X-NATION.

 

There is a nation that exists but is unknown to anyone except its citizens.  The size of its population is indeterminate, as is the ratio of its racial and cultural mixes.  It exists as an entity but is distributed throughout the globe within the borders of other nations and has the advantage of having no deficit and, at the same time, no surplus.  Its economy revolves solely around obtaining information and selling it on to the highest bidder.  As such its Secret Service is its backbone.

It is so secretive that even they don't know the location of their own headquarters.  All information gathered by it is passed on to its head whose code name is 'N' who passes it on to Miss Holydollar, a ninety-year old secretary with the same typing speed.  She inputs the data into a forty-year old computer called Big-byte, which has a memory capacity of 128K but serves its purpose more than adequately.

Big-byte is an old style computer that overheats so it must be kept in a climate controlled environment.  It is contained in a 7-11's cold store, although which 7-11 on the planet is a secret known only to a very few.  Working in this frigid environment is probably the reason Miss Holydollar has reached the age of ninety with the complexion of a thirty-year old.

Unfortunately, due to frostbite, some of her toes have had to be amputated.  She wears mittens to protect her valuable fingers but has also lost the tip of her nose.

An investigative reporter named Clive, following up on whispers and hearsay, was able to make contact with X-Nation's Secret Service.  He managed to unearth the most celebrated of X-Nation's Secret Service agents who agreed to an interview, speaking to her first by phone.

"Blond here", the agent introduced herself, "Jane Blond."

Clive, after the usual social preamble, asked her:

"Do you have a number?"

Blond replied, "Well you called me, so you already know it."

Our reporter rephrased the question.

"No, I mean a Secret Service number."

Blond replied, "No, we're too secret to count."

The reporter asked if he could interview her in person and she agreed to meet on neutral ground, in a taxi.  Blond told him the number of the taxi that would pick him up at 6pm on a Monday night in the heart of the city in which he worked.  That night the taxi was on time and Clive jumped into the back seat.  Blond was not in the car and the driver, a woman, headed off without a word, carefully checking the rear view mirror.

Five minutes and two kilometres further on Clive asked her when they would pick up the other passenger.

"Shh," the driver said.  "Must check we're not being followed."

Shortly she turned off the road and drove down into a basement car park.

The driver let out a sigh of relief, parked and turned to Clive.

"Blond," she said proffering her gloved hand, "pleased to meet you."

Clive was taken by surprise.  "Good cover," he said, "pretending to be a taxi driver." 

Blond cast him a look of derision.  "This isn't my cover, this is how we get information.  Think about it.  What better way to eavesdrop?"

"Oh," Clive remarked.

Blond shook her head.  "People," she muttered, "think taxi drivers are bottom feeders.  That's why it works so well.  We're damn near invisible."

Clive, noting that Blond was far from invisible, said so.

"Okay, but I'm an exception.  We're meant to blend in.  Nobody does it better, makes you feel sad for the rest."

Clive felt a fibrillation of deja vu.  He'd heard that line somewhere before.

Blond then began to tell him how X-Nation's multi-cultural, multi-national Secret Service gathered its information.

"A percentage of taxi drivers in any city are Secret Service spies for X-Nation," Blond explained.

"Do you have a license to kill?" Clive asked.

She replied, "Our Secret Service carry no guns or obvious weapons, but a car can be used as a weapon."

She then went on to describe the means by which information was gathered.

"It is a mixture of simple eavesdropping, asking apparently innocent questions, or torture at various levels.  There was also a time miniature monkeys went through luggage in the boot, rifling through paperwork to find information or plans for new prototypes.

"But then laptops took the place of paperwork and customers always kept these with them.  That marked the end of the boot monkeys.  Torture remains a viable means of obtaining information and varies from appallingly bad driving to thumbscrews and headbands that deliver electric shocks."

Clive was horrified and interjected,  "But surely, afterwards, they complain to the company or even sue?"

Blond laughed disdainfully.  "The customers remember nothing of this.  If torture becomes necessary they are hypnotised first.  You can still torture a person under hypnosis.  Before they are delivered to their destination a memory is embedded of a pleasant, or a death defying drive, depending on what the Secret Service person chooses to plant in their heads.

"Our methods of hypnosis vary.  Some Secret Service drivers speak incessantly into their phones in a foreign language.  If this endless prattle doesn't hypnotise the customer, the driver tries phone texting and doesn't look where he's going.  This often terrorises the customer into a catatonic state.  If this fails an odourless gas is let off in the car.  It does not affect the driver who has received vaccination against its effects.  However, the gas is expensive and so mind numbing prattle and texting is always tried first.

“Some drivers play hypnotic foreign music but this tends to be ineffectual as the customer usually complains before the music has the desired effect.”

"How does one become a citizen of X-Nation?" Clive asked.

"It is hereditary.  X-Nationals are able to recognise one another by distinguishing code words and other signs.  If a country in which an X-National lives, goes to war with another country in which an X-National lives, they may end up fighting one another.  It's all part of fitting in."

Clive asked Blond what was the most difficult aspect of the job.

"Bloody Acronyms," Blond hissed, "and the pompous business types who use them.  When they talk among themselves in the taxi they use words like 'transparency' and then don't practise it.  I can tell you that torturing these types becomes an absolute pleasure.  The trouble is that even under hypnosis these people use Acronyms and you eventually discover they are using them to hide the fact that they don't even understand their own jobs."

"And they probably consider your job to be menial," Clive dared to say.

"Ha, little do they know.  But you should hear them complain if you don't do it properly.  For heaven's sake their lives are in our hands.  They look up to surgeons and pilots for the same reason, but not to us."

"Tut, Tut," Clive remarked.  "But how do X-Nationals use the funds from the sale of information?  Does it pay your salary?"

Blond snorted and said, "Salary, what salary?  We're taxi drivers.  We support ourselves."

"Then where do the funds go?" asked Clive.

"They all go towards our Space Program.  It may not benefit the present X-Nation generation or their children, but their children or their children's children.  We have singled out a habitable planet for ourselves for when the Earth becomes overcrowded."

"But NASA has recognised all the habitable planets that humans can reach, surely?" said Clive.

"Yes, of course.  However, we have operatives in NASA too.  If we have an eye on a planet we only need to have them mess with the data and class it as inhospitable.  But we don't need to do that."

Clive, becoming more and more intrigued, asked, "So where is the planet you have singled out for X-Nationals?"

Blond looked Clive directly in the eye.

"This is a secret.  Do not write it down."

"All right," Clive agreed.

"You're on it."

"Earth?"

"Yes.  You see, we're funding the Space Program to get everyone except X-Nationals off this planet.  X-Nationals have an average IQ of 140 and we don't overpopulate."

"You mean even taxi drivers have high IQ's?" Clive asked tactlessly.

"Listen," Blond snapped, "Not all taxi drivers are members of X-Nation, but what any taxi driver doesn't know isn't worth knowing.  Remember that."

"Sorry, but moving on, what if a non X-National gets wind of this and wants to stay on Earth, in the future, I mean?"

"They'd have to marry in.  Mind you, their IQ has to be at least 140.  Do you realise that Douglas Adams, who wrote "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", was an X-National?  In his book Earth was originally populated by the detritus of another planet.  It was a spoof on our own plan."

"Yes, it was a fantastic book."

"Indeed," said Blond, "How many people who read pretentious twaddle really know that humour is the finest way of introducing ideas and presenting philosophies?"

"But back to your plan," said Clive not wanting to stray from the subject.  "What if Earth becomes uninhabitable before the Space Program can take the billions of people to another planet, or planets?

"That's why we're working fast to raise the money.  The sooner people leave, the less damage there'll be here.  People think that colonising new planets is the next frontier.  Ha, the real jewel is beneath their feet," said Blond.

"So you fund the US Space Program?" asked Clive.

"Heavens, not only theirs.  We fund Russia's, India's, China's and even Japan's fledgling program.  Having them compete with one another is the surest way to ensure fast progress in this area.  Nations at the forefront of technology are extremely competitive.  Not to mention the fact that whoever gets to a planet first will take out the mining rights, and if they are really greedy, the rights to the atmosphere."

Clive paled at the thought.  "We humans aren't the nicest bunch, are we?"

"Some are," Blond said.

"But how do you expect to get billions of people off the planet?  You'll need a huge number of spaceships."

"Yes, that is the major problem, however, they'll eventually come up with mass transports.  We have tried to contact alien planets for help but to no avail.  If they were willing to help by providing us with details of how their ships work it would really help."

"Aliens!" Clive fairly yelled.

"Yes, of course.  But they obviously want nothing more to do with us."

"More!  Perhaps they just aren't there?" Clive dared to suggest the obvious, at least it was to him.

"Oh, they can hear our communications.  They're just ignoring them," Blond stated with assurance.

"What makes you think they exist, let alone listen?" asked Clive.

"Well how do you think we got here in the first place?"

"Evolution," Clive stated categorically.

"Oh, sure!  Just one animal in billions of years manages to develop self-consciousness.  No way!  Sad to say those over-sized, cold-blooded and stupid creatures, the dinosaurs, stomped and flew around for too long eating and tramping on anything that might have had a viable chance to evolve if they hadn't been around dominating everything with their ridiculous size.  This, and at a time when conditions were so fertile for evolution.  All chance was ruined."

"So," Blond continued, "the big lizards were conveniently wiped out by an oh-so-convenient meteor, also of a ridiculous size, and, lo and behold, one hairy little tree climber gets a kick start.  It had to be a land animal too because, by then, sea creatures had become streamlined for the ocean and had no arms, just flippers and fins.  Creatures without self-awareness only need to eat, so a big mouth, teeth and speed are really all they need.  Arms, on the hand, were essential for a creature with self-awareness because trying to make tools without them would have been bloody difficult."

Clive's head was beginning to spin but he managed to ask, "Do you believe all that?"

"Don't you?  One, I mean just one, creature evolved to a higher level.  Don't you find that a bit strange, given the variety of life on this planet?"

"Uh, maybe," Clive conceded.

Blond went on, "And then this latecomer had to be placed under stress so that his basic thought processes became more complex.  This stress came in the form of having to fight for its survival.  It had been fine up a tree hadn't it?  Now it had to go searching for food as there were more of its kind and food became scarcer."

She continued, "But now we, its descendants, have everything we need so how do we evolve any further?  So far, by some sheer miracle, in spite of the present population, we have enough to eat, so all there's left to do is breed and invent things.  We're no longer under stress to just survive."

Clive didn't necessarily agree as he was grossly underpaid and did find it a struggle.  Then again, he had to remember he was talking to a taxi driver, probably one of the most underpaid workers on the planet.

"I see," Clive said, but he didn't remember what he was saying it about at this point.

Blond hadn't finished.  "So sending humans off into a more challenging environment, and colonising another planet counts as stressful and might give their evolution another kick start."

"We're doing fine at evolving," Clive defended his species.  "We've invented incredible technology and that includes computers."

 "No, the machines are evolving, we are not.  While we concentrate on making machines to do things we can't, our body and brain won't attempt to mutate to do those things.  Just as the first simple organisms mutated gradually to create eyes after they were able to sense heat and light."

"But we're able to do it faster with technology to help us," Clive argued.

Blond raised her eyes to the ceiling and sighed.  "Yes," she agreed, "but it's not evolution, it's modification."

"Well what's wrong with that?"

"Oh, nothing if that's how you see it."

"By the way," Clive said, "why are you telling me so much about X-Nation when it is secret?"

"Maybe I still have some hope for the human race," Blond smiled sweetly, but at the same time Clive noticed, rather strangely.

Blond turned off the meter, which had been running silently all this time.  "We've reached our destination sir.  That'll be $55."

"Well thank you very much.  It's been a very pleasant drive.  Here's a small tip for you."

"Thank you, but you're the one who's been given the tip," said Blonde.

When Clive got out of the taxi, he couldn't understand why he was in a car park.  Nor could he remember why he had taken a taxi in the first place, or anything else about the journey for that matter.

THE END.

"Oy" - A poem about the origins of the Australian accent.

"Transport Ship" by artist Hugh Gittus

How did we, from a land so proper,
End up Down Under speaking Ocker?
It happened thus, as I shall tell,
That Blighty’s jails were overfull,
And Britons who had gone astray,
Were sent instead to Botany Bay.

Transported over ocean blue,
The five vowels – ‘A,E,I,O’ and ‘U’,
Flung about by wind and storm,
Held hands in terror and took new form.
As one they shouted “Oy, Oy, Oy,
Get us off this bloody, bouncing toy”.

Nor was it wise on tumbling ashore
To open the mouth as wide as before.
With heat, dust and flies abounding
'Twas healthier to be flat sounding
Than bare the teeth and thus let in
Any number of nasty, flying things.

The shrill squawk of a Cockatoo
Is nought compared to an Ocker Blue.
Deep vibrations of the throat are
Bypassed for much harsher notes.

This came about from need,
When no one was near enough to heed.
Before telephones were the order,
"Cooee" carried voices further,
From the sinus it emanates
So high that eardrums can deflate.

Though it’s manly to sound low
In Oz it’s not the way to go.
With voices more like crack of whip
Good grammar also gets the slip.
The sound of cricket bat and ball
Does this country more enthrall
Than principles of diction
That are likely to cause friction.

But don’t be high and mighty mate,
For while on you my voice might grate,
One thing I must make clear -
It’s better than anywhere else down here.

by Kim Dessaix

Souls in Fur Coats

A Labrador Retrieval

 

According to the Bible God made woman out of Adam's rib.  If He used a man's body parts to create other beings, His heart must have been used to create dogs.  No other living creature has their capacity for love and loyalty although, in choosing humans as their best friends, their judgement is questionable.

I have been without a canine companion for thirteen years now.  I just couldn't bring myself to get another when, after my last darling dog, Winston, died, I was financially barely able to look after myself.  I am able to now but when I get another, he or she will become family and also the centre of my Universe.  I will put my whole being into ensuring his or her safety, well-being and happiness.  I'm also somewhat tuckered out by this self-supporting thing and I rent.

Soon, however, I will commit.  I am occasionally tempted to go to the RSPCA but know I would depart an absolute cot case wanting to adopt every animal there.  So far I've resisted the temptation.  Nothing makes me more ferocious than someone neglecting or hurting an animal.  No wonder my son is a Veterinarian.  I almost think of it as Karma, my gift to the animal world, that he chose that profession as his career.  I was too much of a mess when I left school to decide what I wanted to do and fate, God or the Great Dog made up for it by having my son choose a profession I would have loved.

I influenced him not at all in this decision.  He first aspired to be a Dentist but to my surprise he chose Veterinary Surgery instead.  I believe I did engender in him my love and respect of animals for he is a lovely and caring Vet and has given his home to three abandoned cats.  He and his wife adopted a black Labrador who won't go up stairs as the cats spooked her once.  Labs are notoriously prone to psychological disorders.  I actually had to get our Vet to sedate Winston once when I moved house as he freaked out so much.  A dog on Valium is not a happy sight and it's best if they just lie down and sleep it off as their balance goes right out the door.

I began life with a Scottie dog called Soda.  My aunt next door had a Boxer called Brandy.  You can guess what the girls of the neighborhood did at happy hour.  Soda died from a tick and I don't really remember him but my parents brought home a Labrador puppy when I was seven.  We named her Lady.  She decided my bed could fit two of us but she had the habit of pushing me further and further up towards the pillow while she commandeered the rest of the bed.  Sometimes she just plain commandeered the pillow.

Lady decides to be top dog

Lady lived to a ripe old age but one day startled my mother when she began to puff up to double in size.  She'd been bitten by a bee.   Mum raced her to the Vet and she was given anti-histamine and recovered.  She was also hit by a car and I remember holding the skin of one of her hind legs together as we rushed her to the Vet.  He stitched her up and she lived.

A dog's life - Lady and the author as a teenager against the beautiful backdrop of Pittwater

She loved our swimming pool and it was a race to dive in ahead of her as, as soon as we dived, she did too and would land on top of us.  I think she thought she was saving us but poor Mum never got to swim alone.  We lived right near Pittwater and we would also try to sneak out in our little boat with an outboard without her knowing.  The next thing she would run down the drive, throw herself into the water and swim after us.  Naturally we had to haul her aboard or a shark would have taken her.  This was a dog who knew her place in the family and wasn't going to be left out of anything.  She died before I was married.

Two girls singing - my mother with Lady

When my husband was transferred we went to Melbourne and I was very lonely so we went to a kennel and chose a Labrador puppy.  The woman who ran the kennel was later de-registered.  She had bred too close and Champagne, as we called our new dog because of her pinky-beige colour, had Petit-Mal epilepsy.  In the kennel she must have had to fight over food with her siblings as, after her first meal with us, she looked like she would actually burst.

One day I buried some old oil in the yard as I simply didn't know how else to get rid of it.  I was young and not au-fait with what to do with such things.  Champagne smelled it, dug it up, and ate it dirt and all.  Thankfully the hallway of the rented house was slate not carpet.  The diarrhoea that exploded from her when she was inside covered the length of the hallway.  I learned to find other places for oil after that.

Darling Champagne

We adopted another dog as well while in Melbourne, an older mongrel we called Bruno who had been dumped at my husband's site.  Bruno had the greatest heart of any dog I've ever known.  He loved and watched over Champagne and they moved with us first to Sydney and then to Perth.  I wish so much that I'd appreciated him more when he was alive but I was a new mother with post-natal depression and trying to cope.  Once he jumped up and put his paws on my shoulders when I was crying trying to comfort me.

When Rob, my husband, first brought him home from the site, we gave him a big floor cushion.  He slept for four days straight.  Champagne would go up and regard him with curiosity but didn't disturb him.  Then, when Rob would leave for work, Bruno would become very upset and howl.  He went straight through the flyscreen on the front door twice.  I got sick of fixing it myself.  I was renovating at that time and knew how.  I asked Rob to take him to work with him.  The Union guys on the site actually voted Bruno in as an honorary Union member.  Eventually Bruno knew that the house was his home and that I was his friend and stayed without a fuss.

 

Bruno on the beach with the author and Asher as a baby

Champagne and Bruno were both gentle with Asher as a baby.  I would never have let him roll on or annoy them the way some adults allow their children to do to dogs.  That is asking for trouble.  Champagne was always eager to play with Asher but Bruno, when resting, kept one eye firmly on him and, if Asher crawled his way, would just get up and move.

Bruno went into a second youth when we adopted him which was just beautiful to see.  While we had to keep Champagne inside the fence, it was useless to do the same the road savvy and independent Bruno.  He would kill Bobtail lizards and present them to me as gifts.  Once, myself heavily pregnant, I had to finish one off that he had left gutted.  It was no use dissuading him.  These were gifts of love.

One of my favourite memories is the one I call 'Asher's first rectal examination'.  I was preparing food in the kitchen and Bruno and Champagne were salivating beneath the bench top on which I worked.  Asher, curious and not yet walking, crawled up to see what was going on and crawled straight up to Bruno's behind.  Bruno was a full male dog with all his appendages intact.  Asher's nose went straight into Bruno's rectum.

Naturally I squealed, dropped what I was doing, picked up son and took him to the sink where I wiped his nose of germs although I'm sure he would have survived any.  Another day we took Bruno and Champagne to a park and the squirter sprinklers came on, the sort that burst forth in powerful, intermittent jets.  Bruno found his heaven on earth.  He put his mouth to the sprinkler and attacked every burst of water.  He could have kept it up forever but after five minutes we decided to take him home lest he fill up with water.

I will never forgive myself for Champagne's tragic end.  In Perth, Rob left the flyscreen door ajar and she followed him.  She was hit by a car and it fractured her pelvis.  Rob took her to the Vet but she was unable to walk for ages.  I was meant to lift her up and carry her outside to wee.  Because of her epilepsy she became aggressive when touched and it became extremely difficult.  Before the accident out Vet had advised me to put her down in case she attacked Asher but I never left them alone together and it was only on waking that she was disoriented.  Had she not been injured I would never have had her put down.

One day, trying to lift her, we both lost our cool.  Champagne snapped and so did I.  I just couldn't cope.  I yelled at her for which I've never forgiven myself.  I tried to make it up and soothe her.  I called Rob and asked him to come home, take her to the Vet and have her put down.  I couldn't possibly lift her, risk being bitten and care for Asher at the same time.  I made up with her while I waited, but I never forgave myself my outburst.  She was my darling girl.  Rob came and took her to the Vet but returned without her body.

I had expected him to bring her home so we could bury her.  He rushed back to the Vet's but the Council had already come and taken the body to the dump.  I never knew where.  I was furious with Rob.  Firstly for letting her out, secondly for not bringing her home.  I shouldn't have been.  He had a lot to deal with emotionally as well but one of the great regrets of my life is that day.  That is how much my dogs are my family.  Even now, over thirty years later, I wonder where she lies and it breaks my heart.

I had the strangest dream before Champagne died.  It was a week beforehand and she had not yet had the accident that would lead indirectly to her death .  I dreamed I was walking through a field of tall, golden grass the height of my head.  She was with me and also a white horse.  We came through the grass to see a vista before us.  Cliffs surrounded a lake beneath us but to our right down a narrow path in the cliff was a lovely valley.  Champagne began to walk down the path and I tried to follow.  Then I realised that the path led to a place where, whoever goes there, become a child forever.

I believe that dream told me where the souls of dogs go and I hope one day to follow.  I can't imagine a better Heaven than one filled with dogs.

END.

Bruno was put down at a ripe old age just a year later.  He seemed to be ill, shaking and in some distress and we decided it was time.  It may well have just been fleas but it was hard to tell.  The Vet came and Bruno was put down gently and buried under a lemon tree in the backyard.  I will always know where he is but in the spirit world I pray he and Champagne are together and that she forgives me.

In Hong Kong, where we moved for three years for Rob's work, I found a beautiful Labrador pup abandoned in our street.  There was no question of us keeping it in our flat but we rescued her, put her in quarantine to ensure she carried no rabies, and fetched her again.  We then advertised her in the paper.  In the meantime we had to keep her downstairs in the large, car park.  The flat's overseer, Mr. Chan, who spoke no English, looked dour and unimpressed by this canine invasion.  With enough hand signals we assured him it wasn't for long.  Mr. Chan obviously did not like dogs.

A lovely Chinese couple from the New Territories who had a house with a yard came and took the dog we had called Snowy as she was very light in colour.  I often wonder if Champagne was letting me make up for her horrible last day in sending us this dog to rescue.  It's strange because there just aren't many Labradors in Hong Kong, let alone a pure breed, and it ended up in our street sheltering under a plastic overhang from the rain.  I came to think the same when we adopted Winston our beloved Labrador.  For the first four years of his life, as long as Champagne had lived, he would have tested the patience of a saint but I loved him.

Asher and puppy Winston already taking on more than he could chew

He became a sensible dear fellow who was the light of my life but he always kept me on my toes.  I've missed him all these years and my other darlings.  I can never replace them.  I'm just waiting for the courage to start again.  I'm at an age at which their memories fill my heart.  They walk with me wherever I go.  I know I must have another but I would like a dog I can lift up and carry over the road rather than have to exert all my strength to hold it back.

Winston began life dragging me on the end of a leash.  In the end I had to wait for him to catch up.  One of my fondest memories is of the time I let him out of our yard for the first time when he was a puppy.  We waited until he was twelve weeks old and he had received all his Parvovirus shots.  I walked him up to the top of our driveway in Perth.  We couldn't see the ocean from there but Winston could obviously smell it.  He suddenly sat down and just breathed.  I have never seen such a look of sheer wonder on the face of any creature as the smell of the ocean reached him for the first time.  There are moments in your life so precious they are indescribable and this was one of them.

We named him Winston because, as a puppy, he had jowls like Winston Churchill.  I have never stopped mourning any of my dogs.  I love them as much as my close human family.  They say that when dogs removed from their mothers too young are prone to chewing to replace the teat they are missing.  Well Winston chewed.  We first put him in a cane dog basket, the ones that are about 18cm high at the sides and lower for access at the front and inside is a cushion.  Winston chewed the cane all the way down to the base until there were no sides left.

We gave him another one and he did the same to it.  He would punish me for going out by getting hold of one of my knee high stockings and swallow it whole.  If I forgot and left one in his reach, he would get it.  Thankfully they never became stuck in his interior but came out a twisted mess in his poo.

The best story of all, however, happened on the day we were to put him in a kennel while we went to visit my parents for the weekend.  He knew what was coming and stole Asher's Speedos.  Asher was eight at the time.  Winston swallowed them whole.  We were concerned they would get stuck inside him so we took  him to a Vet who gave him Ipecac to make him vomit.  He did.  Up came the Speedos fully intact.  We then took him to the kennel and went on our journey.  I left the Speedos soaking in disinfectant and washed them when we came home.  They were as good as new.

Winston was about seven when we moved to Queensland.  Our first rented house didn't have much room for him outside and when we bought a house it had a yard, but at the front where he could get to the road.  The house had a very long ramp leading to the back concrete area and Winston point blank refused to go down it.

We had to put him in a kennel and build steps to an area on the front grass, which we enclosed with a fence.  That done in just under two weeks, we retrieved him and brought him home.  He came inside and went straight to the ramp and went down to the back.  All we could do was laugh at his sheer perversity.  Eventually we put a large, expensive gate at the front to stop him getting on the road and he had the run of the place.

My husband and I broke up within the year.  Naturally our son, fifteen by then, stayed with me as did Winston who belonged with his boy.  We sold our house and moved to a rental house.  It had a steep set of internal stairs that Winston had to use to go down to the backyard.  He was frightened of going down but could handle coming up.  Some nights I could hear him almost skiing on his bottom downstairs.  This was the house where he needed sedation when we first moved in.  It wasn't the stairs.  It was because of the move.  He must have picked up all the unhappy vibes in the humans because he had never had this trouble before.

Eventually it became apparent that Winston had lost his central vision and only had peripheral, hence his fear of the stairs.  Eventually I built a home on acreage with my ex-husbands help.  It had no stairs and Winston was safe to wander.  He could find his way even though nearly blind.  Once a dog knows its territory their tremendous sense of smell guides them.

There was a steep, long grassy slope not far from the house.  Winston would sit on the flat area above it and enjoy the sun.  One day as he was aimlessly sitting and scratching himself his butt traveled closer and closer to the slope.  My partner Jan, who was sitting in the living room called out to me that Winston was beginning to slide down the slope, rear first.  I ran out and, by that stage, had to lie flat and grab him under his front foreleg elbows.  I was waiting for Jan to help and called for him.  No answer.  Winston seemed not at all perplexed and I managed to turn my head to look for Jan.  He was still seated and watching television.  Somehow, unaided, I managed to haul Winston back to the flat even though only his head and front legs were not on the four metre slope.  Winston then trotted off happily unaware he had almost done a downhill run worthy of a ski champion and Jan finally appeared.  All I could think was 'Men!!'

Winston chose to lie beside the television at night.  He would lie facing us.  At around nine o'clock, after giving us looks that suggested we should turn it off, he would get up on the spot, turn around, snort and lie down facing the opposite way.  We knew what this meant but we didn't always comply with his wishes.  I loved it when he came up to our room at night and lay beside the bed.  After a while though, he would always return to his place beside the television even though I asked him to stay.

I would close the doors at night and wouldn't let him out if we were asleep so he had to wake me to go out.  I would wake almost before I heard him coming up the hall to be let out.  I developed a psychic sense of his need.  It was quite strange.  I would accompany him outside and he occasionally liked to run off.  This was a game and I knew just what kind of behaviour he would exhibit before he tried it.  Nonetheless I spent many nights chasing him around the house in the dark.

When I caught him I would take him gently by the collar.  From puppyhood Winston would snarl or try to bite at any action he considered aggressive.  It took time to earn his trust.  He only bit once and that was my husband Rob, who made the mistake of being slightly rough putting his collar on after a bath.  Winston put his teeth into Rob's hand and pinned him to the floor.  I had the clever idea to run to the kitchen and yell "chicken".  Winston released Rob immediately to get his treat.  It was far smarter than trying to get him off another way.  I learned early on that we had trouble training Winston because he was defensive/aggressive.  Training had to done gently as opposed to firmly and once I understood this he became manageable but for his first four years he was like a delinquent teenager.

Winston developed severe arthritis and had such trouble getting up at night that he often wee'd or poo'ed where he lay.  He was most distressed about this so I made him a special mattress.  I bought four inch foam and covered it with thick washable vinyl.  He loved it and I could clean up the mess and wipe it with disinfectant.  He rarely got messy himself but I took care of everything.

The time came when he had to be put down.  Asher was now a Vet but living near Canberra.  He begged me to wait a while until he was home but I just couldn't.  Winston's incontinence became too bad.  One day he started trailing endless drops of urine through the house.  I didn't mind the mess.  I would have done anything for him but I knew it meant his time was up.  The day I called the Vet to come to the house I had all morning with him to give him love and attention.  By afternoon he just lay facing the door and didn't get up even when the Vet arrived.  I swear he knew.

That day breaks my heart.  He lay calmly and sweetly as Mandy the Vet said hello to him.  She sedated him and then injected him.  He was calm all the time and I'm sure he knew what was happening.  After she left we left him there with a cushion under his head and a fluffy toy possum I had let him chew that day.  I still have it.  He put only one little tooth mark in it.

When the people came to take him to be cremated I offered them some tea.  They stayed and we talked as Winston's body lay nearby.  I felt awful talking to them as he lay there.  I really hadn't wanted them to stay.  It seemed heartless to be talking to people with him lying there.  Nonetheless they treated him beautifully.  They laid him on a little stretcher and put a sheet over his body but not his head.  The man went out and took a rose from the garden and put it on Winston's neck, its stem under the sheet.  It was a beautiful way to see him go.

The fluffy toy possum lies beside the urn which hold Winston's ashes on my beside table.  He is kept company by this and a number soft toy Labradors.  Nearby is an almost life-size furry toy Labrador named Woof.  It kept my mother company in her nursing home and amused all her carers.  I am surrounded by dogs.  Winston died one week short of his fourteenth birthday.  That was thirteen years ago and I miss him still with all my heart.  I miss them all with all my heart but nothing has filled my life so completely, tested me to make me a better person or made me as happy as they have.