Australian and New Zealand Gardening: AUSSIE BROMS LOOKING TO SUMMER.... Nov 2015, 2 by splinter1804

splinter1804 wrote:
Hi everyone - Well Teresa anyway. It seems this forum is getting away from bromeliads and more about dogs which leads me to the story about my last old dog Clyde.

Clyde was my son's dog which he got as a pup and I ashamed to say wasn't very well trained. It wasn't fair on the dog as my son lived with three other young blokes in a house near where they worked and being young blokes their main interest was girls and beer and the dog was left largely to his own devices.

Like all puppies, when not supervised he got up to all sorts of mischief and his main trick was stealing a sock from a pair and burying it. Young blokes as you can imagine weren't the tidiest of people and their clothes were always left where they took them off and consequently there were plenty of socks lying around for Clyde to bury and it wasn't long before everyone was wearing odd socks as there wasn't a matching pair to be found, unless you dug up the back yard.

As Clyde got older the boredom set in when the blokes were away at work all day and eventually he found he could get out of the yard and started to wander around the town. Search as they may, they could ever find where he was escaping from, but he always managed to be waiting in the front doorstep when they got home from work, and still they never found where he was getting out.

One afternoon when they go home from work Clyde wasn’t on the doorstep and subsequently a search was started. After the boys had been driving around the streets for a couple of hours trying to find him they had resigned themselves to the fact that possibly someone had picked him up or he’s been run over and killed. The only other avenue was the dog pound and as that was closed, the search was put on hold until the next day.

While they were eating dinner that night a young lady my son knew who lived right at the other side of town (abut 1.5kms away) rang and asked if his dog was missing; when he asked if she had seen him she answered, “yes, he’s sitting on the lounge with me eating McDonalds and watching television”. Although Clyde was a very intelligent dog (too intelligent for his own good sometimes), he had only been to that house once and that was in the car when my son drove the girl home from the station one day. How he knew to get to her house we’ll never know, maybe he had an inbuilt GPS tracking device.

One night a bloke came to their house, and he was one of those strange people who didn’t like dogs; without ever previously seeing him, Clyde started growling at him which was unusual as he was normally a friendly dog and got on with everyone (he was also a good judge of character).

This bloke took exception Clyde growling and kicked at him; Clyde in return bit him on the ankle and tore his good Nike running shoe, this made him very cranky and he kicked at the dog again even harder, before my son tossed him out of the house. Unfortunately, the damage was done; and after that night Clyde took a dislike to anyone wearing Nike footwear or anything that even looked like it. In the end, if anyone came to the house wearing this sort of footwear, Clyde would have to be put outside for fear he might bite them.

Eventually my son moved in with his present wife and they went to live further north and out of the city. The house backed onto the bush and it wasn’t long before Clyde found another escape route and continued his day trips while they were both at work, and as usual, he was always on the front door step when they came home.

One night the police came to the door to tell my son that a woman who had been jogging past the house reported that Clyde had run out and bitten her on the ankle which required hospital treatment. (as it turned out he hadn’t even drawn blood) and my son was served with a warrant to appear in court.

When the charge was read out this woman had described Clyde as a large light brown Bull Mastiff; the judge said as he had to protect members of the public from this type of large dog, he should recommend that Clyde be euthanized. My son explained, he wasn’t a large dog at all, he was only the size of a Foxie, and his colour was the only similarity between him and a Bull Mastiff . The judge did something most unusual, he adjourned the case until he had a vet’s report on the type of dog Clyde was.

When it came back to court, the judge admonished the woman for allowing everyone to believe from her evidence that Clyde was this large savage dog, however he did say he still had a duty to protect the public and if my son couldn’t contain Clyde in his yard other arrangement had to be made to contain him or else he would have to be destroyed.

In the end my son was fined and Clyde came to live with us and we never had any trouble from him again, as I’m sure like most dogs, he just wanted company. We still always put him out in the laundry if anyone came and they were wearing Nike’s or similar footwear just to be on the safe side.

Clyde turned out to be a great mate of mine and we had him for several years; wherever I went he was always two steps behind me and he was a wonderful faithful little mate and did everything I told him, in fact he was one of the most obedient dogs I ever had (Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks). As he grew older he became less agile and spent more and more time in his seat until one night he had a stroke and I had to call the vet who said he wouldn’t recover and advised he be put down.

Clyde’s now buried under the bench in the shade house where he liked to lie during the hot weather, and there’s not a time I walk past that bench without thinking of my faithful little mate.

Getting back to those dog rules I posted yesterday that started all of this story; when my son first brought Clyde to our house to live he said that he sleeps on the floor on his own bed and won’t be any trouble. That first night I hadn’t been asleep long when something woke me up and it was Clyde burrowing down under the bed covers between my wife and me. It seems either my son was telling ”porkies” or Clyde was just making himself comfortable and setting up the sleeping rules for the future. I must say, he was a good foot warmer on the cold winter’s nights though.

Hi also to Brian, Jean, Trish and Joe, looking forward to hearing from you again soon.

Pic.1 Clyde with my eldest grandson and his friend, Pic.2 As Clyde got older and the arthritis troubled him, he would always back up to the heater during the cold winter nights. Pic.3 is what we found one cold morning after breakfast when Clyde wasn't to be found.

All the best, Nev.