“He did not stay that way, he did not stay that size, and he is lots of trouble”

Have you ever seen one of those wildlife documentaries where the filmmaker lies in wait, on their stomach, usually dressed as some sort of bush, waiting for the moment the animal they are hoping to capture on film to appear?

Well, that was me the other morning, only I wasn’t in the wild, I was in suburbia, in my lounge room to be exact, lying on my stomach behind a small section of wall that meets the windows that overlook the garden of our new home.

I was in camouflage though, lying amid a fortress of cleverly arranged packing boxes, so that only my eyes could be seen peeking out through that glass into the garden. By this stage you are probably asking yourself – much like the people who walked past that day were – why?

No, I have not become a “twitcher”, although I was on the lookout for a sighting, not of a bird, but a dog. Specifically my dog, Wilson.

Now Wilson is a very big, very hairy golden retriever who we chose because he was the runt of the litter, believing that he would stay that way and we would be sharing our life with a medium-sized retriever which would be no trouble.

He did not stay that way, he did not stay that size, and he is lots of trouble. He is also what’s known as a “free spirit”, and once came home, after being missing for several hours with a red bandana tied around his neck, and an expression that said “I regret nothing”.

Anyway, since we have moved into our new home, he has also become an escape artist and despite our best efforts to barricade any possible exit routes, he keeps getting out.

This means calls from our new neighbours, who are so far loving us, asking if we could please come and remove our giant, hairy dog from their backyards. Clearly, I needed to find out how he was getting out, and so, there I was, lying among the packing boxes, waiting for the moment Simba, the White Lion/Retriever appeared.

And suddenly, there he was, padding through the garden very slowly and looking around suspiciously. “Dammit, he’s onto me”, I thought, slinking down further behind the wall. But then, jackpot!

He had one last look over his shoulder, and then made his bid for freedom, running towards two bushes. “I’ve got you now!” I thought – but then he confusingly turned around again and completely disappeared from my view. Dammit, I thought, I’ve lost him. And then – just as I was about to shift position to get a different angle – a very large, very white, very hairy head rose up from behind the glass on the other side in slow motion. He eyeballed me, his head pressing against the glass, the rest of his body lying flat behind it.

His eyes met mine; the hunter had become the hunted, and Wilson the Wonderdog had outwitted me once again. We both lay there for a while, staring at each other through the glass, until Wilson got tired of it, stood up, and slowly but surely padded over to a small space between two bushes I had dismissed as too narrow for him to get through. It was not too narrow, and just before he squeezed through, he turned to look at me and I cannot say for sure, but I swear he was laughing.