"Until you have loved an animal, part of your soul will have remained dormant"
Anatole France
The puppy in the pound.
Me and Red dog first met when a good mate of mine Ian picked me up from um ...... well that's not important but i know he will be laughin his head off readin that bit eh Ian? anyway me and old mate Ian drove out to the Sandy creek dog sanctuary in roughly 1992 as I had always wanted a Red Kelpie the first time i saw one, their agility and intelligence impressed me a great deal while we were there old mate Ian brought himself a dog also eventually naming him Rex, a little on Rexie boy later.
Red spent the first 6 months or so really without a name and the name "Red dog" sort of stuck and the good thing is she answered to it! she was around 5 months old when i brought her and the poor thing was as crook as a dog (excuse the pun) with kennel cough and had fur missin off her everywhere where she had been chewin herself from an allergic reaction to flea bite she looked a real mess with all her bones stickin out as she had just come in but i knew as soon as i seen her sad fruit bat face from the other side of the cyclone mesh she would be a top dog as there are a few little things to look for when assessing a dogs intelligence and she shone above the rest, another one of her nic names was "fruit bat" because of the way her ears sat.
,,,,,
The puppy in the pound.
I brought her for $25 and she come with a scungy old red collar and a blue nylon lead the owners of the pound told me she had been dumped and had a hard life, the excitement she displayed as she was lead out the gates and put into the car for the first time was controllable being still in the puppy phase and also getting parole!!! on the way home she thought it was great with her head out the window and a look of sheer bliss on her face and all the attention she was gettin.
After a few weeks of lettin her settle in before training her she become great mates with Ian's dog Rex and they were inseparable and got along well Rex was a young pup at that stage and they enjoyed their daily runs along the beach, the first time Red dog seen the ocean she was petrified of the waves and took off like a greyhound in a northerly direction as she had never seen the beach before commin from the dry inland.
The training
Training .... I started off with all the basic commands naturally like sit, drop, stay etc using a reward system (positive reinforcement training) as you will find it is the best method of training animals and is a method most dog obedience schools promote, after a week or so she new all the basic commands and done as she was told when she was told without hesitation later on in her life I trained her up to work off hand/ visual commands as well as voice she was absolutely brilliant at healin off lead and you could peer down and watch her readin ya movements as she worked off lead anticipating your every move well before ya made it off the left heel where all dogs should heel from, during the whole process of trainin her i never spoke to her in a monotone command like voice i always spoke to her the same way i would speak to a human and never treated her as a dog either this in turn created one of the best examples of anthropomorphism i have ever seen in any dog, old Red dog was pretty much a human now and never left my side ever she was my shadow and no matter where i went she come with me.
Red dog jumpin out to me at full speed she was absolutely fearless
The adventure begins
The time come to set off on an adventure as the Red dog now wasn't a stupid boisterous pup anymore and loved the car like most dogs and she traveled well.... so we set off on an adventure lastin for years and many many road miles one of the first memorable stops concernin the Red dog is when my Land cruiser developed a really bad noise in the rear diff as i was travelin the Brewarrina track I thought it was just the corrugations but when I hit the bitumen I knew it was serious so I limped to the next town and from there eventually to Lightnin ridge a small opal mining town.
There I met up with some of the locals Miners that night in the diggers rest hotel and at closin time we were all sittin out the front of the pub waitin for a few stragglers from the pub to hurry up as we were goin to a party I was showin the blokes all the clever little things old Red dog could do for a bit of light entertainment and fill in a bit of time when after about 5 minutes one of the fellas whipped out $1000 cash on the spot and offered me it for Red dog of course i declined the offer.
Anyway cut a long story short I eventually found out after a few days the Cruiser couldn't be fixed so patched it up by gettin a bloke to fabricate up some plates to go on the ends of the axles pulled the half shafts out and then drive off the front diff (prob could of just dropped the tail shaft)
I ended up in Naromine limpin in as the transfer case was about to throw a bearin so wasn't havin to much luck mechanically, I ended up puttin it in at Dave's Transmissions for repair as he was busy fixin and servicin all the Telstra cruisers I was stuck there for over a week what a top fella he let me and Red dog camp in his workshop use the shower gave me a key ya just don't find people like that anymore they are few and far between, I met up with a couple of blokes at the local pub and we all got on well together and went out near on every night shootin in a nearby place called Warren I think it was this is where I began to think old Red dog was accident prone later on I would find out that she definitely was, continued on the link below.
Download "Dogs and people" pps file below for the dog lovers!
|
DogsAndPeople.pps Size : 2726 Kb Type : pps |
