dog days

Rumpole, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

Yesterday was a tale of two dogs and it is touch and go whether I will get through this post without starting to blub and walking away from the my PC.

Sunday started very nicely and Sal, AJ, Harrie and I went to Manly for breakfast and then took a ferry trip to the City and back. This is surely the best bargain in Sydney; if you have kids - who let's face it will cost you a fortune - you get to travel all day on Sydney public transport for just $2.50 per adult. So, if you were so inclined you could cruise from Manly to the City and back all day long. I digress, we did one return trip and then made our way home so the girls could have a sleep and I could have a run.

I decided on a slightly longer run that yesterday's dog walk to Manly and back. To mix it up a bit I'd run the Spit to Manly scenic walk to the beach, then along the front to Queenscliff and back home following the bike path. I'd done a bit of tidying on Saturday night and found an old pair of Asics Nimbus that had to be about 5 buys back. I pulled them on and they felt v-e-r-y comfortable.

It was reasonably warm and sunny but without feeling oppressive - nice summer running. There were a few people about but once I was up the main hill there were not many people so I felt I could take my singlet off without feeling like too much of a twat. I'm not a fan - conceptually - of bare-chest runners, all a bit weekend hero. But hey, I was out of the way and off to the beach, so I put my prejudice aside for a few km.

I ran to the very southern end of the beach before heading north for the 1.6km length of the beach. At North Steyne I ran past a surfboard rental tent that had Paul Kelly's From St Kilda to Kings Cross blasting out and everything was very Australian. Towards Queenscliff I spotted a guy with his daughter and their spaniel. A bit of a sucker for spaniels I stopped for a chat and he told me his story.

He used to breed spaniels but when he split with his wife he lost wife, 2 other English springers and Maxwell. So far, so sad. But after eight years he got back with his wife. Not only that, Maxwell's new owners had not changed over the microchip. So when the dog went missing and was found in Erina, on the Central Coast, it was this fella who the vet called to say "we have your dog." So he got his family and his dog back. I ran off feeling good about life. The rest of the run was basically a long, gentle uphill home which was a little uninspiring. With no GPS I mapped the run at about 17km and finished it in a stop-start 1:37, which is OK.

The rest of the afternoon was chores and the dinner and then the girls went to bed. And then things took a turn for the worst. I was coming back into the yard after refitting a kid seat in the car. I kicked one of the chew toys towards the dogs. Rowlf went for it and so did Rumpole. But Rumpole, who has never really liked Rowlf, had a snarl at the big fella. As I approached them Rumpole threw himself at Rowlf, something he has done a couple of times before. But this time he was not interested in stopping as I tried to grab a hold of the barking mutts and separate them. I can't really tell you what happened as I was busy trying to separate the two. I was not having a lot of luck and our neighbour jumped the fence to help.

Rowlf was barking and the neighbour managed to grab him with relative ease, but Rumpole was not for stopping. Silly, silly boy. I grabbed him again and got a bite on the thumb for it, but I managed to get him into the front yard, away from Rowlf, and things quietened. I probably knew at that time that this was not going to have a good outcome. I was probably in a bit of shock; I felt sort of OK, but was shaking a bit and there was blood coming from a punctured thumb. Fernando, our neighbour, got a couple of scrapes but was OK.

I went inside and Sal cleaned me up a bit before I head to the local medical centre to have the thumb cleaned up properly. Rowlf had a couple of scrapes but got off pretty lightly, Rumpole was OK. I went outside to thank Fernando for the umpteenth time and asked him if Rowlf had made any attempt to bite him. He hadn't, I was enormously relieved to hear. With all calm I headed off.

I knew we'd have to give Rumpole away. I simply cannot have the dogs fighting when we have kids. I was a bit of an emotional wreck - still am, if truth be known. Sal was managing to keep her feelings at bay. When I got home I went straight to the little fella to give him a hug and a pat. All I could say through the tears was "stupid fucking dog, why did you have to do it?"

I said goodbye to him this morning set off to work in tears.

That’ll do for this post.