A Day in the Country: Maggie Mackellar says what her corgi lacks as a working dog he makes up for in pluck.
JAMES THE CORGI MAY NOT BE ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH THE WORKING DOGS BUT HE’S GIVING MAGGIE MACKELLAR A GOOD LAUGH.
IT’S DARK. My dreams have been stalked so I am awake before the gentle chirruping of my alarm. We are in the middle of lambing and I lie in bed wondering about a two-day-old lamb and its new foster mother over in the yards. What I’m wondering is if it has survived the night. I get up and let the dogs out. We have three house dogs — my loyal black labrador Dusty, Ethel the corgi, who belongs to The Farmer, and my new corgi, James. James is a retired show dog and he struts through the world like a prince. When he first came he was nervy and hyper sensitive. He might have had a swag of ribbons to his name but he’d never ridden on the back of a ute with the wind in his face or tracked a wallaby through scrub, he’d not worked the boards in the shearing shed nor trotted at the heels of a horse. Now he bustles through the world with wild enthusiasm.
While my coffee brews I stand at the back door and call the dogs. The sky is still dark but in the east there is a hint of palest pink. I can’t hear the pound of waves. Our farm is close to the coast and the sound of a swell means the possibility of rain. There’s no swell. There’s no rain.
The dogs crowd around my leg sand follow me into my study. They settle as I sip my coffee and write myself into the day.
When light pushes into the window I put down my pen and head outside to check the sheep in the yards. The dogs fling themselves ahead crashing through the quiet dawn. The ewe and lamb I was worried about are in the first yard. Her breath steams and she struggles to her feet. We’d found her cast with a swollen stuck lamb yesterday. Her lamb was dead but now she has a new foster lamb who has spent the night snuggled against her warm bulk. I corner her and the lamb dives for her hot udder. His belly swells and his tail wiggles. He’s so far from the limp tiny abandoned thing I picked up off the dam wall two days ago, the transformation when it works never fails to delight.
By eight we are out on the lambing run. The Farmer drives and Dusty, the corgis and a young work dog are on the back. I turn my head to check on them and Ethel is pacing the ute tray like the deck of a ship. We have a clear run, but the season is brutal and the weight of the long summer ahead keeps us both quiet. There’s no feed, no sign of rain, the dam levels are dangerously low and the creek has shrunk to pitiful salty holes. Everything is hungry and the country is pinched. At the top of the lane we let the dogs off to run home. The Farmer’s young sheep dog, a Smithfield border collie cross, lives to run. He’s mesmerising to watch, he moves like spilt oil, smooth and relentless. James takes this as a personal insult. He flings himself after the big black dog. His legs are so short he hasn’t a hope, but he pins his ears back and runs with fury. Suddenly The Farmer and
I are laughing. We don’t mean to, but the sight of James, his golden bottom bobbing, his pink tongue flailing, flinging himself up the track with no hope of catching the mongrel black dog, makes us laugh until our sides hurt.
The rest of the day passes in the usual blur of too many jobs and not enough time. The Farmer comes home covered in dust, tired and discouraged. He pours a beer and stands for a moment chuckling. Ethel flops on his feet and he reaches down to rub her head. I call from the kitchen, what are you laughing about? “That ridiculous corgi trying to keep up,” he says, and I smile too. Dogs, they are saving us one moment at a time.
Maggie Mackellar is a writer living in Tasmania. Her books include the best-selling When It Rains (Random House, $19.99). Follow her on Instagram @maggiemackellar_