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New home, new rules

May 10th 2012 08:17

C'mon canine, let's play chasie.

BB: Now listen carefully, Daisy and Larry, we need to have a talk.

Larry: Uh oh.

BB: You are not in trouble. I need to talk to you about the new rules after we move to Tasmania.

Daisy: We aren’t moving to Tasmania for months yet. You said so.

Larry: And we know the new rules anyway: stay inside the fence and stay away from the wallabies, whatever they are.

Daisy: Think monsters which can jump straight over a greyhound on back legs which end in sabre-like claws which can rip your guts out in a heartbeat.

What? Why are you both looking at me like that.

Larry: Yah, bu … umm, gulp …

BB: Very graphic, Daisy. Have you been reading Gothic horror novels again? Calm down Larry. Wallabies are more likely to run than fight. The real danger is that they can hop safely and happily through scrubland whereas a greyhound is likely to break a leg within seconds. The house we want to buy may have a lot of land, but it is uncleared bush. No parks, no orchards. At least until we clear some of it.

Larry: Perhaps we could learn to hop.

Daisy: Anyway, why the angst, Big Boss? As I said, we aren’t moving for ages. We aren’t even certain of moving to a bushland property.

BB: That’s true. Maybe I am being over-sensitive. Maybe I’m just reacting to some disturbing news I heard today.

Daisy and Larry: What news?

BB: I read a news report about dogs which killed 27 penguins in the Phillip Island Nature Park. It was such a tragedy. They are known as Little Penguins and they are protected. They were a popular tourist attraction at a spot called Cat Bay.

Larry: Hahaha, Cat Bay. That’s so funny because …

BB: LARRY!

Larry: What?

Daisy: You’re an idiot.

BB: Look, it’s just a life lesson. Dogs and other animals often don’t mix. These might have been wild dogs, but greyhounds are not the most domesticated of animals.

Daisy: Not domesticated? I think we tolerate humans remarkably well.

BB: That’s not exactly my point. My point is that we will be living in a rural environment and there will be cows and sheep and horses and pigs and who knows what other animals, let alone wallabies, in the area. And there is no way I am going to trust you two not to molest such animals given the chance.

Daisy: Now you’ve hurt my feelings. I think you should trust us to behave responsibly.

Larry: Pigs! That’s where crackling comes from, right?

Daisy: Yes! Like the stuff we had the other night. To die for.

BB: (Sigh). I give up. I’m going to the computer to look up greyhound-proof fence manufacturers.

Larry: I’m going to the back yard to practice hopping.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Environment

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The choker

May 2nd 2012 09:32

pet dogs greyhounds scratchy larry daisy

Daisy: You’re an idiot.

Larry: I know.

Daisy: Those leftovers added to our dinner tonight were absolutely delicious.

Larry: I know.

Daisy: Roast pork offcuts, beautifully and painstakingly cooked by Big Boss, including crackling to die for. And he generously gives it to us. He didn’t have to do that.

Larry: I know.

Daisy: And you spoiled it. Wasted it. Made a mockery of it.

Larry: I know.

Daisy: You should have chewed it, especially the crackling.

Larry: I know.

Daisy: If you had chewed it, you wouldn’t have spent an hour sitting on the sofa sounding like an asthmatic diesel engine running on one cylinder.

Larry: I know.

Daisy: So why are you such an idiot? What possible justification can you give for eating that food in that moronic, thoughtless, disgusting, neanderthal way?

Larry: (Sigh). Daisy, do you really not know the justification? Do you live so much in the suburban present that you have forgotten the past? I have the justification of instinct. It’s an instinct forged by 3000 years of breed history. That’s how long greyhounds have been fighting for survival on Earth, and things were not always as comfortable as they are for us here and now, sitting on a plump sofa with full tummies. True, the food instinct is stronger in some than others, but if I don’t eat daintily like you, if 3,000 years of survival instinct takes over when food is placed in front of me, please don’t make a shallow judgement than I am a glutton. If anything, I am more in touch with our heritage than you are.

Well?

Daisy?

Why are you looking at me like that?

Daisy: You’re right.

Larry: I know.

Daisy: I’m an idiot.

Larry: I know.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Dog dialogue

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A little ray of sunshine

April 29th 2012 10:25

Larry: Do you think I’ll be allowed to take this window to Taswegia?

Daisy: Huh?

Larry: And this spot of carpet. Put them together, at this time of day, and you get this little ray of sunshine which is divinely warming. I want to take it all with me and recreate the effect in Taswegia.

Daisy: It’s not called Taswegia, you feckless furball. It’s called Tasmania.

Larry: Whatever. Do they have windows there? Do they have sunshine there? Do they have this time of day there?

Daisy: Where exactly were you living before you came here, Larry? In a cave? From what I can gather, there will be twice the number of windows in our new home, and with the second-lowest rainfall of any Australian capital city, it will have more sunshine.

Also, the Bosses are looking for a place with a minimum five-acre backyard, which means we will effectively have our own private park to run in. What do you think of that? Larry? Larry, your breathing has gone funny. Are you all right?

Larry: (Huff, puff, pant) Really? You are not just making that up?

Daisy: If you spent more time listening to the Bosses and less time dreaming in little rays of sunshine, you would know I’m telling the truth.

Larry: Our very own private park?

Daisy: Five acres minimum full of nothing but birds, rabbits and wild wallabies. I’d say that constitutes a private heaven, but private park will do.

Larry: Oh boy. I can’t wait until we get to Taswegia.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound

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Lest we forget all those who served

April 25th 2012 03:49

Daisy: It’s Anzac Day.

Larry: I know.

Daisy: Do you know what it stands for?

Larry: Any New Zoomies Attract Cibble.

Daisy: Kibble is spelled with a K, you furry flapper, and Anzac Day is not something to make fun of. Anzac Day, for the sake of our non-Australian and New Zealand friends, is a national day of remembrance for those who gave their lives defending our country.

Larry: Kibble with a K? Really?

Daisy: What’s more, there is a growing opinion that dogs are insufficiently recognised on Anzac Day.

Larry: Dogs died defending Australia?

Daisy: And New Zealand. Yes. Dogs and other animals – such as the heroic donkeys which carried the injured and dead away from the trenches in World War 1 – have played important roles in many wars. We can go all the way back to the mighty war dogs that fought alongside the Roman legionnaires.

Larry: How do you say kibble in Latin?

Daisy: And Hugh Wirth, who is president of the Australian RSPCA and reasonably important as far as humans go, is leading the calls for wider Anzac Day acknowledgement of the roles of dogs and other animals in war. So stop making fun of …

Larry: Sounds a Wirthwhile cause to me. By the way, what’s a flapper?

Daisy: Grrrrr …

Larry: Kibble with a K. I must remember that.
Picture above: thesun.co.uk

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Dog dialogue, History, News

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Happy birthday, Basil and Chili

April 10th 2012 00:23

Basil Brush and Chili Pepper, both aged 19

Main Street East runs through the heart of Shau Kei Wan, a suburb on the north-eastern tip of Hong Kong Island. It is a typical Hong Kong street: noisy, congested and full of hurrying, busy people.

It’s a bad place to be if you are a lost, lonely, abandoned kitten. You would need a miracle to survive.

Nineteen years ago, such a kitten sat blinking at the bustle and the traffic, when she saw a bewildering sight - a human with pale hair. The human stopped, said some quietly soothing words, and then picked up the kitten.

The miracle had happened.

Kittens need a name. This one had been found at the intersection of Main Street East and Basel Road. Like most cats in Hong Kong, it had a short, brushy tail. For a pale-haired human whose childhood was influenced by British television, the answer was obvious.

And so, with a slight adaptation of spelling, Basil Brush got a name. She approved. She especially liked the alliterative Bs. So she decided in turn to name her human Blonde Boss.

Blonde Boss had a friend and Basil named him Bloke Boss. Many years later a greyhound named Scratchy would change that to Big Boss, but for now Blonde Boss and Bloke Boss went into a huddle and decided that, for the long-term welfare and happiness of Basil Brush, she needed a companion. A visit to the RSPCA was required.

It is a small but interesting sidebar to the major political changes surrounding the 1997 reversion of Hong Kong to China that the RSPCA there no longer exists. It is now the SPCA, the organisation having lost its right to the Royal component of its name when the British handed Hong Kong back to its original owner. There were many such interesting sidebars, such as when they took Queen Elizabeth’s portrait off the wall at the GPO, but that’s another story.

It was still the RSPCA back then in the early 1990s, and that’s where the Bosses went to find a friend for Basil Brush.

Instead, they found an enemy. How could they get it so wrong! They came home with a kitten which looked nothing like Basil, which took an instant dislike to Basil and even had a long, western-cat-style tail, unlike Basil. The cats spat, fought over prime position on the mat, and kicked off a lifelong love-hate relationship. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Just how much these two cats would love to hate each other was not immediately apparent and the Bosses, in their human way, tried to unite them nomenclaturally. Basil, they said, please offer a herbfelt welcome to your new friend, Chili Pepper.

Now dragons live forever, and love for our pets is imperishable, but human relationships are more fragile things, and one day the Bosses broke the news to Basil and Chili that, henceforth, they would be living with Blonde Boss only. Chili proposed that Basil move out with Bloke Boss, and Basil moved an amendment that Chili move out, but the Bosses vetoed both moves.

Life settled down again to a comfortable round of eating, sleeping and mat spatting, until one day Blonde Boss announced something even more momentous: “You cats are going to have a bath.”

At least that’s what they thought she said. In fact, she was announcing a move to Bath, England, halfway around the world. And the cats were going too. Basil and Chili looked at each other, overcome by fear of the unknown. For one of the few times in their lives, they felt like giving each other a hug. Even a bath, they thought, would be better than this.

But the move wasn’t so bad, the streets of Bath turned out to be much more peaceful than those of Hong Kong, and there they live still. It’s been 19 years since they were rescued, respectively, from a noisy street corner and an animal shelter cage, and they have seen more of the world than most who start out as abandoned kittens.

Perhaps they have learned a little along the way. Perhaps they have even learned, as the picture above, taken last week, suggests, to share a mat together.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Cats

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To do list: write jubilatory blog post

April 3rd 2012 23:43

Daisy: That's our new home. Larry: It looks green. And the backyard should be huge. Daisy: Not all of it, you skinny flea farm.

The weather so far this week has matched my mood, and my mood has matched my good fortune. Did I say good? Let’s say brilliant. Like a solar flare celebrating a lottery win.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: News

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Ghosts of greyhounds past

February 25th 2012 22:08

Letter to: Heidi Greyhound
Address: Rural South Australia

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound

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The grass god

February 18th 2012 06:26

Daisy: Every time we go to the dog park and you play chase the ball with Little Boss, you get a mouth full of grass.

Larry: Oh, the sublime thrill of the chase, and the balletic grace with which I execute it

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Dog dialogue

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Like a circle in a spiral

February 12th 2012 02:41

Larry: The Bosses are planning to move.

Daisy: I know

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Larry’s Lament

February 12th 2012 01:41

Only the toughest guys are immortalised in poetry.

Daisy: What are you looking so self-satisfied about? You look like you’ve been offered a part in a dog food advertisement.

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May 2012

2 Posts

April 2012

4 Posts

February 2012

4 Posts