| The Good Life
You don’t have to be insane to cope with country creatures, but it sure can help.
The first thing city people say when you announce that you are fleeing Auckland and moving to the country is: “You’re brave.” This really means: “Have you gone insane?”
The second thing they say is: “Are you going to have chickens?” To which the emphatic reply is: “Certainly not.” We didn’t move to the country to become clichés.
The third thing they say is: “Are you going to get a dog?” To which the even more emphatic answer is: “Have you gone insane?”
I do not like dogs. They have teeth and they chase cats. I have been known to refuse to go in the cars of dog people. Their cars, like their pooches, pong.
My country friend, The Artist, has had dogs. I said: “Why don’t you get another dog?” He said: “We’re not that needy.” When I tell dog owners this, they get very huffy, which is the point of the telling. It also proves that dog owners, unlike cat owners, are not much given to self-knowledge. You know where you are in the pecking order with a cat – as low as it is possible to be, possibly even lower than a chicken, which at least might be regarded as sport and potentially dinner.
The property we bought in Masterton has a dear little chicken house, with a red climbing rose framing its door. “Like something out of Beatrix Potter,” my cousin said.
The only use for a chicken house is to keep chickens in. We are going to get chickens – in the spring; I don’t want them to get cold.
The farmer whose pretty sheep graze our paddocks has a dog. Her name is Red and she is a kelpie. She is really very endearing and does not smell, but she is something of a flop as a sheepdog. Miles, the farmer, says she has no “oomph”. She is supposed to boss the sheep, but she loves them and licks their faces. She has to be lifted over fences.
Country people are not soppy about animals. When we came to look at the property, I asked the owner what he did about the rabbits. Shot them, he said, and threw the carcasses into the paddocks for the hawks. I said I thought I’d make friends with them. He said: “You’re going to have a lot of friends.”
Country dogs are not friends and they are definitely not fur babies. Most sheepdogs have never seen the inside of a house.
That’s Red, the country sheepdog, in the picture. She posed for this picture, in her armchair in Miles and Janet’s sitting room. She may be lacking in the oomph department, but she is, as you can see, remarkably intelligent for a dog. To a point.
Miles brought her over for morning tea, and the cat, who has never seen a dog up close, threw, literally, a hissy fit. She chased the dog. Red was so terrified she ran back to her car and locked herself in. (I may be anthropomorphising, just slightly.)
She now refuses to come for morning tea. She’s too scared of the cat. Aren’t we all? The cat has taken to country life with alacrity: she has gone quite feral and has taken to glaring at the sheep, which stomp and gallop off. The cat’s favourite food is lamb.
Red is having a phantom pregnancy, which is apparently a thing and expresses itself in a possessive attachment to a chair. I don’t know how this differs from her normal behaviour. I asked Miles how the phantom pregnancy was going and he said: “We’re getting through it.” Country people are effortlessly funny.
Red will be having a proper pregnancy in about six months’ time. We are thinking, ahem, about taking one of her puppies. We have yet to broach this with the cat, whose reaction is likely to be: have you gone insane?