A Dogs Tale

My name is Tai.

I'm a good dog.

 At least that's what Mum and Dad tell me when I'm doing what they tell me to (it's awkward at times but after 49 (dog) years we're getting there). 

I'm usually the stay at home guy when they go off gallivanting around the world telling you their stories of adventure and exotic experiences whilst I sit at home chewing on bones and licking strangers fingers whilst they feed me. This time though, they've let me come along and it's me who'll be filling you in on what happened each day. 

I knew something was up and I was in as they went through the motions of collecting stuff and moving around the home in that way when it’s inevitable that their getting ready to stay away for a while. This time I knew I was in because they saying "road trip" to me and put my bed with the pile of all the stuff. Pretty exciting.

We jumped into an extremely tightly packed car (yet still I had enough room to be me in own my space - as I do without complaining ...I'm a good dog after all) and headed up to Grandma and Grandpa's - which is where my big white peers bark incessantly at shadows. I ignore them. They are stupid. I don't actually say this to them because they wouldn't understand even if I did. Because they are stupid - they are contained, and thus bark at shadows. I know that if I shut up, I can do whatever I want - just so long as that is within the bounds that Dad and Mum set. I am a good dog.

It was pretty exciting - watching them all set up the caravan (which we'd gone through the whole thing a couple weeks earlier), pack it all (freeing up my luxurious back seat condo type traveling lounge), connect it to the car and (after me pushing them along a bit saying “hurry up, hurry up”) we were off on our grand adventure - with me being the main focus of their exploits for the first time in what Dad calls The Blog.

It was a fun few hours on the road to BangaRat (I'm a dog - don't blame me for misinterpretations). The car was doing some pretty funny manoeuvres on the way. It sometimes felt like I was riding on the back of a sheep that had too much funny grass and thus could not walk straight. When this happened Mum and Dad seemed to get pretty stressed and kept saying "swaying". I was loving it (the movement - not the stress from the front seats) and was thinking - "let it go - it's fun - it's only a drunken sheep pushing you up from behind - all you need to do is run around behind it, bark at bit and it'll run straight where you want it to go" - however I'm a good dog so I didn't say anything and let Dad sort it out with all those buttons and stuff that I'm never allowed to touch.

Our new kennel in BangaRat is grouse. It's full of lot's of other people and their dogs. Some of them have sites that are fenced so their dogs can roam around without a chain. I don't need that. I'm a good dog. I hang around the caravan to the extent where Mum and Dad say "No" and that's where I don't go beyond, even when the kids next door have that ultimate exciting thing called a "ball" in play. Arrggghh - I could wet myself (as I did when I was a pup). Yet I stay close to Mum and Dad..because I am a good dog.

The BEST THING EVER is a dog billabong where I get to get wet chasing balls floating in a pristine environment of cascading waterfalls flowing through a landscape of rocks and native grasses whilst Mum and Dad do their thing about telling me what to do. I’d love to learn to swim but just can’t quite get the gumption to take that final last step where my feet aren’t on solid ground. So, I’m not a super dog, just a good dog who has an aversion for deep water.

Wet and happy, Mum and Dad took me into town to get dinner at a local standout Ethiopian café’ only to find it shut, dismembered and not serving and therefore had to resort to microwave dinners from IGA (not happy Mum – she’d been talking about this for months). So as the hot afternoon sun beat down on the pre’s drinks and nibbles under the awning of the kennel, I was happy because I got another wet play in the billabong collecting balls from the cool water and later on a run around the local streets in the dark with Dad who’d extracted the fold up bike from the back of the car. Good times. Now I’m exhausted and curled up in my bed, in my kennel with Mum and Dad next to me and couldn’t be happier. As I drift of to sleep, I wonder …is there a kelpie heaven?