BIGGS ON COMMUNICATING WITH ANIMALS

AMONG the very first books to delight me as a child were the Dr Dolittle stories, written and charmingly illustrated by Hugh Lofting.

I have always believed there are people who can speak to animals. (Of course I speak to my cats all the time, but they only understand me when it suits them. Most cats are like that.) I met one animal whisperer just the other day. A young neighbour came to supper and my two cats immediately went to sit with him, expecting a little chat and a stroke.

They usually stay slightly aloof when I have visitors, but they stayed close to him and had their ears tickled and their backs scratched all evening. They completely ignored everyone else.

There are also people whom animals dislike on sight. I knew one woman who was bitten by dogs three times that I knew of.

On one occasion we were visiting the family farm in the Karoo when an elderly collie got up from the place where he had been sleeping peacefully, walked across the room and bit the woman on the leg quite hard for no obvious reason.

She became hysterical and the dog’s owners were embarrassed and apologetic. “We don’t know what suddenly got into him,” they muttered.

“He’s never bitten anyone before.”

But I knew. She just didn’t like dogs. She’d grown up in a home where dogs were kept as watchdogs, taken for walks by the gardener, fed and housed but never shown any affection.

I think that old collie knew very well that he’d have to do something spectacular if he wanted her to notice him. So he bit her. It worked. She noticed him.

There was an old man who worked on the farm and owned a team of mules. Every weekend he would hitch his mules to his cart and go visiting his friends in the surrounding farms.

Mules are noted for their stubbornness, but Ndoyisile Maliti would talk gently to them and have them stepping up meekly to have their harness strapped on.

I had a donkey called Tony and it was always a dramatic event to get him into his harness.

Tony had a mean kick on him and it took much pushing and swearing to get him inspanned. By the time he was finally between the shafts of my little cart I, and my young friends, were totally exhausted and no longer really in the mood for a cart ride.

Often we required bandaging. We just didn’t speak fluent donkey.

Ndoyisile could handle a team of four mules single-handed without effort. Four little boys couldn’t get a single donkey into harness.

Dr Dolittle would have had no problem. Last Laugh

A small boy stopped a man in the street and asked: “Did you lose a five-rand coin just now, sir?” The man felt in his pocket and said: “Yes, I believe I did. Did you find it?”

“No,” said the lad, “I’m just counting how many people have lost five-rand coins today. It’s amazing. You’re the 23rd.”