I’m a one-dog man
THIS is Horse, my constant companion for 18 years.
She is gone now. To me, she was the most beautiful dog in the world.
Her beauty was so unusual it was hard to define and took time to appreciate.
She was a farm dog, a mix of border collie, kelpie, spaniel and blue and red heeler. Her coat was white, with black, red, grey and brown patches scattered like a Jackson Pollock.
“She looks like she’s run through a puddle of oil,” said one bloke, among many who failed to recognise her beauty.
“When I first saw her,” a perceptive friend confessed. “I thought she was ugliest dog ever but, the more I look, I think she’s the most beautiful.”
Her ears dangled like a spaniel’s, a coppery auburn with a luxurious velvety texture and a fringe that appeared crimped.
Named after the ornery cat in Footrot Flats, Horse said as much with her honey brown eyes and white lashes as any human.
She was easily embarrassed, quick to sulk and my most loyal friend.
She could smile a real grin, not the pained grimace some dogs are ordered to perform.
To my mother’s disgust, she slept on my bed, aside my leg with her head across my ankle.
I trained her. She had a huge vocabulary and would fetch a stick, ball, rope, newspaper and other things.
When I had the filthy habit of smoking, she would fetch tobacco, papers, matches and lighter. As a laugh, I considered teaching her to put her tongue out to lick a cigarette paper before sealing it.
Horse loved swimming at the beach, her colouring perfect camouflage in the sand and seaweed.
She would heel through ducks, dogs, pedestrians and traffic, and jump trustingly into my arms from rocky ledges a metre or two above my head.
Oh, and she could climb trees.
On one of our regular walks there was some treated pine children’s play equipment in a rarely used playground. I would get Horse to trot across the top of the monkey bars, wind her way through the maze of huts and tunnels, and run up and down ladders and slides.
I once came across a pack of german shepherds doing similar at another playground, only with their owners trotting alongside, tapping their hands on the pine to indicate where to go.
Most were quite good at it, some had no idea and one was really impressive.
An owner, her shepherd striding aristocratically on a lead beside her, came toward me and Horse.
With the hint of a posh English accent, she remarked of Horse: “What a funny, spotty little dog!”
I stood a good 30m from the playground and told Horse “gew on”, motioning to the equipment.
It was the permission for which she had been waiting. She raced down the slides, stepped up the ladders, tightroped across the platforms and returned to heel, without my command or assistance.
The shepherd owners looked on in awe.
It felt good to show off, but somehow wrong. In Horse’s later years I stopped the cheap tricks because I realised she was a sentient being worthy of more respect.
The dog-master relationship is inequitable, largely for the purpose of making an owner feel loved, needed, proud, strong or smart. I tried to be friends.
After 18 years together, I had learnt one Horse word, which was three exhaled breaths, “ha, ha, haaar”, that meant, “I want to go outside”.
HORSE had learnt enough English to understand most of what I said, the emotional content especially, and how to speak with her eyes and read mine.
Who was the smart one? Who built the bridge?
Horse passed away years ago. I have not got another dog because none, to my eye, compare. I guess I’m a one dog man. I still miss her. She was a person to me.
The reason I tell her story is to explain that I comprehend the love, joy and companionship of dogs.
However, there are creatures such as oystercatchers on our beaches that cannot cope with dogs.
Native wildlife is under pressure from development, global warming and pollution. Dogs can be the death knell for shore-dwelling birds like hooded plovers.
Dog-walking groups are demanding access to southern Tasmanian beaches to which they have been, or potentially will be, banned.
They rail at incursions on their inalienable freedoms.
But liberal democracy is not a laissez faire free-for-all.
It is founded on an idea raised by 19th century British philosopher John Stuart Mill who decreed the “only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”.
We are free to pursue happiness where it doesn’t harm others.
Dog lovers who understand this must communicate it to their lobbies, and we must find safe beaches and other places for people to throw a stick or ball to their best mates.