Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
As a former owner of an Australian Shepherd, the featured photo today won my heart.
May you spend New Year’s Day celebrating with a special loved one.
I’ll be back later this week with a report of my favorite reading experience from 2018.
Top Ten Things Good Books Are Missing
An Aussie’s love cannot be bought
nor obedience cajoled;
their lightning-spirit’s only caught
when herding their duty-fold
which may consist of more than sheep,
and yes, the legend’s true
that the heels they nip in happy sleep
belong, dear ‘owner’, to YOU.
You hold the leash’s authority-end
and fancy yourself the master,
but try to make an Aussie bend…
uh, can you spell ‘disaster’?
I don’t now if this sonnet can have a sequel
for God made the Aussie to have no equal.
Andrew, I guffawed through the entire poem. You so captured the spirit of my now-departed Aussie, Murphy. When he was a pup, he refused to surrender to the rule of a leash. Every walk with him was a battle, which he won. We tried every sort of leash imaginable–around his chest, on his snout, around his neck–a collar with prongs and without prongs. Nothing worked. Until we tried a French lead. He could roam farther from us, which made is wild heart happy. But even then, he only surrendered to being led after one day he protested being on a walk by falling on his back in an utter refusal to walk. Knowing this was a defining moment in our relationship, I dragged him along on his back down the trail. A man walking past me commented, “In six months he’ll be the best dog you ever had. Aussies are the best.”
I thought, “I’ll be dead in six months from trying to bend this dog’s will to mine.” But just as I had that thought, Murphy realized being dragged on his back was dang uncomfortable. He righted himself and walked quietly beside me the rest of the way. And we did fine on our walks for the rest of his 17 years.
Janet, thank you so much for sharing Murphy with us; I wrote the poem from small comments you’d made in the past about him, on the blog and on FB. I hoped with all my heart that I might catch his spirit for you; that I did puts a bright cap on my 2018.
In all honesty, I wanted to give you a gift; some small recompense for your efforts in keeping this forum, this beloved community going. It has meant the world to me, this place, and continues to do so.
And besides, I too have an Aussie…Megan The Tank, who I think is half Percheron. She’s enormous, willful, and completely devoted to us and to her seventeen non-Aussie brothers and sisters.
She rules with sharp teeth, an iron paw, and a gentle compassion I have seen in no other breed.
Andrew, Megan sounds like she expressed some of Murphy’s qualities as well. After my husband, who was walking Murphy, had a hard fall on a sidewalk in a public venue, someone found him and called an ambulance. But Murphy straddled my unconscious husband and wouldn’t let any strangers near him. After that fall, Murphy wouldn’t let anyone stand behind my husband’s chair. Murphy had decided his job was to protect my husband and not let anyone approach him from behind. And speaking of compassion, whenever someone on a television program sobbed, Murphy marched up the TV and cocked his head from side to side, as if asking how he could help. Yeah, he was a special boy.
Have to jump in to thank you for this, Janet… and LOVED the poem, Andrew! Aussie shepherds are the absolute smartest, I hear.
We’ve had German Shepherds–our “Dynamic Duo One”–Chuck and Maggie, D.D.Two: Reign and Zola; my son also raises police & military Malinois. P.S.– it doesn’t seem to matter how I spell Malinois, it comes out as incorrect (sigh) –he’s training Ari & Nikko right now (or vice-versa). But, who really controls the territory? Bubba & Shu-Shu, our foundling cats! Wishing you all a most blessed New Year.
Leave it to the cats to figure out how to rule the “roost.”