Love in the Outback

by Deb Hunt

  Two days before Christmas I was down on my knees, poking my fingers through the bars of a cage that contained two eager, eight-week-old Tenterfield terriers (‘alert, loyal, bold, confident, fearless’) with surprisingly sharp teeth. The RSPCA sat in a kind of no-man’s-land between north and south Broken Hill, sandwiched between the railway line and the back of the slagheap on one side, and the Water Board on the other. I was a regular visitor, waiting for a sign that I’d found the right dog. The Tenterfields reminded me of Nipper, the Jack Russell we’d had as children, and when I heard a new litter had come in I checked the ‘Top Ten Dog Breeds for Families’ website. Tenterfields were on the list.

  ‘Would you let us take a puppy on trial over Christmas?’ I asked the nurse, hedging my bets. Maybe I did just want a dog for Christmas.

  ‘We wouldn’t normally, but we’re pretty full at the moment. Hang on, I’ll ask the vet.’

  I wandered across to a cage full of muscular puppies that looked like Great Danes crossed with Rottweilers. The timid beagle cross in there with them looked out of place. He pressed against the bars of the cage with soft paws, softer skin and huge brown pick-me-please eyes.

  ‘You won’t go wrong with him,’ said the nurse, reappearing at my side as I stroked his head. ‘He’s a very gentle dog. I don’t think I’ve heard him bark the whole time he’s been here.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘About three months. The last of a litter; he didn’t get sold for some reason and he ended up here. The vet says it’s OK by the way – you can take one of the dogs for Christmas.’

  ‘What about this one? Could I take this one?’

  She gave his head a rub. ‘Yeah, I reckon you could take Benson.’

  Benson. What a great name. Was this the one?

  I sent CC a quick text. Puppy on trial over Christmas, what do you think? He replied, Up to you. My phone pinged again. House-trained? As if. Not sure, I pinged back.

  CC wasn’t exactly brimming with enthusiasm at the thought of spending our first Christmas together in the company of a stray dog, and a puppy at that, but he did at least agree to a trial.

  ‘We’re about to close now so why don’t you come back tomorrow,’ said the nurse. ‘We’ll be open until midday.’ I went home via the tip to find the one thing missing from my arsenal of dog paraphernalia – a child gate for the laundry door so we could keep Benson contained, just in case.

  The next morning, Christmas Eve, I strung lights and hung slices of dried oranges and lemons on a large pot plant pressed into service as an impromptu Christmas tree. The air-conditioning was on high, the shopping done, water bowls full and the child safety gate was in place. We were as ready as we would ever be. Given the holiday shutdown, we would be having Benson for four nights and five days, which should be plenty long enough to decide if he was the right dog . . . The right dog for us, that is. I had to keep remembering that we were getting a dog. Not just me.

  The nurse at the RSPCA had a string of tinsel draped around her neck. ‘Here you go,’ she said, handing me a surprisingly heavy burden. Benson came equipped with enough food to see him through the shutdown period, like a dog on an all-inclusive package holiday. I cradled him in my arms and carried him out to the bright sunshine. He licked my hand and I was hopelessly in love before we’d left the car park.

  CC was at work and wouldn’t be back until late that afternoon so I had Benson all to myself, like an early Christmas present. I felt skittish, elated, nervous and excited. There was no going back now; the RSPCA was closed for Christmas. Benson would need a lot of looking after and I’d have to make sure I didn’t neglect CC in the rush of enthusiasm for Benson. I could tell CC wasn’t convinced about getting a puppy, especially one with floppy ears and a fair amount of beagle in the mix. But we had a puppy and I had a good feeling about him (a nervous, skittish, elated kind of good feeling, that is).

  I carried Benson into the garden, made sure the chooks were safely penned and let him loose. He wagged his tail and pushed his nose into the dirt under the grapevine, where I’d hidden several stashes of dog biscuits in the hope of keeping him occupied over the next five days. It took less than twenty seconds for him to find and eat the lot. When he’d scoffed the biscuits he turned his attention to the back doormat and chewed a large chunk out of it. Then he headed inside, crapped on the kitchen floor, flopped onto his bed in the laundry and promptly fell asleep. What a dog.

  CC came home unexpectedly early from work and I was keen to introduce him to Benson but he seemed distracted. ‘I don’t feel well,’ he said, patting the sleeping dog’s head. ‘I’m going to lie down for a bit.’

  ‘OK, give me a shout if you need anything.’

  I’d been so stressed about getting a dog, so nervous about what would be required that I was on high alert, wondering if Benson would fit in, worried what CC would think. Now suddenly they were both asleep and the house was silent.

  I squatted down by Benson’s bed and took a closer look at him. He was a funny thing with his rippled head, like a squashed bull-mastiff crossed with a bull terrier (or maybe a staffy?). He had the ears of a beagle and the paws of a lion. Adorable. I stroked his sleeping body and marvelled at how quickly he seemed at home. Seconds later he woke up and wanted to play.

  Some time later I tiptoed into the bedroom to check on CC and was horrified to find him passed out on the bathroom floor. I dropped to my knees beside him and put one hand on his clammy forehead and the other on his pulse. ‘Where am I?’ he mumbled, before vomiting litres of bile mixed with Gatorade.

  ‘Passed out at work . . . where is everyone . . . what time is it?’ He wasn’t making any sense so I called an ambulance.

  ‘Illness is a weakness,’ he muttered as they lifted him onto a stretcher and carried him away. ‘I’ll follow in the car,’ I shouted, heart thudding as CC lifted a weak hand that flopped back onto the white sheet like a fish gasping for water. I didn’t want to let him out of my sight but I had to deal with a puppy (and whose silly idea was that?).

  I picked Benson up and stepped over the child gate (which I couldn’t work out how to open properly), put him in his bed with water and toys, locked up the house and drove to the hospital.

  CC was on the emergency ward, hooked up to a drip.

  ‘I forgot to take water,’ he said, already looking a lot better. He’d gone cycling that morning before work, when it had been thirty-eight degrees. He’d taken his phone with the app that followed his route and recorded his time so he could tell if he was beating his personal best, but he’d forgotten to take water. After the ride he went straight to work, got caught up and didn’t drink anything there either, so by lunchtime he was vomiting because of acute dehydration. He worked in a base full of doctors and nurses but he didn’t want to bother them so he came home and collapsed.

  I sat by CC’s bedside, holding his hand, and the emergency doctor gave me a stern look as if somehow it had all been my fault. ‘Couldn’t you see his skin looked dehydrated?’ he asked. I shook my head, holding CC’s rather dry hand. I stayed with him while they gave him another infusion and carried out ECG checks and blood tests. Eventually they gave him the all clear and we went home. By then Benson had been shut in the laundry for over four hours but he didn’t even whimper when he saw us. I’d been worried about how much looking after a dog would need and it turned out Benson could cope.

  By Boxing Day CC was feeling much better and Benson had destroyed the welcome mat at the back door. He’d also pulled all the unripe tomatoes off every plant he could find. He’d sunk his teeth into the green balls then tossed them over his shoulder, looking up thrilled each time to find another one.

  ‘Is he your ideal dog?’ CC asked.

  ‘We could do a lot worse.’

  Benson had worked out how to worm his way under the wire enclosure around the rose garden (he was part beagle and we did make a poor job of the fence) but
did he eat the chooks when he got in? No. Did he chase them? No. He was more interested in scoffing their food. True, he bounded through the vegetable patch chewing plants and digging holes, and there were echoes of chook mania when I warned him, time and again, to get off the garden, an order he blithely ignored, but so what? He was adorable. He didn’t whine when we left him, he happily spent time outdoors on his own and once, when he could have been digging holes in the vegetable patch, he lay outside his kennel and chewed on an old piece of carpet instead. He slept in the laundry without any fuss and since that lone accident on the first day he never crapped or peed inside. In short, Benson was the best fun ever. I was totally in love with him. Besotted. Bewitched. Bewildered.

  CC was doing his best to like him. ‘He’ll be hard to train,’ he said, standing at the back door and watching Benson dig another hole in the garden.

  ‘Possibly,’ I conceded.

  Benson was easily distracted. I could have his full attention, he’d be as alert as a pointer waiting for a ball, then his head would whip round and he’d start chasing a scent, his lanky body lagging behind a fat wet nose pressed to the ground. When that happened, nothing I did or said would deter him until he’d finished sniffing whatever trail he’d been following.

  ‘He’s not a great guard dog either. In fact he’s not really a dog.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s a pet.’

  ‘He’s both!’

  There was a look of disappointment on CC’s face as he watched Benson flop around the lawn, tossing green tomatoes over his shoulder.

  ‘Boof used to come running with me every morning, then he’d sit in his kennel and wait for me to come home at night,’ he said. ‘When the gasman tried to get round the back of the house one day, Boof trapped him in a corner of the garden and kept him there until the housekeeper arrived to rescue him. Good old Boof,’ he said wistfully.

  Boof was a blue heeler and I shuddered at the thought of an aggressive dog snarling at unsuspecting visitors. ‘Cattle dogs need lots of exercise and you don’t run every morning anymore,’ I said.

  ‘Fair enough, but you still need a guard dog. What’s the point in having a dog if it’s not going to guard your house?’

  ‘Companionship? Fun?’

  CC looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. We both knew that Benson’s floppy ears and soulful eyes would never deter a would-be intruder but so what? Wasn’t that what burglar alarms were for?

  We talked late into the night. The RSPCA opened again the following day and that’s when we either had to take Benson back or agree to keep him. We fell asleep without any decision being made.

  chapter twenty-seven

  CC closed a gap in the curtains to banish the needle of sunlight that threatened to light up the whole room, then he came back to bed.

  ‘Did you feed him?’ I mumbled.

  ‘Later,’ he mumbled back.

  Sleep descended again and I dreamt of large dogs barking aggressively at the back door and then woke to find it wasn’t a dream. I could hear a low growl that wasn’t remotely wimpy or yappy and it was followed by a deep baritone bark. Benson was letting us know he wanted to be fed. I woke CC to tell him the good news.

  ‘Benson can bark!’ I exclaimed. ‘He can repel intruders and scare off burglars. He can keep the house safe!’

  CC pushed a fist into his crumpled pillow and turned over. ‘Great. What happens when they spot his wagging tail?’

  I ignored his grumpy response and got up to feed the adorable Benson. There was no point continuing our late-night discussion; Benson was staying. He could bark! I made up a celebratory breakfast tray of muesli, orange juice, toast and fresh coffee and wafted it under CC’s nose before heading outside with the paper. At eight o’clock it was already well into the high thirties and the only cool spot was under the shade of the pergola, now covered in thick vines that drooped under the weight of ripening grapes. I ignored what looked like a new gap in the chook fence and averted my eyes from the crater-sized holes in the vegetable patch. Benson was staying.

  CC poured coffee and I turned to the classified ads in the local paper, a habit after so much time spent searching for the right dog. ‘Seven-year-old female red heeler cross, friendly and free to a good home.’ I closed the paper and pushed it aside.

  A small voice inside me knew a red heeler cattle dog was more the kind of dog CC would like (‘protective, brave, obedient, energetic, cautious, loyal, faithful’) and Benson was still on trial. I could have taken him back to the RSPCA and we could have trialled the red heeler to get a comparison, but why? What if the red heeler had bad habits? What if it had an aggressive streak? What if it shed hair? My friends in Sydney had a red heeler, a gorgeous dog that shed hair faster than you can shear a sheep. Benson hadn’t shed a single hair since he’d arrived. What if we took Benson back and while we were trialling the red heeler someone else came along, saw how adorable and sweet and loving Benson was and we ended up losing him? What if the red heeler was no good? We might end up with no dog at all. We would just have to accept that Benson was not that far off perfect . . . in my eyes anyway. I resolved to throw the paper away and not show it to CC. The decision was made: we were keeping Benson.

  *

  ‘What number did he say?’

  ‘That must be it, look.’

  A man in a singlet, sporting several days of stubble, raised his hand as we pulled up outside a house towards the end of a street in South Broken Hill, a patch of desert just visible in the distance. A ute sat on the driveway and a large red dog was pacing the sparse front lawn, its head as high as the man’s shorts. With its thickset body it looked more like an ageing Labrador than a red heeler, although the pointy ears gave it away. It was panting in the heat and lumbered off with its tail between its legs as we approached, shuffling in a way that suggested rheumatism or arthritis. Bad hips, anyway.

  ‘Her name’s Maggie,’ the guy said, reaching out a hand. ‘Come round the back, I’ve been waiting for you to arrive so I could feed her.’

  Why did I tell CC about the ad? I should have kept quiet, hidden the paper and he’d never have known. Did I want to find out how he would react to the thought of a different dog? Maybe I wanted to prove that no dog could be better than Benson, or maybe there was a niggle of doubt in my mind too. Whatever the reason, I had told CC about the red heeler ad and he was on the phone straightaway. ‘There’s no harm having a look,’ he said. So there we were, having a look.

  The backyard was as barren as the front and the dog stumbled along after the man in shorts, shuffling sideways any time we tried to approach to stroke her. ‘She’s an outdoor dog,’ the man said. ‘Never been indoors.’

  ‘That’s good,’ CC said, his voice animated, upbeat. I shot him a warning look. I thought we’d agreed, after much heated debate, that any dog of ours would come indoors. ‘What’s she like with chooks?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea, she’s never had anything to do with them.’ The man in shorts handed me a large bowl of food. ‘Here, you feed her,’ he said. I took the bowl of food and the red heeler approached warily, then shuffled sideways and backed off.

  ‘Hang on.’ The man stood in front of the nervous dog. ‘Maggie, sit.’ She sat. ‘Give me your paw.’ She held up her paw and he shook it. ‘Now give me your other paw.’ She obediently held up her other paw and he shook that one too. ‘Good girl.’ He turned to me. ‘Now you can feed her,’ he said. I put the food down and the dog didn’t move, just sat and waited. ‘She won’t eat until you tell her she can,’ he said.

  ‘Go ahead, Maggie,’ I said. She pushed her nose into the bowl and devoured the food as if she hadn’t been fed in days. CC was impressed (and if I’m honest, so was I).

  ‘Dad got Maggie from the RSPCA,’ the man said. ‘Had her since she was a pup. He’s gone into the War Vets’ Home on Thomas Street.’

 
‘So he can’t take the dog,’ said CC.

  ‘Right. Loves that dog, he does.’

  ‘Had many enquiries?’

  ‘You’re the only one. Hang on a sec, I’ll see if there’s a lead in the shed.’ He wandered off and Maggie shuffled from side to side, nervously wanting to approach, but wary about doing so. She eventually settled down on the grass and watched us from a distance. ‘We didn’t say anything about taking her on trial,’ I whispered. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’ll have to see what she’s like with the chooks. If she chases chooks there’s no point even thinking about it.’

  ‘What, check now?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because we’ve still got Benson! We can’t have two dogs on trial at the same time.’

  ‘We’ll put Benson inside while Maggie’s in the garden. We’ll know straightaway if she’s going to chase the chooks.’

  ‘She looks a lot older than seven,’ I hissed as the man came back holding a length of rope. ‘Sorry, I’m not sure where her lead is,’ he said, tying the rope to her collar and handing me the other end.

  I offered the rope to CC. ‘Why don’t you take her?’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘No, she’ll be happier with you. I’ll drive.’

  The lumpy red dog looked at me with suspicion and didn’t move. ‘Come on,’ I said, with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. She stayed put. ‘Magsy, come on,’ urged the man in shorts and Maggie lumbered to her feet, following dutifully as we trooped out towards the car. I moved in a dream, clutching an old piece of rope with a dog attached to the other end, wondering how this was happening. It was all going too fast. I’d only wanted to go and have a look; I didn’t think we’d be going home with her.