There are some very strange people in this world. Some are strange in a good way. Others are not so fortunate. Then again there are some that you just can’t categorize, but you know they’re really really quite odd. Point in case: Our neighbor……

Now while we don’t really have much to do with him on a day to day basis there are times, good and bad, where our paths have crossed. In fact I’ve probably only ever seen him about half a dozen times in the past six years or so that I’ve lived here?

I was the one in charge of “moving in” all the stuff when we , my ex girlfriend and I, decided to live here. The ex was too busy meeting a deadline for a book so I was taking daily trips to and from each house with a car load of household stuff each time. The first time I made a “delivery” there was a dog in the house. Not “just” a dog, but a cute golden retriever ingeniously called Goldie. Here’s a picture of him.

Meet Goldie

Goldie is a sweet, no-fuss pup who was about two years old when I first moved in. In reference to Doctor Who Goldie is very much like the TARDIS of dogs – smallish and cute on the outside but WEIGHS AN ABSOLUTE TON if you try to move him. I swear the guy must swallow rocks on a daily basis – and a lot of rocks at that! He weighs much more than our own dog, Gus, who’s a lot bigger than him. This is Gus.

Meet Gus

Anyhow, Goldie was here when I first got here and he’s still here now. Not that I mind – I love the little bugger! He’s so funny to watch sometimes and he’s always always sweet and good natured – unless Gus bothers him too much.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but things usually go like this, don’t they?

If you wanted to keep your pet on your property you’d build a fence of some sort, yes? Maybe a moat if one was so inclined – but definitely something like that to make sure your loving family pet stays with you for longer than a day or two?

Within a week or so of moving in this is what we did. We built a wire fence around the perimeter of the back side of the house – making a very large back yard. We had to do that because it’s a huge property here – about 38 acres – and we needed to make sure that Gus stayed close to the house. Until last year Gus has made no effort to actually leave the backyard. Why last year? Well, he picked up some bad habits from when my brother was staying at the house and looking after it while Amy and I were in the States for three months.

Anyhow, the same fence that kept Gus in for a good many years is the same fence that NEVER kept Goldie out EVER! He always found ways of exploiting the fence – usually by digging and crawling under it like a bulldozer-dog possessed! Once he was through the fence he could always get in the house through the dog door.

And why wouldn’t he want to be here? From the very first day we showed him love and attention and always played ball with him and Gus. Well, not so much “ball” with Goldie but “stick” and “rock”. You see Goldie loves sticks and rocks…..and pine cones. He leaves the ball chasing to Gus. In fact we call Goldie the “rock muncher” cause he’s always chewing on the damn things! The weird thing is that I think he’s still got all of his teeth and none of them are broken?

Anyway we always consider Goldie as our dog as well because he spends about 95% of his time at our house – even though he can come and go as he damn well pleases! In fact sometimes when we’ve been out we arrive home to find Goldie in OUR house barking at US while we’re fumbling for our keys to let ourselves in! In other words the neighbors dog is a guard dog for our house! The only time he seems to go home to his “real” house is when it’s dinner time – then it’s straight back here to our house again.

Now it goes without saying that because he spends so much time with us that we’d have lots of photographs of him – and we do! Tons in fact. Hundreds possibly! We’ve also been known, on occasion, to “dognap” him and take him on late night drives to the supermarket or even over to my parents house for a day. That all started because he snuck into the car one night when the back door was open. We didn’t even know he was there until we were halfway to the store. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s been known to happen.

A very doggy Christmas

Early last year while Amy and I were in the States Goldie went missing. My brother emailed me to let me know that he’d been missing for over a week and I seriously considered cutting the trip short and coming back to search for him. As it was I did all that I could do from an “online” point of view – checking out all the council pound and the lost dog websites in the area. After about two weeks of being lost though he was back and I didn’t have to book that ticket home just then.

So when the neighbors need Goldie for anything they usually know he’s here and they come over to or house and get him. We’ve given them the phone number so they can call us up but they usually just come over and grab him. This has worked reasonably well for several years.

Until this year….

Now it was weird at first? The neighbors were going on vacation to Vietnam and Thailand and so they wanted to put Goldie in the kennels while they were away. The trouble is that they didn’t bother trying to get him until the MORNING THEY WERE LEAVING and, as it happened, he wasn’t here at the time which is unusual. Sometimes the little bugger goes “paddock-trawling” and disappears for a few hours. This was one of those times. Anyhow, in a panic the neighbors ask us – for the first time ever – if we can look after him as they can’t afford to hang around. We say “sure” and the next thing you know we LEGALLY have him for the next 20 days! Woo-Hoo! Did we live it up! We took that little knucklehead everywhere and he was like a kid in a candy store for much of it. He checked out the beach, other people’s homes, went to different suburbs – the lot! Probably for the first time in his life for all we know?

Sweet Sweater Pups

Anyhow, after 20 days the neighbors were back and things went back to normal.

Then Amy had her manic attack! On one occasion she marched over to the neighbors to give them an earbashing about how they were mistreating their dog by not spending time with him. Apparently you can become very self-righteous when you have mania, as Amy demonstrated.

After that they locked him up. He barked for days. Then they took him down to the far paddock (a paddock is like a field) and tied him up to an old shed so that, when he barked, he’d be far enough away from them that they wouldn’t be too bothered with it. He barked continuously for days, then the days became weeks.

On two occasions he got off his lead and came running straight to us. The first time one of the boys from next door came to collect him. The second time the dad came.

I was expecting someone. Goldie came inside with about seven foot of rope connected to him with a bolt at the end of it. I was the only one home at this stage because Amy was at the hospital. The doorbell rang and I went to answer it, with Goldie bounding along behind me – still happy that he was with someone again.

The dad was NOT happy. He was yelling and screaming at me and I thought he was gonna hit me at one stage. Not that I was that worried about it. I’d been through so much crap in the past weeks that I was ready to take on anything and not get too phased by it. Anyhow I sat down on the outside bench as this crazy man berated me for something that wasn’t my responsibility in the first place. I told him that if HE was so worried about the dog then HE should do something about it, not me! HE should build a fence to keep HIS dog on HIS property if that was what HE really wanted to do.

He said I was weird and not being responsible, adding that “You should just throw rocks at him. Everyone else throws rocks at the dog to discourage him”. Nope, WRONG nutcase! They don’t. You lie! I know this because Goldie ACTUALLY LIKES rocks and other outside paraphernalia thrown at him and treats it like a game, so if you throw stuff at him it would only encourage him! And could you imagine if you did that to, say, another dog and someone else saw you? You’d probably end up on the news or a current affairs program about cruelty to animals or something. Sheese!

I end up telling the nob-head that I consider Goldie to be our dog rather than his – and that we have the pictures to prove it! It’s a hollow threat though because, legally, we don’t have a leg to stand on. That doesn’t bother me so much as long as the little twerp is looked after and reasonably happy.

So in the end we both agree not to agree and that’s that! The guy drags Goldie back “home”, swearing and cursing at me along the way.

The next day Goldie is back in the house. In fact he wakes me up by jumping on the bed! Things are back to “normal” now and have been for some time. Goldie still spends 95% of his time here and that’s the way we like it!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 19th, 2005 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Family, Home, Mental Health, Pets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.