Category:

GOOD DOG: GOOD VET

7/4/2015

My dog Pete is dead. The house feels empty. I feel sad.

For twelve years my Fox Terrier has been a loyal witness to a life writ small: part of my everyday domestic life - the cooking and eating, reading, sleeping, the brushing of teeth, the washing of dishes. His enduring wordless companionship helped me through bad times and added joy to the good. He took me beyond my own front door and connected me, when I most needed it, to the life of street, park, hill, river, beach.

Looking after him reminded me to look after myself - what made life good for him, shelter, food, warmth, security, company, exercise, rest, stimulation, purpose, made life good for me too. Pete’s unselfconscious enjoyment of the everyday taught me to relish the simple pleasures of life: a patch of sunlight; good food; a warm glance; a loving touch; a cool drink of water. Nothing very spectacular, but knitted together these moments make a life.

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NEW ZEALAND'S ADMISSION TO UN SECURITY COUNCIL CREATES ACUTE ETHICAL DILEMMA

6/11/2014

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Two men in suits turned up at the house unannounced. I would have mistaken them for Mormons had it not been for the dark glasses, and the black SUV with the tinted windows. The pair exuded menace and clean-cut sincerity in equal measure and had me spooked within minutes. Pete skulked in the back yard while they spoke in sober tones about the clear and present danger which the fox terrier posed to world order.

New Zealand’s recent admission to the United Nations Security Council has mired me in a swamp of moral ambiguity. It’s cost the country millions in lobbying, sweet-talking and outright pleading to be allowed onto the Council beside the U.S.A.

I don’t want to be the one to jeopardise this costly entente cordiale by de-establishing my own anti-terrierist programme.

On the other hand, since I have been eating a Paleo diet, I and my Fox Terrier Pete (the subject of the detainment and surveillance) have grown very close. We now share far more than an interest in long walks and lying about on couches. We have formed a very deep bond through our shared interest in eating plenty of meat and gnawing on bones.

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GREEN THINKING AT THE CAR WASH

20/5/2014

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History tells of epiphanies arriving in the most mundane of places: Newton under an apple tree, Archimedes in the bath, so why not at a car-wash in Vanguard Street?

Let me set the scene. It was growing dark and I was returning from a dog walk with a very muddy Fox Terrier in the car when I first noticed the car-wash. Anyone familiar with my car knows that normally, a car-wash is way below my attention threshold. However, I do have a sensitive nose and on the evening in question the car reeked of wet dog. When I got home I would either have to wrestle a filthy and reluctant dog into the shower or spend the night breathing parfum de mutt through clenched teeth. Therefore the modest sign at the carwash advertising DIY Dog Wash blazed at me from the gloom like neon Eldorado.

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TERRIERIST CELL UNCOVERED IN THE CITY

5/11/2013

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Shhhh! The Dog has finally fallen asleep and I must implement some anti-terrierism strategies while he is unconscious. These measures may seem an abuse of power and border on torture. But if it’s good enough for the US National Security Agency it’s good enough for me. And to quote Dick Cheney "If you want to be loved, go be a movie star”.

The Terrierist

The Dog’s life is going to be very, very different when he wakes up.
From that point on, he will have no contact with the outside world unless it’s mediated by me. I’m changing the password on the computer. I’m removing the Canine Voice Recognition software from the phone and just to be safe, I’m moving the handset to the top of the bookcase out of paw’s reach. There will be no excursions off-leash. Exercise periods will be restricted and the dog will be compelled to wear collar, leash and day-glo orange coat on all walks. He’ll be on a strict diet of water and budget dog biscuits and denied access to human bed and couch.

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GUEST COLUMNIST - THE DOG'S TALE

8/10/2013

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The SPCA recently launched HOWL, a helpline for abused dogs which integrates Google Translate with the latest in Canine Voice Recognition software. Dogs can now report ill-treatment, and access rescue services by telephone. The Dog used this technology to compose his first contribution to The Grey Urbanist.

Guest Columnist

I’m guest contributor to the Grey Urbanist column this week so I should start by introducing myself. I’m Pete, the grey and white fox terrier who until now has had existence on these pages only as the canine companion of your usual columnist Ro Cambridge. She and I tossed around ideas for the column and thought it would be fun to reverse our roles.
You may be wondering how, as a dog, I am able to translate my thoughts into a form which you find intelligible. If so, you are obviously not aware of the rapid advancements in dog-friendly technology.

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HELP! I'M TURNING INTO A BIRD WATCHER

27/8/2013

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For the first time, I've got an inkling of how one could become a birdwatcher - a species I have hitherto thought of as the sad and obsessive, ornithological equivalent of the trainspotter: slightly eccentric loners who prefer birds to people, infamous for their anoraks, notebooks and binoculars.

Emily Dickinson’s poem begins “Started early took my dog - and visited the sea”. In Emily’s case, the dog was real (a Newfoundland named Carlo) and she took long walks in his company, but her visit to the sea was utterly imagined: Emily lived her entire life inland and never saw the sea. In my case, starting early (and sometimes late) and taking my dog, I've been discovering just how close to the sea my new home in The Wood really is.

Neale Park, where I begin my wanderings with the dog each day, is only a couple of hundred metres from the sea but this fact is obscured because State Highway 6 stands between the park and the water’s edge. Or at least it obscures it from the pedestrian and earthbound users of the park like me. For the winged and the airborne however, the highway is no kind of barrier at all.

Sea birds and fresh water fowl strut the park, graze on it, fly over it or wade in its puddles and generally treat the park as an extension of the estuary. In the mornings when the goal posts on the park’s football fields still cast long shadows I’ve counted 70 gulls plucking at the dew-wet grass. Mid-afternoon on another day, I saw a squad of black birds with red bills attacking the fields with exactly the same industry. When a golfer practising his stroke on the park inadvertently lobbed a ball into their midst they whirled up into the sky in a many-winged black shadow.

Mallards and paradise ducks often potter about in pairs on the churned mud of the playing fields. Five small heron I saw one drizzly afternoon, stalking about on long frail legs were almost the same colour as the rain and looked like grey ghosts.

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SHARING A VERY SMALL KENNEL

13/8/2013

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I have spent the last fortnight or so, trying to cram The Dog and my life into my newly-purchased 42 sq metre flat. I'm not sure if The Dog thinks he’s living in my kennel or I’m living in his. All I know for sure is that we are sharing a very very small flat. Forget all that stuff I said a few postings ago about how Small is the next Big Thing. Theory is one thing and practice is another. Talk, as they say, is cheap.

Now that I have a new home, my Fox Terrier Pete is living with me again and I’ve been relearning what it is to share your life with a dog. I’m being reminded that dogs are sentient beings with dreams and longings, needs and instincts who lack the opposable thumbs or the EFTPOS card which would allow them an independent life. You are therefore their gaoler, dietitian, personal trainer and significant other and it’s a lot of responsibility to shoulder.
It requires compassion but nerves of steel withstand the mutely eloquent pleas for a snack from the dinner table, the ears which prick hopefully at the jangle of car keys, and the howls of disappointment and the Prisoner of Zenda looks if you leave home without them. It takes a hard heart to ignore the bedtime pleading to be allowed up onto the bed even when a perfectly comfortable basket and 100% wool blanket has been provided.

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GOOD DOG: GOOD VET

NEW ZEALAND'S ADMISSION TO UN SECURITY COUNCIL CREATES ACUTE ETHICAL DILEMMA

GREEN THINKING AT THE CAR WASH

TERRIERIST CELL UNCOVERED IN THE CITY

GUEST COLUMNIST - THE DOG'S TALE

HELP! I'M TURNING INTO A BIRD WATCHER

SHARING A VERY SMALL KENNEL

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Grey Urbanist by email

GOOD DOG: GOOD VET

NEW ZEALAND'S ADMISSION TO UN SECURITY COUNCIL CREATES ACUTE ETHICAL DILEMMA

GREEN THINKING AT THE CAR WASH

TERRIERIST CELL UNCOVERED IN THE CITY

GUEST COLUMNIST - THE DOG'S TALE

HELP! I'M TURNING INTO A BIRD WATCHER

SHARING A VERY SMALL KENNEL

BLOG TOPICS

ARCHIVE

Enter your email address below to receive postings from the Grey Urbanist by email

Enter your email address below
to receive postings from the
Grey Urbanist by email