Chapter Two
Hello, koolie people, and welcome to Part Two of the Chronicles of Magnet.
I still
ask myself, especially when asked when I am getting my next dog, was I just
lucky? We were in
two
minds whether to get a kelpie, a border collie or a koolie. Boy, did we
make the right decision. Magnet was such a breeze to train, will it go the
same way with the next? When I ask Magnet, he assures me that no, I really
shouldn’t even consider getting another dog. A cat would be fun, maybe a
few rabbits or chooks, and he recently met his first guinea pig which looked
promising, but I really should forget about getting another live-in dog.
Visitors are OK, but this is a one-dog-household.
So where were we in the ramblings of life with a koolie?
I worked for a large telecommunications company and couldn’t resist taking him into the corporate office when he was 10 weeks old, after all, everyone loves a puppy (and I hoped my boss was no exception). He endeared himself to the Executive Secretary by only peeing in the ladies’ toilets (over the drain – how good was that?). He came into the office fairly regularly. Any excuse, really, and he would be running round the floor and then, in true puppy fashion, he would pass out under somebody’s desk. I worked in Customer Service which was part of the Sales and Marketing Group, so there were always heaps of “toys” to play with – sporting give-aways for customers, balls, hockey sacks, things that squeaked. I will never know if his presence helped productivity but he certainly brought smiles to the faces of fairly stressed individuals dealing with customers. I haven’t been with that company since 2002 but they still see Magnet as their mascot (and vote for him on shows such as the ABC Pet Show).
Which brings me to Magnet’s recent appearances on the Pet Show. Thank you to everyone who voted for him! I had sent in a CD of some of his activities and been told that he had been accepted and was appearing on 11 April 2006. Fantastic! Imagine my surprise when, lying in hospital watching television, I see my koolie appearing two weeks earlier than his scheduled show time. He appeared as “The Cleaning Pooch”, cleaning up a spill I had kicked over from his water bowl with a towel he pulled from the dryer. Yes, he won this segment so was through to the preliminary final. Then he appeared two weeks later (all cut from the same CD), he appeared as “Brainy Dog” and won that segment too. He even got a mention by the Animal Behaviourist on the show. He won the next preliminary final, so to date it was Magnet versus Magnet. We excitedly awaited the next finals. Unfortunately, the Pet Show then canned the Star Pets segment as Johnny Young left the show, so we will never know how it would have panned out. However, I am sure we will all agree that koolies rule and would most definitely have won the Show, don’t you think?
My partner, Peter, fixes Mac computers and is often called out for an emergency repair. On one such call, Magnet and I were with him, so we decided that while he visited the customer, I would take Magnet for a walk. The customer was situated opposite an old graveyard, so we began our walk there. Magnet was intrigued. He happily ran round the long-unused graveyard, exploring the overgrown grave sites and the mausoleums, sniffing his way through the long grass. I busied myself searching for the oldest grave while we walked. Suddenly, Magnet disappeared. I looked around, not really concerned as we were well away from any roads but worried he might have got himself trapped in some of the old disintegrating stonework. When he didn’t appear for a few minutes, I whistled him up. With great glee he came diving out of some undergrowth which housed a very old and broken open grave, a huge grin on his face. In his mouth he was holding a large bone. I was horrified! I told him to drop it, which luckily he did. Then I ran for it, Magnet close at my heels and still looking very pleased with himself. Afterwards, I thought I really should have thrown the bone back – I mean, was it human or animal? Raw or cooked? Well, you have to consider these things.
Magnet
was growing up. At nine months old, we went off to the Margaret River, to
attend a friend’s wedding. Western Australia is a very dog friendly state,
so we had an absolute ball, in the bush, on the beach and at the wineries.
He met his first “big reds” (and I’m not talking about wine!) and wisely
decided not to mess with them. Likewise, much as he loves to swim, he was
very tentative about the huge surf rolling in from the Indian Ocean. I did
receive quite a lot of flack from friends back in Sydney on my return when
they asked to see the photos. I had literally dozens of pics of my koolie
and not a single one of the wedding. I made sure this was remedied at the
next wedding. Although frankly, I still don’t seem to have many of the
bride and groom……
When we received in the mail an invitation to a neighbour’s wedding, we were delighted to see the gold calligraphy included Magnet’s name. The wedding was to take place at Wollombi, in the bush, on the property next to our own. It was February and the temperature was 40 degrees. We decided that it was better to dress down (even shorts were contemplated for a while) and the plan to put Magnet in tails was soon discarded, although we did go with the top hat and bow tie. Our friend, North, had decided to tie the knot under one of his favourite gum trees and chairs were laid out in a perfect formation round that tree for the guests. I’ll tell you what, the eucalypt may be beautiful and of great meaning to North and his bride but on that Saturday I wished we had been standing in dense forest to keep the sun off or, better still, air conditioned comfort.
The wedding was scheduled for 2.30 pm. We had loaned our front paddock for guest parking and one of the “parking police” commented that we must live there because “nobody takes a dog to a wedding”. We didn’t argue. I don’t think a single guest lasted longer than 10 minutes before deciding to head up to the house to grab a beer. We were no exception. The caterer did mutter to one of his staff to “kick that cur out of here” until I pointed out that Magnet was an honoured guest. It hadn’t seemed to occur to him that it was quite unusual for a working dog to be wearing a top hat.
By this
time it was 3.30 pm and still no sign of the bride. The guests had by now
rearranged the
perfectly formed semi-circle of chairs to sit under any trees they could
find, the groom had arrived with his groomsmen and was getting stressed that
things were not exactly flowing smoothly, with the exception of the beer
that was flowing extremely smoothly and far too fast. And just as we could
see the bride arriving in her chariot (a bedecked trailer pulled by a
tractor), we noticed that Magnet had discovered the “aisle and arch”. This
comprised a layout of wattle branches down which the bride and groom would
walk and an arch over the ceremony spot. Magnet had earmarked the children
in the gathering and was dragging the wattle off to be thrown for his
entertainment. As everyone was watching the bride’s arrival, it took a
while to realise the devastation going on behind us. Luckily I heard a
child yell “fetch” and turned to witness the systematic destruction of the
aisle and arch. I hurriedly rebuilt the structure as best I could (with the
groom almost having palpitations), found Magnet’s top hat (abandoned during
stick-throwing activities) and managed to look nothing more than hot and
just a bit flustered as the bride walked down the aisle.
The ceremony was beautiful, as was the bride, and somehow her dress remained white despite the thick red dust on everybody else’s clothes. We all had a wonderful time although I do suspect Magnet must have been up to no good and hit the bar, as he later turned up with an idiotic grin on his face and without his bow tie……
Magnet was coming along well in agility. He had blasted through Novice in jumping and had his Jumping Dog title in no time. Not so in agility, where there was always something. It might be missing his contacts, barking me at the weave poles or refusing the cloth tunnel, but we kept on getting rounds with one fault. He finally won his Agility Dog title only this year, which caused much amusement amongst his peers, most of whom are already running in Masters. He is really enjoying herding, and has in quick succession gained his Herding Instinct Certificates and then Herding Tests. He completed his first Herding Test in 58 seconds out of the 10 minutes allocated. I would have been completely delighted except for the Judge putting on her Comments Sheet that the dog had worked very well but the handler needed help ….. We are now up for Pre-Trial. Magnet is also enjoying tracking, although so far we have only trained a couple of times and as snake season is upon us, will probably not get out there again until next autumn. Still, lots of other opportunities to get into mischief in the meantime…..
Which brings us to Magnet being headlines in the local newspaper, and probably not for the best of reasons! It was the Manly Food and Wine Festival and a group of us went along to enjoy the food, wine and ambience, not to mention that, being an outdoor event, dogs are welcome. One of the market stallholders, who knows Magnet from fairly regular visits, asked if he would perform some tricks to help market his didgeridoos and other Australian products. Ever the show-off and proudly Australian, Magnet was more than happy to assist. Part way through his performance, a Council Ranger came up and checked if Magnet was microchipped. When I asked him if he was booking me, the Ranger assured me that he wasn’t. I bet you can guess – a week later, a fine turned up in the mail. I was so incensed that I decided to go to court and fight the infringement. When it came to our day in court, I am not sure what surprised me more. It could have been that it only took the magistrate three minutes to dismiss the case, possibly when he heard that I had character references – not for me but for the dog - and realised it could be a very long day. Then again, it was probably when the case was dismissed and the whole gallery stood up and cheered. Everyone seems to like the underdog winning! Anyway, it made the front page of our local and to this day complete strangers come up to me and say they saw Magnet in the paper. This has even happened with another Ranger who recognised him and assured me that most of them love dogs and also cheered when Magnet got off. Another council has even used him as a test case. Not quite sure what for ……
Do your koolies have a big appetite? For the first two years of his life, Magnet wasn’t in the least interested in food. We did all our training with just a pat for reward or a game of ball at the end. Sometimes he was so picky about his dinner that we had to pretend to call the next door’s kelpie, which seemed the only motivation to eat before competition arrived. Then, at two years old, he turned into a Labrador.
It was January and very stormy. One day he started scratching like crazy with what looked like an allergy rash. How had he got this? He had certainly suffered from diet-caused allergies previously but these had been worked out and right now he was on the same diet, same routine, same walks and exercise. We treated his rash while wondering what had happened. The rash went down, but we also noticed he was putting on weight. Over the next days, with storms raging nearly every day, Magnet appeared to be scratching even more and was definitely getting fat. How could this be? Two days later, we were at home to witness a phenomenon. Another storm came through, no problem for Magnet who ignores them. However, his kelpie mate, who comes over the fence to play with Magnet, hates storms. As the storm began to set in, Marty the kelpie shot through our dog door for protection. Immediately afterwards, Magnet shot out through the dog door and took off down the yard, over the fence, into Marty’s yard. Why? We followed him to the fence and what did we see? There was Magnet tucking into Marty’s Chum. There is no way Marty would allow Magnet anywhere near his dinner normally, but in the event of storms, protection took precedence over appetite. Not so for Magnet – he saw Opportunity with a capital O and polished off Marty’s dinner in quick time. Yes, another nasty rash followed and a strict diet for a few days. This didn’t seem to stop his appearing very smug, though, at being so cunning.
Better finish up for now. Magnet is plaguing me to go out for his afternoon ball game and we all know who is in charge of this household. I will bring you some more chronicles of Magnet over the next months and encourage you all to share your koolie moments with our Club and on the website. Send stories, send poems, send achievements, send photographs – we love good koolie tales and never tire of seeing those koolie-good-looks. Until next time, happy days with your best of working dogs.
28 August 2006
Lorna Miller
0418 404 288