Dog Tales 1

[larrynz]

Some of you are I have no doubt are dog lovers like me, on another forum I had posted about my dogs over the years, thought I would post them here with the hope they are of interest to some of you.

Vanessa
She was a beautiful dog, very crazy, the only dog I have ever had that would climb trees, no I am not exaggerating.
In those days we were semi rural, one year we had a rat outbreak, she would sit in our backyard, then her ears would sit up and she would be off into the long grass, next you would see her head flip back with the rat in her mouth, a squeal and it was over. Never did she break skin, our rat population soon disappeared.
She got her name because we wanted to buy a pram for Jean (must have been ‘65), the model Marilyn wanted was called a Vanessa, we went from shop to shop and never found one, before returning home we looked in a pet store window, those cute pups . So we took home a Vanessa dog instead of a pram, the pram we did buy on another day.
She was so tiny I took her home in my pocket, she was the same size as toy poodle pups, but more pretty, she grew and grew, ended up the size of a larger spaniel.
A neighbour bought a goat to keep his grass down, Vanessa would go play with it, chewed grass side by side, even played head butting. No ordinary dog .
The cat we had had at the same time as ‘Nessa liked to keep her in her place and would attack the poor dog from time to time, she never responded in an aggressive manner, her answer was to sit on the cat until we came to the rescue.
The same cat had kittens, our Vanessa watched with interest, after a few weeks one kitten fell out of favour, a runt the cat decided to dump, carried it into the long grass and abandoned it, ‘Nessa would pick it up and bring it back, the funny side was she would drop the kitten like a mother cat, only she was taller, we could see the kitten blink. To cut a long story short the kitten was reared and found a good home.
By reputation setters have a wonderful mouth to hold game for the hunter, we had proof of that. One day we came home to find ‘Nessa greeting us with our budgie (parakeet) in her mouth, it must have got out of its cage some how, I got the bird out of her mouth unharmed, the only harm was to me, the budgie bit me as soon as I got her free.
Her two great loves were chasing stones and swimming, when I was mowing she would observe to see where I was to mow next then lay a stone in my path, she had noticed if I found a stone I would throw into the long grass. The swimming she loved so much that when we drove over the harbour bridge we always had to close the windows in our car.
Those two great loves came together when we spent a holiday at Lake Taupo, a huge lake of pristine water to swim in plus stones (pumice) that float.

[cheryl]

Larry

Your Nessa sounds like she was very special. It sounds like you gave her a wonderful home. I enjoyed reading about her adventures.

[morningstar]

Larry,

Another special one. But owned by special people.