashing in front of my eyes as the vet who is my friend and ex employer, gently injected her with the lethal injection and that tiny blue bitch that at one point seemed so enormous in character, literally shrunk before my eyes.

I will never forget seeing her looking so tiny on that table after she was euthanized. Funny how you can have a dog with big character and/or big in stature/appearance, become so tiny and little once they have been put to sleep. This really does confirm my thoughts that the spirit and character of your pet merely lives in the body and it is not really the body that we love – but the personality of the animal because once they are gone, you could get an identical breed, but at the end of the day, it just wont be the same. All pets have their own personality that makes us love them – end of.

‘That is it! I am never ever doing that again’ I sobbed to my friend Norma, who drove me home clutching Rema’s toys and blankets that still smelt of her.

And yet again, here I am with my kelpie Rocky and my newly acquired Kelpie mix Brutus whom as you all know, we nearly lost due to severe gastro.

So why do we do it? Why do we get an animal that we know will worm its way into our hearts, spend our money on various vet fees – knowing that we will end up going without essentials for ourselves in order to get them their treatment (as it should be).

Why do we get so attached to our pets that we sob and cry and feel a gap so large once they have died, that we can never envisage it ever being filled again? We are mad, we are gluttons for punishment and pain.

So what are the benefits of pet ownership? I would say the memories that they give you and that you build together. My memories of my greyhound Caesar taking a shit up a shop window one day, he had diarrhoea and trust me, it looked as though someone had spray painted the shop window with turd. This is going back almost 30 years when I first got him when I was 16 years old, in the days when it was safe to tie your dog up outside a shop without fear of it being stolen.

Well Caesar shamed himself and splattered the window with turd and the shop owner came out and told me off and I did what Brutus does when he has been naughty and denied it and said ‘It wasn’t my dog who did that’ Which of course could have been plausible had it not been for Caesar still trying to empty the rest of his stomach and was leaving drops of turd over the pavement. Being a kid, I ran off with my greyhound in hot pursuit, as fast as my skinny legs would carry me away from the faecal mountain – much to the horror of the shop owner.

Then there was the time Caesar jumped into someones garden, he was an ex racer and built like a gazelle and he would dig up cabbages, only cabbages mind you but he would dig them all up and look absurdly pleased with himself, jump back over the fence and come home.

Then there were my cats Bruno and Juniper who on one occasion  stole 3 trout that had been defrosting for our tea, and they had eaten everything except one trout head and when I got home from work I was greeted with the strong smell of fish along with an empty wrapper and two very bloated and sick looking cats.

Bruno and Juniper also shredded their share of sofas and carpets, in fact Bruno used to eat carpets and had seen a vet on many an occasion due to vomiting.

Juniper had a liking for pulling apart our venetian blinds and would completely dismantle them and find herself stuck on the sash window crying.  I would get off the bus and see her stuck on the window, with her pink mouth opening and closing, frantically denying all involvement and claiming that someone put her there and it wasn’t her fault at all.

There was another time when we moved house in Devon, that Juniper got her head stuck in the ‘S’ bend of the sink and it took my mate Veronica several goes to get her out and some phenobarbitone from the vet (our boss) to calm her down afterwards (the cat not Veronica!).

Bruno also broke into a box of mince pies and scoffed most of them and he also had a bad habit of breaking in to 20kg sacks of dog food where he would emerge looking like a Bovril stock cube because he would be covered in gravy dust from the bag.  I think that he had a bit of an eating disorder to be honest and I fondly remember him for his food theft and robbery of chicken bones from your plate.

In London, Juniper would enjoy digging up the sofa and would love to dig before she lay down.  She was diagnosed as ‘retarded’ by the vet at the Royal Veterinary College where I worked at the time and would actually ‘get lost’ in our flat and if she wondered downstairs, would cry and look at the ceiling with a vacant expression and one of us would have to go down and ‘save her’ and bring her back and convince her that she was safe and her family loved her.  Her nickname later became ‘Family’ as if we said it in a high pitched voice she would get quite excited and appear absurdly happy about that word and found it reassuring.

Sadly both cats died within 18 months of each other due to pancreatic cancer which we suspect was down to a vaccine that they both had at the same time when we lived in Devon but that was never proven, suspected but not proven.

I was totally devastated – Bruno was put to sleep whilst still on the operating table and I wasn’t there for that but Juniper was brought out of theatre and wrapped in a blanket and  and I held her tiny body as she was injected.

I remember seeing her tortie body which reminded me of a patchwork quilt, her fur so soft, I stroked her and held her as she went and always remember saying ‘thank you for being my cat’ as she died in my arms and I also remember the vet nurses Sarah and Wendy being there at the time and Sarah driving me home as I clutched Junipers cat basket (thank you girls and thank you to Sarah for driving me home that day).  Talking of baskets, there is a term called ’empty basket syndrome’ and this is where you go to the vet with a cat and leave with an empty basket and is the most devastating thing for a cat owner to go through.

As for my whippet Rema – now she was a well traveled dog. In England, dogs can go on public transport with you, I used to bring her to work with me when I worked at the Royal Veterinary College in Camden and Rema knew the time of the train to Marylebone and even the platform from Marylebone to our station, she would always know which side the doors of the train would open.

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Gordon the cat and Rema the whippet discuss naughty tactics

Rema loved the tube and would jump into my arms to be carried up the escalator and when we got off the tube at Marylebone, she would run and almost drag me to the escalator as she had learned that is what people do – run from one train to the next.

There were times where I would be drunk on a Friday night after a night out round my friends house (Our Maria) and I would have Rema with me, looking all nice, blue and dainty (she was a blue whippet), wearing her muzzle as she used to bite, and I would be pissed out of my head at the platform and Rema would protectively wait with me and not let anyone near me. You could almost see her looking apologetic to other passengers as if to say ‘I am sorry, but she got herself into this state’ And that little dog would escort me home. If there is anyone reading this from London that used the Marylebone line that remembers the blue whippet bitch wearing her jacket and muzzle back in 2005-6, well she was my girl.

When I studied for my NCTJ Preliminary Journalist exams in Islington, I sometimes even took Rema to college with me and she would sit in the boss’s office – I think she actually quite liked him (remember that Steve?)  In fact the more places I took that little whippet, the more traveling she did, the happier she seemed.

We bought Rema when we lived in Devon and then moved to London and when I used to go back to visit my friend Veronica in Torquay, Rema would sit on my knee for the three hour train journey.  She also loved going up on the train to Chesterfield to see ‘Our Maria’.  Rema really should have had her own travel card I reckon.

Image‘Hannibal Rema’ in her muzzle.  Too pretty to bite – well don’t judge a book by it’s cover

When I failed my first year vet nursing exams, after work we all went to the pub and got pissed (you can see a pattern here!) and I tried to sneak Rema in as a ‘hearing dog for the deaf’ and for a while it worked, as she was hidden under the table but we got sussed out and kicked out. I turned up home in a drunken misery a few hours later and Abdel opened the door to find me standing there with Rema who had no muzzle or leash on. Rema looked embarrassed and said to Abdel ‘I tried to stop her, honest I did’ and shook her head in disbelief while Abdel led me upstairs and put me to bed whilst I cried about failing my exams. Rema snuggled up to me that night and never left my side which was brave of her as my breath reeked of alcohol.

Image          My boss Trevor or ‘TT’ as he was known – and me as a student veterinary nurse

Rema was also there when I passed my vet nurse finals and lay on the bed with me as I cried, I cried because it had been so hard and I had failed both part one (written) and part two (practical) first time so the relief of passing my exams was immense.

ImageAbdel and me at my graduation – finally qualifying as a Veterinary Nurse

(my proudest moment – I love my VN badge!)

Rema had earned a nickname called ‘The Goat’ as she found a goat on Torre Abbey Sands in Torquay, Devon and proceeded to chase it round the beach and nip it on any part she could reach – blaming the owners saying it was their fault for having a goat on the beach.

My little whippet used to enter Exemption dog shows and do very well in them and I also entered her in scurry races as well and she would bark her head off in excitement as she raced – she loved it and had a good circle of doggy friends on the show circuit.

When I worked as a vet nurse at Crufts Dog show one year, Rema came with me and had her own bed in the Hilton Hotel, my friend ‘Our Maria’ was with me that night, I remember it well as she got chicken pox (do you remember that Maria!). Rema looked so funny snuggled up in her own bed, and she had her own cage in the vet centre when I was working and would tell the show dogs off by barking at them when they came in.

One day I remember when I was out with my friend Sam Porter and her boxer dog ‘Bags’, Rema chased a squirrel and broke her hock and had to have surgery. If you could see the xrays, it must have been like repairing the leg of a fawn as Rema’s legs were like matchsticks but the vet did a superb job on that (thank you Trevor xx).

On another night, Sam and I dressed up our dogs, Rema wore my bra and knickers and Bags wore boxer shorts (don’t ask!) and we drew big red Bindi’s on their foreheads and went out collecting for the Big Issue. But we won’t say any more on that as there is no excuse for dressing a dog up in a bra any more than there is collecting for the Big Issue when you have no business to.

I had entered Rema in a contest for Dogs Today magazine – this was for 2000 – the Millennium Calendar – ‘best advert for dog ownership’ and Rema won it, she was Ms February and posed on a pink silk love heart cushion and even appeared on London Tonight (any of my London pals remember that or have a copy of the photo I could have?)

Rema was also a chewer and enjoyed chewing Abdel’s trousers, the curtains and other bits and pieces.

ImageRema and Gordon – both ‘chewers’ in fact Gordon still is!

Animals of the present

Gordon the cat chews towels and still does so, despite being a respectable old gentleman of 11 years old.

Gordon is my piece of England, he is from the Motherland – having just lost my Mum, I was in no way prepared to lose my Gordon so I went to extreme lengths to raise the funds by writing a blog and also doing writing for people, so that I could pay for his passage to Australia.

He was naughty in quarantine and chewed the carpet on his cat run and has continued his chewing in Australia.

ImageGordon in quarantine – he chewed the carpet on the ladder

Rocky has dug 4 feet under the retainer wall, eaten my mortgage settlement documents the day we moved into the house, he has stolen cushions and eaten my entire CD collection and chewed a rare one of a kind, hand made artists bear made out of alpaca wool.

Brutus is following in hot pursuit in terms of naughtiness, he gathers stones and brings them to the door, chews our shoes and is planning what his next line of attack will be in the form of chewing.  He is also learning from Rocky on how to be a proficient digger to the point I am thinking of hiring out the pair of them for bobcat purposes.

ImageThe new ‘canine bobcat’ – Rocky and Brutus ‘dig for Britain’

So I shall ask again – why do we do it? They chew our stuff, they demand our time, they cause us worry and they cost us money, so why do we pay for the privilege of the above?

Because quite simply, they provide us with love and they provide us with memories – all of the memories that my animals have given me have and still do make me laugh.

Animals stand by us when we make crap decisions, when we are in a bad mood, when we think that the rest of the world hates us, when we dont want to communicate – our pets are always there for us.

ImageOne man (girl) and his dog

They don’t care if we embarrass them and trust me, I have embarrassed Rocky in public on many an occasion. I have dived in when he has been attacked by another dog and yelled, screamed and threw a punch at the dog attacking him when Rocky couldn’t defend himself.

At the end of the day the stuff that they chew is just that – stuff and more to the point it can be replaced. ‘Stuff’ cannot give you the memories that an animal can give you.

I was there for Rema when she was put to sleep and I promise I will be there for Gordon, Rocky and Brutus when their time comes.

I know it is painful, I know I will be the sobbing wreck that I vowed never to become again but I want the only person to be holding my pets when they leave this life – to be me.

So never ever regret having your pets, and never let the pain of losing them stop you from embracing another animal into your life.

You may think that by getting another pet, you are ‘replacing’ the one that you have lost. Well you are not, in your life there are in fact many places – unlimited places for animals waiting to be loved and the new pet is not replacing the old one, just merely making a new place for himself.

And the spirit of all your animals will live on in the sofa, the chairs, your shoes and whatever else they may have chewed.

ImageGordon – from the ‘Motherland’ still chewing his way around the world

That my friends, is why we do it.

Happy Friday.

Samantha Rose (C) Copyright 2013

Brutus and his trip to the vet

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This morning I took Brutus to our local vet to have his stitches removed and to say that Rocky was devastated that he wasn’t going, is an understatement.

‘Where are you taking him?’ Rocky demanded, his ears and tail erect, and his body language showed that he was pissed off.

‘To the vet to get his stitches removed’ I said firmly and clipped Brutus’s leash onto his blue collar. His little brown body wriggled as he was so excited.

‘Bastard, why does he get to go and I don’t, can I have my stitches removed too?’ Rocky asked, looking really jealous now.

‘Rocky you are such a dick head, you don’t have stitches!’ Gordon sniggered from the safety of the dining room table. Rocky flipped him the bird and stuck his tongue out back at Gordon.

‘Yeah, but they don’t know that’ Rocky replied. In the end he became so upset because he wasn’t going that I had to shut him up in the laundry room to calm down.

And as for the language that came out of that kelpie dogs mouth as I put Brutus in the Yaris and secured him to the seat belt in the back, well that was truly shocking and the last word I heard from Rocky’s mouth was ‘wanker’.

We got to the vets a bit early and had to wait outside which was fun with a partially leash trained pup who was thoroughly over excited and trying to herd up birds and stones – adopting the ‘cattle dog crouch’ when they go down to herd.

‘Brutus, you can’t herd up stones, they are not going anywhere’ I laughed at him.

‘But they might be, you never know’ was all he replied and then tried circling the stones to make sure.

A car pulled up in the driveway and I could just make out the head of a small white fluffy dog in the front seat next to his owner.

‘Puggles, come on get down’ An elderly man got out and spoke to his dog.

‘Piss off, I am not jumping that height, are you trying to break my cruciate ligament or something?’ the white dog snapped and then glanced in the mirror to smooth down his beard and make himself look presentable.

It was a tense stand off and Brutus looked interested in the stubborn white fluffy thing that resembled a sheep, that refused to jump down from the SUV.

I will in his favour say that I don’t blame him because many injuries can be caused from dogs jumping in/out of cars and Brutus is terrified to jump in/out of my car so I always help him.

Puggles the white dog (or sheep according to Brutus) was eventually lifted down and you could hear him bossing his owner around and saying things like ‘watch my stitches’ and ‘don’t mess with my fur’.

Brutus looked enchanted at the dog (sheep) and looked up at me and said ‘Is that a sheep, can I herd him?’ which made me laugh. Brutus may be a kelpie/ridgeback but he is 95% kelpie in behaviour and looks so cute when he adopts the herding position.

Fuggles walked up to Brutus and promptly pissed on a pile of polished pebbles, he lifted his little leg as high as it would go and strong yellow urine dribbled down his pristine white coat.

‘How did you do that?’ Brutus asked him in admiration. Brutus is still at the squatting stage and when he did try and lift his leg to copy Rocky, he fell over. Mind you, Rocky didn’t cock his leg until he was two years old – and I am not kidding you either, very late developer. In fact Rocky barely has a penis, it is more like a mealworm.

‘Puggles has been de-sexed, he is here to have his stitches out’ The owner said to me and then shook his head as Puggles tried to dig up the concrete floor with his hind legs to ‘spread himself around’.

‘He is only 8 months old’ His owner added.

‘Brutus was done at 16 weeks, the cat couldn’t take it any more and Rocky was tired of having his bed and head urinated upon’ I said almost apologetically. The old man looked horrified that I had robbed Brutus of his manhood far too early but I didn’t care, Rocky has a stash of dog porn in his kennel and he and Brutus always like to read it of an evening over a can of beer and some nuts.

Brutus sniggered at the white dog and said ‘Why are you digging up concrete?”

‘Spreading my piss around’ Puggles said matter-of-factly and then added ‘I am still very alpha even though they made me have the op’ Puggles looked accusingly at his owner.

‘What op?” Brutus asked – such an innocent boy and a virgin too, bless his socks.

Puggles looked at Brutus as though he were stupid and lit a cigarette and exhaled deeply. Flicking ash into the pavement, he rubbed it in with his paw, making it go all smudged and grey.

‘De-sexing op, so you had it done as well?’ Puggles asked Brutus.

‘Yeah, I kept mating the cat and humping my brothers head and pissing on his bed/head/everything’ Brutus replied sadly, almost missing the experience. Gordon I will add, is very glad he has been done because he only has a tiny bottom and it is certainly not meant for amorous puppies with a thriving sex hormone production.

Just then the nurse opened the surgery door for us all to go in and I popped Brutus on the scales and am pleased to announce that he now weighs 12.6kgs. If you remember when he came out of hospital he was around 7.6kgs – I think so he is doing marvellously and is looking rather good.

I went back to the counter to give the nurses the weight for his records when I heard a commotion.

‘Puggles, you naughty boy, you can’t do that here!’ Puggles owner looked horrified.

Puggles sat by the door and had just finished taking a large shit by the mat.

Brutus still being of the giggly childish schoolboy mentality, snorted with laughter – he takes after me you see, make me laugh and I snort loudly, I can’t help it.

Brutus was snorting and giggling and yelling his favourite expression (you all know what it is!) ‘Turd legs’ to Puggles who looked thoroughly pleased with himself at the monster turd he had dropped by the mat.

A large cat in a pink basket pursed his lips together, disgusted at the scene and yelled ‘Could you have not waited until you had used your litter tray?’

‘Chew on that big boy that will teach you to rip my balls off!’ Puggles shouted to his owner and then promptly turned around and gave him full view of his fluffy white bum which now had nasty brown bits on the side. My goodness am I glad my dogs dont have fluffy white bums that could be called poo magnets.

The nurse calmly came round from the counter armed with rubber gloves and some paper and something to clean the matt with and as quickly as it was produced, the offending turd was picked up and disposed of. But not before Puggles yelled to the nurse ‘There are plenty more from where that came from’ and vowed to shit in his owners bed when he got home.

‘Don’t you ever do that Brutus’ I told him, trying not to laugh myself, really it was very funny and I do have a toilet sense of humour, so does Rocky and actually Gordon as well. I have lost count of the times that Gordon has had a hard piece of turd stuck to his bum and has released it and played ‘ping pong’ with it in the hall way.

Brutus was called in by the nurse to have his stitches out, off he trotted with his super abnormally long tail wagging behind him – you can see the vertebrae of his tail ‘clicking’ by the tail bone when he wags it, as though it is too long for his spine/body.

The nurse said he was a very good boy but his stitches had become too tight so I have to watch it doesnt weep or get sore and that I had brought him in just at the right time to get them out (9 days) but either way, they were more than ready to come out.

I bought him his heartworm/multiwormer as well – he now requires the same size heartworm treatment as Rocky which is good. Vet predicts he may reach up to 25 kgs so could be the same size as Rocky or slightly bigger. He is going to be a chunky old ‘unit’ though I should imagine.

We said goodbye to Puggles (Turd Dog as Brutus called him) and I lifted Brutus into the car and secured him and we drove home.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Rocky demanded and inspected Brutus thoroughly as a mass sniffing of genitals took place from both dogs.

I let both boys outside to let off some steam and I could hear Brutus excitedly tell Rocky about what had happened at the vet with Puggles.

‘Really? He took a shit on the mat?’ I heard Rocky say, he sounded quite jealous. Bastard better not try that when I take him to the vet.

I still have memories of when I worked at the Royal Veterinary College as a Veterinary Nurse and my whippet bitch Rema took a shit on the platform inside London Marylebone Station (pets can travel on public transport in the UK).

She did several hard nuggets that rolled all over the platform and thank God I had a poo bag because I was scrabbling around a busy commuter platform trying to recover nuggets of turd. Rema blamed it on the high fibre diet, the commuters blamed me for the smell and all I can say is thank god I was in a nurses uniform so I could pull off the ‘I am an animal nurse’ kind of face and deal with this shit every day.

So you can forgive me for thinking those days are behind me and I do not want to encourage my boys to open their bowels in inappropriate places.

Abdel and I are taking the boys out for a walk later, just need to keep an eye on the suture site as the nurse said but I think it will be OK.

It has gone very quiet in the garden so I had better check on the dogs and hope that whatever they are planning to do, it does not involve what Puggles did at the vet this morning.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Samantha Rose (C) Copyright 2013

Brutus – Puppy Temper Tantrums

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Image‘But why can’t I play with the cat?’

Puppy temper tantrums – they all get them, all pups go through the temper tantrum stage and it is up to you how you deal with it as in the old saying ‘you make your bed, you will lie in it’ kind of thing.

Now Abdel always puts Brutus to bed in his crate – it is the routine, at about midnight, both boys are let out for a pee in the garden and Brutus is put into a fresh clean crate, nice clean towel to lie on, fresh water and his teething toy.

Last night Abdel got in later than normal so while he was having his shower, I put the dogs to bed. Rocky being a good boy went straight for a pee outside and then went on his bed.

Brutus looked horrified and I mean horrified, one would think that I had smashed his Kong toy and offered it to the birds.

‘You never put me to bed, never – where is dad?’ Brutus demanded.

‘Brutus, just shut up and go to bed’ Rocky growled, he was still pissed off for Brutus biting his genitals earlier (don’t ask but I think George Michael may have been playing on the radio at the time).

Shutting the crate, I went off to bed and only seconds later I heard Brutus barking and shouting his head off in protest.

‘Open the door now! If you don’t I shall shit everywhere and do handstands!’ Brutus yelled – very loudly indeed.

(sounds of metal bowl clanking on cage and newspaper being shredded up)

‘Just ignore him’ Abdel said from the living room.

Except that I couldn’t because I knew from the sounds that were coming from the laundry room that Brutus had no water, he had tipped it up and I couldn’t have him going all night with no water.

‘It’s because you didn’t put him to bed’ I told Abdel and Abdel had to agree with me because it was true – this is the second time he has done this and the last time was because Abdel didn’t put him to bed as well.

I went into the laundry room and sure enough, the nice clean towel was soaked and bunched up, the newspaper shredded, the water bowl upside down and Brutus was very wet indeed.

Making puppy growls and noises, Brutus then stood up and wriggled his entire body in that guilty sheepish kind of way while Rocky sat on his own bed and called him a girly turd legs.

I let them both out into the garden and then cleaned his kennel, put fresh paper, water and a towel in there. I never realized just how precious newspaper and towels would become until I got Brutus, never has my washing machine been used as much as it is now and I have even started to greedily stare at free papers in shopping centers and will think nothing of walking out with piles of them under my arm. That is puppy-hood for you I guess.

Telling Abdel that he could put Brutus to bed, I went back to bed myself and sure enough, when Abdel brought the boys back in, Brutus not only went back to his crate like a good boy but his crate was also immaculate this morning when he was let out.

THIS MORNING

‘I don’t want to wear brown socks, I want black legs like Rocky!’ Brutus whinged when I let him outside this morning.

Rocky stopped sniffing the garden and looked at Brutus as though he couldn’t believe his ears.

‘Twat, those are your bloody legs and you are stuck with them!’ Rocky snorted with laughter as Brutus gazed down at his long brown legs with white socks on his paws.

‘I want my testicles back!’ Brutus sobbed and then started to bark trying to look tough but the only thing he succeeded in doing was making me giggle and making Abdel laugh from the bedroom as he heard him as well and it is rather hard to take Brutus seriously when he barks as his entire mouth caves in as his tiny teeth don’t seem big enough to support his head.

‘Dear Dog in heaven help me’ Rocky sighed and lit up a fag and blew smoke in funny shapes from his nostrils.

‘Is it tomorrow yet?’ Brutus asked Rocky, he is due to get his stitches out tomorrow and is quite excited about it, only because Sunny the red heeler told him he could get prosthetic testicles like space hoppers which is a total lie but Brutus believed him.

Rocky shook his head and went to sit down by the tree and said that no, it was not tomorrow yet and no, he could not have his testicles back and no, he cannot change the colour of his legs.

‘Are we there yet?’ Brutus asked me and then picked up some stones in his mouth, chewed them for a bit and gobbed them out on the floor.

Rocky took a piss by the side of the fence and Brutus happily stood under him and ended up with urine all over his head. Brutus looked thoroughly over excited by it as well.

As you will see, the curiosity of a young pup is equal to that of a child and you get all the same daft questions that no matter how many times you answer, there will be new questions being asked all the time.

‘My tail doesn’t fit!’ Brutus shouted and then started to chase his own tail until he eventually got dizzy and fell over and looked like Stephen Hawkings in a magnet factory.

Rocky looked at me and shrugged his shoulders and said ‘I was never like that was I?”

Gently reminding him that he herded up some children who were on their boat on the Murray River one time, children I might add that didn’t need ‘saving’, I told Rocky that he would have to be patient.

‘Rocky?’ Brutus squeaked in his high pitched puppy voice.

‘Yes Brutus’ Rocky replied – oh god, what was he going to ask now?

‘Can I sniff your bum?’ Brutus asked happily.

‘Piss off!’ Rocky snapped and as he ran off to get his tennis ball, Brutus stuffed his nose up Rocky’s bum anyway.

Brutus has a thing about bottoms, he likes cleaning Gordon’s bottom and has even stuffed his nose up Sunny’s bottom and Sunny has a bottom like an over ripe peach with a hole in it. Brutus nearly lost his head up there but we won’t talk about that.

The joys of puppy-hood!

Have a nice weekend everyone.

Samantha Rose (C) Copyright 2013

Brutus and the Garbage Men

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Brutus officially started his guard dog training today – well I say guard dog training, Rocky is teaching him the ways of the world and who to bark at, who to threaten, who to abuse from the fence – that kind of thing.

Abdel and I were in bed when we heard the familiar sound of the bin men doing the garbage collection – you know the sound of bins being lobbed across the street.

Rocky always barks but he always wait for the dog over the road to start first. Now this dog has a rusty bark that all elderly dogs have that can normally be heard around 11pm when people come home from the pub.

The rusty bark is normally translated into ‘Keep the noise down you piss head, I am trying to eat a bone’ Then all the dogs start yelling for the drunken yobs to be quiet and before you know it, the whole suburb has kicked off in canine uprising.

Well this morning I heard the obligatory rusty dog bark from the senior dog from over the road.

I will make no apologies for the language because if you only knew what your dog yelled at from the confines of your garden, you would be shocked to high heaven.

When you see dogs running up and down through the garden and jumping up at the fence barking at the postmen, Telstra people, religious nutters – they are not just barking. Oh no, just you listen and you listen good because they are shouting things like ‘piss off or I will eat your balls off’

Some of the more rebellious dogs shout out ‘wanker’ at Telstra engineers. Honestly I have seen Rocky do it and even flip the bird at the Water Corp people while Gordon flashed his arse in the window and called them ‘Turd legs’.

Anyway, I digress as usual, Abdel and I were lying in bed with Gordon when we heard the rusty dog bark which was the official signal for all self respecting dogs to stand by their gates and being the wave of abuse that occurs on garbage day.

‘The wankers have arrived!’ The elderly dog barked in his rusty voice.

Rocky ran up to the next level of the garden, his hackles up like the spine of a dinosaur.

‘Oi, wanker! Get off my land’ Rocky yelled. Dog with rusty bark shouted back ‘Good on ya Rocky!’

Brutus is only a baby and doesn’t even get left in the garden on his own as his guard dog instincts have not kicked in yet, whilst Rocky’s are superb and he is an excellent guard dog.

‘What do I do?’ The little brown dog asked Rocky who looked so important as he did ‘wanker’ gestures with his paws to the bin men.

‘Just copy me lad!’ Rocky said and then as the garbage truck picked up our recycling bin, Rocky had worked himself into a pitch of hysteria and shouted ‘Get off my bin you fat twat!’

Honestly, the language was dreadful and now the old woman’s dog next door but one, was joining in and calling the bin men ‘Derro Face’.

The staffie in the house opposite who isn’t the brightest dog on the block, had gone one better and had a moldy bone in his mouth and was yelling ‘Don’t you touch my bone you turd mouth’ in an Italian accent as his owners are Italian.

Rocky I might add, does have to accept some responsibility for the bad language from the dogs in my suburb as he has at some point in their lives, taught them a selection of words that he had learned as a working dog on a farm down South. I mean, how those working dogs talk to the sheep would shock the Pope himself.

In the meantime Brutus had decided that it was now or never, he had to defend his property and even as a baby dog, he still had teeth that he could savage with. Yes, some of those teeth had fallen out and what was left no longer fitted nicely in his puppy mouth as they were either loose or too small but he could still bite the ankles of many and gas them with puppy breath.

Taking a deep breath, Brutus followed Rocky to the next level and said to the black kelpie dog that now looked like a dinosaur with his hackles up ‘What do I shout?’

Rocky sighed impatiently ‘I don’t know, just look and act scary, this is a hostile invasion of our garbage bins’ And with that, he carried on flipping the bird, shouting and swearing at the truck as it picked up the bins from each house, emptied them and threw them back on the ground.

Brutus felt nervous, this was his time to prove himself as a man so he stepped closer to the fence and started to yell.

‘Save your children! Save your families! Burn the bitch, gouge her eyes, drown the fishes, kill the pirates, steal my bones and shit on your floor!’ Brutus sounded almost triumphant and then yelled ‘Turd legs’ (Rockys favourite expression and one of mine as well)

‘Wanker bin thieves…..’ Stopping mid-sentence, Rocky stared at Brutus and said ‘Drown the fishes, kill the pirates, what the hell does that mean?’

Brutus blushed but by now was over excited at his own bravery and promptly pissed himself.

Gordon sat at the window and was shouting his bit ‘Gingers have souls too’ and then added ‘Drown the fishes?, what is he on about?’

(sounds of raucous laughter from other dogs in the suburb, all taking the piss out of Brutus, his puppy voice and what he was saying)

‘You have to swear Brutus, there are no fishes to drown’ Rocky hissed in the little dogs ear. Really he had embarrassed him now, there would be no living this down.

‘Bum hole’ Brutus shouted and then let out an enormous fart that even impressed Rocky.

Nodding approvingly, Rocky did the thumbs up sign to the Italian staffie over the road who then cheered back.

And so the barking went on, Rocky and the other boys yelling violence and obscenities at the garbage truck and Brutus still shouting about pirates and fishes, trying to look like a big dog, not really sure as to what he was barking at but copying Rocky and trying to look as menacing as a baby dog could with milk teeth and legs too big for his body.

Honestly, it was like dog borstal. All the dogs running up to their fences yelling rude stuff and calling the garbage truck ‘shit heads’ and ‘wankers’.

Some dogs took it further and flashed their genitals and bums to the bin men, one dog from over the road – an elderly border collie went one further and said he was assaulted by the garbage truck and now fears for his life.

‘Did I do OK?’ Brutus asked Rocky, he felt totally exhausted after that, it was time to eat some stones and kick up some dog shit – Rocky had done a nice white dog poo from having his bone the other day, although I never let the dog turd dry on my grass, it is picked up as soon as it falls out of their bums.

Rocky who was still confused about the fishes and pirate comments, looked at Brutus and stared at him.

After what seemed ages, he nodded and replied ‘You are getting there lad, you are getting there’

Ten minutes later the suburb was quiet again, garbage bins lay in various positions along the pavement where they had been picked up and dropped. People came in/out of their homes to wheel their bins in.

The dogs were all quiet and it were as though nothing had happened.

Brutus went back to the fence where he could only just see outside.

‘Oi!’ Brutus shouted to a woman who was walking by.

She glanced round to see who was talking – she must have ‘spoken dog’ to understand Brutus.

‘Turd legs’ Brutus yelled and then ran back to where Rocky was, so fast that he fell down the last step.

‘Good lad Brutus, good lad’ Rocky grinned and then nodded to Brutus ‘Next time I will teach you what to say to Telstra people’

Both dogs sat by their kennels, Brutus felt so grown up and aside from his fishes and pirates comments, he felt as though the morning had been a success.

Rocky was secretly proud of him as well – he would make a guard dog out of him yet.

Have a lovely day everyone.

Samantha Rose (C) Copyright 2013

Brutus Update – Thou Shalt Not Chew Drains

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Brutus and Rocky establish friendships and boundaries

Brutus has been so hungry that trying to keep up with his growth spurt in terms of energy requirements/expenditure has been very hard so I have bitten the bullet and doubled his dietary intake in the morning and evening feed and just left the smaller meal midday and one before bed.

I kid you not when I say that when I get up to him in the morning he looks very ‘ribby’ and thin so I don’t think he is ready to cut down his meals yet. I am assuming that because his growth was stunted when he was so sick, his body is now demanding nutritional catch up which is fine, he is a growing boy.

This morning I was a bit late with his breakfast as I wasn’t well last night so slept in, I had let him out at 6am and he wasn’t happy about it.

‘What, really?’ Brutus said and then did a loud puppy yawn – you know the type that I mean.

Rocky pretended he was still asleep, he had no intention of taking a pee this early.

‘Yes really, come on you have to go in the garden’ I said, trying to sound firm but felt bloody knackered at the same time. I didn’t blame the pair of them, I wouldn’t fancy going out at stupid o-clock but needs must when toilet training.

I let them out and went back to bed with the intention of feeding him an hour later but actually woke up at 8am, went to give Brutus his newly increased portion of puppy meal.

‘Is that for me, all of it, really?’ He shouted excitedly and then bragged to Rocky who vowed to bash him for showing off as Rocky is on strictly controlled dietary intake to keep his weight constant as he has HD.

Leaving Brutus to scoff his breakfast in the crate, I went outside and did a ‘poo run’ and put the toys back in the toy box – the dogs love that toy box as they have such fun removing them. I enjoy filling that toy box, I have ordered Brutus a set of Nylabone teething keys from the USA as it is half the price of what they cost here even with delivery and next week we are buying him a clam shell sandpit from Bunnings with some ‘safe sand’ so he can have his own ‘legal sandpit’. (spoiled – much!)

That was when I noticed the ‘crime scene’ – I found a round plastic grid, semi chewed. ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ I thought, scratching my head, scouring the garden.

Spotting a large drainage hole uncovered, I realised that Brutus had pulled off the plastic from the drain hole, leaving the drain open, large enough so he could have got his head stuck if he so wished.

Damn it, it was a large hole as well – you know the round drains – they are quite big.

Carefully putting the plastic back over the hole, I then placed a couple of small pavers over it, thinking that is bloody marvellous as when it rains, it won’t be able to drain so a trip to Bunnings is in order but if any of you that have puppies that have discovered the joys of sewer drains, could give me some tips on securing the plastic grid so that Brutus cannot dig it up, I would be most grateful.

The garden looks like a bomb site so Abdel decided to sweep the fake lawn and remove the bits of fabric from the ‘bone incident’ the other day. You will notice there are a lot of ‘incidents’ of varying degrees of naughtiness, I do in fact believe that they could be put in a book for naughty dogs.

Well sweeping the garden is a challenge as you can see in the video below and whilst it is highly amusing to watch Brutus jumping around like a disabled springbok, it is nigh on impossible to sweep the garden with him in it, so that was given up as a bad job and we shall do it when he is in his crate to try and desensitise him because he also thinks that the vacuum is an alien which is out to kill the world and also needs attacking.

We are going to take him for a walk later, both him and Rocky, we won’t go far as he gets overwhelmed with traffic/sights/sounds, so baby steps and all that.

The main thing is he is very receptive to people and other dogs, which considering what he has been through is amazing.

Then tonight, Sunny – my friends red heeler is coming round, Brutus met him last night on his walk and Sunny is an alpha senior male dog and he is Rockys best friend, so I took Brutus to meet him on his own as Brutus is still being leash trained and needed 100% of my attention, that all went ever so well and both dogs got on just fine.  Rocky was insanely jealous and screamed the garden down when he saw me take Brutus out, he knew exactly where we were going and you could hear him shouting ‘He is my friend not yours!’.

So Sunny will come round tonight for a play date with Rocky and Brutus. Tomorrow Brutus will go to the beach and I will see how he goes there.

This morning my friend Dave brought his son round to my house and Brutus met him and instantly took to the gorgeous little boy who is almost a year old, Brutus seems to love people and was quite taken with the baby so that is also something I am pleased about because having missed out on some early socialisation when he was sick, it could have affected how he interacted with people later.

Finally, I just want to add when I first took on Brutus I was somewhat overwhelmed and thinking ‘how do I bring this puppy up’ because when you have a puppy you have a blank slate and how that dog turns out is pretty much down to you and that is daunting in my book.

I have had an aggressive dog before – a whippet bitch called Rema, she was aggressive when I got her and I thought I could change her and I couldnt despite having bahavioural therapy, she had to be muzzled in public and had even nipped people that had chosen to ignore my ‘please don’t go near her face’ commands. Not to mention if dogs got too close to her when she was on the leash, she would beat the crap out of them.

The sleepless nights of having a puppy, the eyes in the back of your head to keep an eye on them, the crying when they are crated, the chewing, the naughtiness which is really just normal puppy behaviour, well it is easy to become so wrapped up in how hard it is to raise a well balanced good natured puppy and subsequently miss out on the fun and energy that having a new puppy can bring.

It is easy to wish away the puppy years, the digging, chewing, naughtiness and wish for them to grow up.

But I have learned and am still learning with Brutus that every day he changes, he seems to grow and fill out each day, he is discovering his world, forging his friendship with Rocky and Gordon, he is being guided by Rocky and learning to find his place within our pack in the home.

And if you take a step away from the hard work of looking after a pup and marvel in the developmental changes that are actually occurring, and get a routine that works for all concerned, you will realise that raising a puppy is exceptionally rewarding – you get out what you put in basically.

Last night I watched Brutus and Rocky curled up together on the bed, this morning I watched Brutus wriggling his tiny body to greet me this morning. Looking round the garden and seeing the mass of toys scattered everywhere, I realised that whilst our lives are messier and harder with Brutus around, we wouldn’t be without him.

He is part of our family now, chewed drains and ripped up toys and all.

And quite simply, we love him.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Brutus Update

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Brutus has taken to picking up lovely pieces of crunchy dirt and stuff and I only ever seem to catch him as he is happily at the end of crunching/swallowing whatever crap he has picked up and although I can open his mouth, I normally only find crunched up soil/grit and try as I might, I cannot get him out of the habit.

Please someone tell me this is normal behavior as Rocky was 5 months old when I got him and was never into that, he loved digging right from the word ‘go’.

So this morning I had a nicely cleaned out 2 litre plastic milk bottle and I removed the lid and put some puppy meal inside and gave it to Brutus. We used to do this with Rocky and enjoy watching him joyously run around the garden with a milk bottle in his mouth barking and then have to pick up the pieces afterwards.

Brutus was thrilled with his new toy and ran around the garden pushing it with his nose so that the biscuit fell out. Unaware that there was biscuit in the bottle, he didnt even see Rocky scooting behind him like a Dyson vacuum polishing up the puppy meal.

‘Ha ha ha, Derro Dog!’ Rocky yelled happily in between eating biscuit – as this was something we used to do for him, he knew exactly what was coming out of the milk bottle.

‘What are you eating you greedy bastard?’ Brutus shouted, his language already become ‘choice’ as Gordon and Rocky swear all the time.

‘Your biscuit – Derro Dog!’ Rocky smirked laughing, his new nickname for Brutus was ‘Derro Dog’.

Brutus bit his bottom lip, stopped for a minute and looked somewhat confused at where all the puppy meal was coming from. But the temptation got too much for him and he muttered ‘Bollocks’ and then carried on shoving the milk bottle noisily around the garden with Rocky continuing to scoot after him picking up the biscuit.

The noise was exceptionally loud and I had to shut the bedroom door as not to wake Abdel but I am sure the grating/scraping sound across the floor could be heard by the neighbours.

Toilet training – another dry night! Brutus actually woke me up yelping at 6.25am telling me that if I didn’t get to his crate pronto, he would piss the bed and not only would he piss the bed, but he would do cartwheels to spread it further. Rocky was snorting with laughter on his bed as he had dared the tiny puppy to say it, in fact Rocky is teaching him to swear as he finds it funny when Brutus swears in a puppy voice. A puppy voice for those of you that don’t know, is a high pitched cute ‘Babe – pig in the city’ kind of voice and the word ‘Bollocks’ sounds hilarious when said by a puppy.

I let Brutus out as one does not argue with a nearly toilet trained puppy with a foul mouth, not to mention the joys of finding a dry kennel, even if the paper has been shredded up by the lean mean shredding puppy machine.

Another bad habit Brutus has developed is once I have done a ‘turd run’ and picked up the shit in the garden which I like to do straight away, Brutus bounces up and down like a springbok and rips a hole in the bag so the turd sprinkles round the garden like a brown shower of shite.

‘Yippee!’ Brutus yells as he does it and Rocky claps from the side of the garden to encourage him ‘Go on Brutus, do it again!’ Rocky is reliving his puppy years through Brutus and is thoroughly enjoying it.

Aside from the crunching of various garden matter, ripping holes in turd bags, everything is going swimmingly.

Over and out from me

Samantha Rose (C) Copyright 2013

Brutus Update

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ImageBrutus – on the mend

You may remember a blog entry I did about stress and Sjogrens syndrome and I mentioned that I had acquired a new puppy called Brutus, which was struck down with severe gastro which very nearly cost him his life.

Well Brutus now has his own Facebook page as he has many followers supporting his journey and progress and for those of you that are interested – here is the link to his page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Pup-called-Brutus/429308250490560

I have had a request on here for a Brutus update and photographs, these are all on his Facebook page but I shall do a quick update on here.

Here is a photo of Brutus two nights before the gastro struck:

ImageChunky Brutus – just before the gastro struck

Brutus was admitted to Murdoch two days after this photo was taken, he stayed for one day, was admitted to Swan Veterinary Hospital, came out the next day when this photo was taken:

ImageSkeletal Brutus

He was then readmitted a few hours after being discharged from hospital where he spent the rest of the week – here is a photo of him in hospital:

ImageBrutus in hospital with severe gastro

Brutus finally came out of hospital on 9th March and has been home for a week, on Saturday 16th March he went to the vet for his vaccine as the first hadn’t taken and he weighed about 7.8kgs which is still underweight for him although each day he is looking better.

Here are some photographs that I took from over last weekend and this weekend – see the differences and changes in him:

ImageLook at my ribcage!

ImageRocky and Brutus

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ImageBrutus and his new ‘brother’ – Gordon

ImageBrutus at the vets waiting for his vaccine

ImageAm I a cat or a dog? (Brutus asks)

And finally, here is a photo that summarizes just how an older dog can guide a young pup and often teach them about life far better than their owners, I have cut and pasted an update I did on Facebook yesterday, it is about the relationship I have with Rocky as his owner and how although I thought I was doing what is best for him, the arrival of Brutus has taught me otherwise.

ImageRocky – Brutus’s guardian angel.

Dedicated to Rocky:

Today I realized that dog ownership often highlights issues that owners have with the relationship with their dogs and it often says an awful lot about the owner as well.

Rocky has been my ‘rock’ so to speak since we first got him. When I nearly lost my husband in a car crash, Rocky was the one consistent thing in my life, my husband was in hospital and I had been told to get his affairs in order and I remember sitting on the kitchen floor crying my eyes out so hard that I couldn’t breathe and the solid black body of my little kelpie dog pressing himself into me and washing my face – I will never forget it.

With each crisis that has been in our lives and trust me, in the 5 years we have lived in Australia, there have been many – health, legal, financial, bereavement, I shudder at remembering any of it, Rocky has been there and I too, wonder how I am still here – mentally and physically.

A year ago during a particularly financially difficult time when we came close to losing everything, I remember walking around Beeliar Wetlands with Rocky. He has hip dysplasia and I have severe joint issues from an auto immune disease. You should have seen the pair of us walking around Beeliar, both of us stiff as boards and of course you get halfway round and think ‘damn it, I shall have to complete it now’ and although Rocky looked horrified as he hates road work, he loyally kept up with me – his gait stiff as anything as I limped the 6km or so around the wetlands, we were like Forest Gump doing his long journey.

Rocky has been my best friend and I think with that intense dog/owner relationship that I have with him, I have rather unfairly and unknowingly (until now), taken away some of his ‘doggy-ness’ and stripped him of his normal canine behavior.

‘That dog is like your baby’ I have had said to me on so many occasions by child obsessed people. This I have to hotly deny because we have chosen NOT to have children. My animals are not the children we never had, having ones genitals stretched to 10cms never once appealed to me and I am sorry if that upsets people – I just don’t swing that way.

Yes, I love my animals and yes, having Brutus could be comparable to having a young child as I need eyes in the back of my head and let’s not even discuss toilet training and teething and sleepless nights.

But no, they are not children, and when you have come close to losing your partner – soul mate, when you have held your Mothers hand as she passed away, I can say now that there is no comparison for me. I love my animals dearly as you can tell and they will take priority over visitors but at the end of the day, I must stress that they are not children.

I will admit to humanizing Rocky and being more dependent on him than he is me. He is expressive, his face speaks volumes, so does Gordon’s – hell, I even ‘speak dog’ and make them talk, but then again so do many pet owners.

Rocky only tends to interact with other cattle/working dogs. before Brutus came to live with us, Rocky would happily sit in of an evening and smooch me on the sofa, washing my arms, or the sofa, or the wall – anything really and failing that, the cats ears were always clean.

Now Brutus is here, Rocky is somewhat distancing himself from me and becoming more of a dog and I am observing some traditional canine mannerisms and behavioral patterns that really do shoot the saying ‘I know my dog better than anyone’ into fresh air because no, we never really know our dogs, we domesticate them to a point, but no, we never truly know them because at the end of the day – wild is wild and you can take the dog out of the wild but you cant take the wild instincts out of the dog.

Today I took Rocky for a swim, Brutus had to stay behind as he only had his vaccine yesterday, so Abdel and I decided to go swimming with Rocky and Rocky did his usual swimming until exhausted, swallowing heaps of sea water and then yakking up and being reluctantly dragged from the water when we decided that an hour of solid swimming was quite enough thank you, besides, Abdel had to go to work.

I bathed Rocky in the garden and Brutus was washing the drops as they dripped off Rocky’s sopping black body – he looked like a shiny stag beetle – in fact my nickname for him is ‘beetle dog’.

I had bought Rocky a kangaroo hide chew which I had planned to give to him when Brutus wasn’t around. Trouble is, Rocky is a lazy bone eater – he still has a brand new hide chew from January but the kangaroo chew is much smaller and easier to eat. I have tried telling him that many a dog in Africa would be grateful for that bone but he tells me I am talking crap – which of course is quite plausible.

I had locked Brutus away in the laundry room and Rocky looked at the chew and said ‘Bollocks, I am not eating that’. Sighing, I let Brutus out and intended to pick up the chew, I was worried about Brutus trying to steal the chew as he is too young for stuff like that.

Rocky suddenly wanted the chew and curled his lip at Brutus, it wasn’t like ‘I am going to rip your face off’, it was a warning from a senior dog to the baby of the pack.

‘Piss off away from my bone’ Rocky said to Brutus. This is where it got interesting, Rocky never exhibits normal canine behaviors – why? because I have humanised him and made him the way he is – far too imprinted in a way he has forgotten how to act with other dogs.

‘Mum said I can have it!’ Brutus lied and then made steps to take the bone. Should I intervene? What would happen in the wild?

I sat there and did nothing, my heart pounding wondering if Rocky would hurt Brutus.

Brutus went nearer the bone and Rocky jumped up and really told him off – excuse the bad language but I can only relay it as it happened.

‘Get away from my bone you bastard!’ Rocky shouted, curling his lip up in a fine impression of of Elvis Presley (he used to curl his lip).

Rocky did a mock charge at Brutus while curling his lip, yelling at him to piss off and Brutus squeaked a high pitched squeak and went straight into submission. I saw for myself that Rocky did not actually touch him, but Brutus rolled on his back to say ‘sorry’ to Rocky.

The sneaky pup then went by the side of the coffee table with his rubber chicken in his mouth, laid the chicken by Rocky’s feet and then tried to swap it with the chew – I am being deadly serious.

Rocky did one more mock charge and that was enough to send Brutus on to the sofa, shaking like a girl while huddling up to Gordon, telling Gordon how awful it was. Gordon merely told him that stealing another dogs bones was akin to listening to Cliff Richard’s Millennium Prayer on replay and one should never ever do it. Brutus said he was sorry and Rocky as if to make a point of the Tenth Commandment ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal Other Dogs Bones’, ate the whole kangaroo chew, while watching Brutus, making one hell of a mess which I had to clean up.

I was so tempted to intervene because the whole scene made me uncomfortable but then I asked myself why, why did it make me uncomfortable?

It was normal canine behavior and pack hierarchal structure – dogs needed to learn their place, it isn’t just owner/dog boundaries that need to be set in the home, it is also canine boundaries as well and Brutus today learned that he cannot steal Rocky’s food until Rocky has eaten his fill and left scraps for him.

After Rocky had eaten his chew, there were lots of crumbs left on the bed, Brutus dutifully waited until Rocky had moved way and then jumped off the sofa, Rocky wagged his tail to the young pup and Brutus happily but rather submissively polished off the crumbs.

Once he had done that, he went up to Rocky swishing his long tail and cleaning round Rocky’s mouth and Rocky looked down at Brutus and licked one of his ears, gave a little tail wag and the pair of them carried on like nothing had happened.

And that is because nothing did happen – in their world anyway. It was just doggy stuff – we humans might not like it but it is their world and no matter how much we try and domesticate them, no matter how much we think that we know them, they are wild animals with very primal instincts just waiting to surface.

My dependency on Rocky was quite intense and in hindsight, not entirely fair. At first I felt guilty for Rocky as I had another puppy, a puppy that required a lot more attention but I should have given Rocky credit for how he would deal with it.

We can train/reprimand undesirable behaviors in our puppy’s/dogs but you know something? The best training for Brutus has come from Rocky himself.

When Brutus chews on Rocky, Rocky puts him in his place and Brutus very quickly has learned what he can and cannot do and what is acceptable.

Rocky now knows that there is competition for food and doesn’t piss about with his meals like he used to. Rocky has become a more proficient guard dog – although he is pretty on the ball now but now there is a puppy in his ‘pack’ to protect, he has gone up a notch.

My kelpie has changed, since the arrival of Brutus, he has gone from a childish 4.5 year old ex farm dog with some very babyish behaviors and some not so healthy acquired human ones, to an almost regal, mature, kind but assertive Kelpie that is far better in guiding this puppy than I could ever be. Don’t get me wrong, I do my best – you are all following me on this journey and I post with my heart but trust me, Rocky is much better at it.

So whilst I feel quite sad that I have sort of lost my good mate in so many ways, I am really proud of the dog he has become and if Brutus can learn half of what Rocky has to teach him, then we are going to be very lucky.

Humanizingyour dogs is one thing, but I have learned you have to allow dogs to be dogs, also watch their behaviour, watch them interact, watch how they sort out their differences and respect their ‘inner dog’.

So this entry is dedicated to Rocky, he has been where Brutus is now (we got him when he was about 5 months), he has chewed and destroyed a Palm tree, dug 4 feet under a retainer wall, eaten my entire CD collection, he has been there, he has supported me through the most traumatic times of my life and has been my best friend.

But now it is time for him to be a dog and enjoy being a dog, he is in the garden now with Brutus – both of them lying a few feet apart, both of them quiet, Brutus fast asleep and Rocky half asleep while keeping a watchful eye on the young pup that has barged into his life and prompting him to let his natural instincts take over.

As for me, well he is still my mate but now I have the pleasure of watching him become Brutus’s mate as well.

Let dogs be dogs.

And Finally…

Brutus is a puppy that is exhibiting normal puppy behavior and his reactions are guided by Rocky.  Donkey if you remember, was exhibiting dog aggressive behavior towards Rocky to the point he wouldn’t let Rocky even drink from his water bowl and could not be left alone with him.  Having been castrated quite late in life, he had developed some of the not so nice traits typical of an ‘entire dog’  If he was going to live with another adult male dog, it needed to be one that was big enough and strong enough to hold his own which Rocky isn’t.  Donkey was also not good at all with cats and both SAFE and I believed it would be at a huge risk to Gordon to keep him – we needed a dog that we could trust with out cat.

Brutus will be going to puppy group and training and is being de-sexed next week so won’t have chance to develop his sex hormones and ultimately undesirable behavior but I will stress that if you have any concerns about your dog exhibiting aggressive behavior towards other dogs, I would say take him to your vet to rule out illness and then take appropriate expert advice on where to go from there.

Samantha Rose (C) Copyright 2013

Donkey causing a storm in Karratha!

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Despite being in prison, (aka – kennels) Desert Dog – Donkey Dundee is still managing to cause a rumpus in Karratha and is expected to compete with Tropical Cyclone Narelle for attention in the next couple of days I can exclusively reveal.

TC Narelle is currently a Category 1 and was located at 2pm WST 790km north, northwest of Broome and is moving west at 16km per hour.

For those that are interested in tracking Narelle and may I suggest those following the Donkey Diaries follow TC Narelle religiously and even do a rain dance to the gods of garlic so that Donkey can make the flight safely to Perth, here is the tracker for TC Narelle:

http://www.cyclocane.com/narelle-storm-tracker/

If the cyclone hits Karratha there is a real chance that Donkey may not make his flight to Perth this Saturday.  This has caused so much distress with the dogs from South Beach (Freo) that are waiting to meet him that there has been threat of a canine uprising.

Now don’t laugh at this because the last uprising involved Rocky herding up several dogs into the ocean, whipping them up into a barking frenzy, one of those dogs included a senior deaf kelpie bitch who was sighted sticking two paws up to her owners when they tried to retrieve her and it was some time before I could go back to that beach as Rocky had taught them some dreadful habits.

When Donkey was asked about his thoughts on TC Narelle, he replied casually ‘Cyclone Narelle? I can fart with more power than she can blow’

Whilst we can all only pray that TC Narelle doesn’t hit Karratha or if it does, not too hard, you can bet your bottom dollar that in a kennel somewhere in Karratha, there is a medium sized dog/alpaca curled up in his kennel praying even harder so that he can begin his new life in Perth and make that home, his last one.

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Donkey praying for TC Narelle to bugger off and not ruin his plans

Samantha Rose (C) Copyright 2013