Dogs, dogs . . .

Crim is the introvert, Fille the extravert. He had an unfortunate childhood: a show dog, he won several prizes for his owner, who liked showing dogs but wasn’t very keen on them as beings – the first thing she did was have his vocal chords cut because he barked too much! He was rescued by a breeder friend of ours, who asked if we could take him. He was fairly shy at first and Fille had to teach him how to run and behave normally, because all he’d known was trotting obediently around the show ring. He’s now fine – but exceptionally loving and affectionate, and sometimes just sits staring into one’s eyes as though to say, ‘You’re not sending me back to her, are you?’ Fille, on the other hand – her name incidentally, is French – fille as in daughter, because she was the daughter of Toorak, the dog we brought out from England when we came to Australia to settle – she is the complete extravert, loving and affectionate when there is something in it for her (mainly food); she rules Crim with an iron paw, and he gives in to her every whim obediently climbing down from a cushion if she wants to sit on it, allowing her to finish off his meals . . . During the day they inhabit the couch (towels spread for them to lie on); he gets down obediently on the strike of six o’clock, when the humans take over the couch for the evening drink. She usually has to be turfed off, with grunts of disapproval.  I have to say that if they live as long as most of our previous dogs I shall be taking them on their morning walk when I’m well into by nineties. But hey – who’d be without dogs?