NOT JUST WITTA DOGS.

MOST OF THE ONE-ACRE BLOCKS ON THE HILL ARE DOG-POUNDS.

You must think I’m a boring old fart with nothing better to do than to listen to dogs all night and day. And you’d be right. Along with all farmers, the forced inaction due to the drought leads to boredom, wife-beating, the pub, terror regarding the future, bankruptcy and blogging.

My avos are dying by the day; there’s nothing I can do, no water I dare use to effect a little dampness to the roots, and each dead tree represents years of nurture and cost. As for general plantation-maintainance, using a tractor is asking for trouble. One spark, just one.

Already many neighbours are burned-out; both land and hope, and my turn could happen any day: twenty years of work obliterated. If the house survives…….but I daren’t think about it. The fact that we’re all in the same boat is no consolation.

So, searching the BOM for any hope each day, as we’ve been conditioned to do, is fruitless and disillusioning; this is a rare and devastating drying-event with no obvious ending, and absolutely no solution.

It’s the inaction that focuses the mind on irrelevant irritations, especially in the quiet of the night, when all the deserted, neglected dogs for miles around are screaming with loneliness.

A new voice made itself heard over the past day: small and howling with utter sadness, hour after hour. We haven’t had a howler before. It seems to engender sympathy with its deserted state, rather than the intense irritation caused by the rabid yappers.

The yappers rule, unfortunately. There’s no sadness in their incessant row. They are just spoilt brats with indefatigable peace-rending. Little machines that no-one ever shuts down.

The big woofers are not so bad; they briefly speak in deep tones out of a sense of duty, then leave off. And here’s the point of the whole problem. It seems that all these canines are kept as some sort of miss-guided home-invasion protection. A cheap warning alarm to keep the nasty ones away. Well, do I have news for you.

A big woofer is a deterrent. A yapper or three is an invitation: there’s no-one home. Yappers advertise to the whole street that the house is available for ransacking. Empty a few cans of boiled cow over the fence and in you go. Take your time, the dogs will let you know when it’s time to scarper.

At night, with the owners tucked-up and the yappers snoring in or under the bed, the invaders gain silent access undetected, until it’s too late. Yappers have little or no awareness by ear or nose; just constant hunger for canned mush. Once asleep only a poke with a sharp stick will rouse indignation..

So all that row, night after night, year after year, serves only to irritate the neighbours. The moral; if you really feel the need for a watch-dog, then GET one. There IS such a thing. And it’s not a pack of tiny yappers. It’s a quiet, vigilant blue-heeler, or a small alsatian-cross, or something not in-bred and fluffy. I know, having suffered severely from a silent and effective guardian.

In youth, selling door-to-door in a desperate attempt to feed starving babies, I became used to household dogs and their danger-level. Ninety-nine percent softies. The occasional one avoided was a danger not only to me but to anyone, including the owner. An eater of small children. But usually that dog displayed its viciousness with snarling dentition and insane focus. We had one in our street in Nundah which used to terrify the kids coming home from school, and anyone passing the gate unaware. I took to carrying a squeezy bottle of dilute juice from those little explosive peppers. Ha! Problem solved. As it lunged savagely at the Cyclone gate it copped a squirt right in the tonsils. Immediate silence. Immediate backing off. I only had to do it once. It remembered me for ever, and I could pass in peace and safety. God help any child that opened the gate to deliver a message.

Now, back to the door-to-door. I always knew I wasn’t welcome, but what’s a starving boy to do? This house was in Gladstone, and on my ordered route, no shirking the rule. I had knocked on the front door; no answer, but the folks were busy inside, so I persevered. Try round the back. I was wearing the uniform of all car-salesmen and others of ill-repute. It was universal and considered stylish for a month or two during that era: white trousers and shoes.

I carried my heavy roll of sales-gear over one arm, my door-rapping knuckles at the ready, and started up the back steps, unaware of the danger. Half way up an agonising pain in my thigh. Utterly scream-worthy, and I did scream. Unbelievable immobilising torture of four big canine teeth which met and clamped through my leg. Scars there fifty years later.

The dog was most excellent; no noise, no warning, not even a growl, no shaking of its prey, it just held me, and its grip tightened if I flinched a millimetre. All I could do was yell, and holy shit did I yell.

A nice lady opened the back door, shocked at the sight of this poor young white-trousered, white-faced bloke with blood streaming down his daks, filling up the white shoe on the way down. The dog let go at a word, and I collapsed where I was. Never seen so much blood, and it was all mine. Dripping from tread to tread.

But, oh, if I had been a small child.

I wonder today why there was no thought of ambulance. Or police. Or charges laid. I limped back a mile to my car and drove in great pain to the motel for R&R. I frightened myself with the trouserless sight as I stripped off in the shower, but though there were four intersecting holes in my upper leg and massive bruising, the bleeding stopped quickly and I was able to limp to a surprised surgery for a tetanus-shot.

Now THAT was a watch dog, and no yapping.