It began with Toby.
He was a Maltese/Shiatsu terrier, left to us in a friend’s will. In fact, we were his third owners — he was rescued twice, once from people who didn’t want him and separated secondly by the death of his previous owner. He was a character; highly intelligent, grumpy, and just loved Russell above all things and all people. He tolerated me but he trusted me, and he knew better than to upset me because I was the one who walked him most. Toby took ill while we were overseas; some good friends kept him going but he was suddenly full of cysts and we held him while our vet sent him to the Big Kennel in the sky. We had to stop the car because we cried so much, the house was empty, the various daily routines now non-existent. We swore we’d never have another dog, so difficult was the grieving process for us both. As a couple, he’d become our child, and we decided no more animals.
At the time I was waiting for a back operation, not at all well, but the vacuum left in our home was too much for me to bear. So, I decided to pay a visit to GAWS — Geelong Animal Welfare Society; I decided it wouldn’t do any harm, I’d just have a look at what was available, then tell Russell in case we changed our mind about future dog ownership. I thought a smaller dog would be sensible with my then physical affliction, but there was virtually nothing available. I walked over to the pens which accommodated the larger dogs, and suddenly in the second pen I felt a pair of eyes boring into me. When we were farmers, we bred Kelpies, and this was a keen, intelligent Kelpie head, except he was jet black. His rear portion was something else — Labrador! He turned away from me and began pounding on the door at the rear of his cage, and after a cursory inspection and payment he was ours.
Jenkins chose me! He’d been wandering the streets of Geelong — he’d clearly been dumped there; we think he’d been owned by a senior couple who were too unwell to care for him. He was three years old.
Continue reading “Jenkins.” →
