One spotty dog.

"Even the tiniest Poodle or Chihuahua is still a wolf at heart." - Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, Dogs: The Wolf Within

We have only ever owned one dog; a dalmatian named Christy. Well actually she was officially named Island Cooler but she was my son's dog & he was 5 so not only was it not a suitable name for a child's dog it was a real mouthful. Try shouting that after a bolting Dalmatian.

I have yet to own a completely sane animal & Christy was no exception. From the very first what she liked best to eat was Dearest's underwear. Yum.

Now I didn't enter into the purchasing of a dog lightly. I'm a cat person. Always have been. Dogs mystify me but the kid wanted a dog, you know, & little boys should have a dog a least once in their lives so I began researching dogs. Lots of people wanted to tell me how great labs are but I have serious issues with labs. For starters I think they are incredibly dumb. I'm sure there are exceptions & I'm assured they make wonderful pets but I never got over the lunatic dog that lived beside us in Sydney & insisted on grabbing me by the wrist & escorting me home. Having my hand held by an overgrown bird dog was never my idea of fun.

If I was sane I would have gone for something smallish & manageable. Our neighbours had foxies & kept assuring us they were wonderful pets & never bit. Their dogs bit all my kids at one time or another & they were yappy as well. No yappers for me. I'd have gone for an Irish wolfhound but have you seen the size of those things? The thought of the food bill put me off. I like setters but Sydney friends had one. They saw an awful lot of Sydney because they were always getting calls from complete strangers to come pick up their escaped dog.

I wanted something smart enough to train. Dearest wanted something smart enough to keep an eye on our lunatic kids. Yes, the dog was smarter than my kids. What we got was Christy.

There's lots dog owners don't tell you about dogs. Dalmatians, I read, were carriage dogs & good if you had a fire because they were strong enough & smart enough to drag you out if you were overcome with smoke. No~one mentioned they were also once used as hunters: bird dogs, trail hounds, retrievers & in packs to hunt boar & stags. I got a dog that would suddenly stop in the middle of nowhere & go to point! The first time it happened I thought the dog had lost what little mind she started with. And stubborn. Once on point nothing could distract her. I'd be dragging a dog down the road still trying to point.

Dalmatians are thought to be the first dogs bred selectively for specific traits & they are the only pure bred dog to come with spots ~ not that being spotty is any recommendation in & of itself. They were depicted in paintings as much as 2000 years ago & as guard dogs patrolled the borders of their original home in Dalmatia [now part of modern day Croatia].

Hunters, dogs of war, carriage dogs...so why did no~one ever mention these dogs smile. I am not referring to the usual doggy smirk common to many breeds. Happy Dalmatians lift the upper lip in a serious grin. It was quite handy on unwanted visitors. They'd approach going, 'Good doggie,' Christy would lift her upper lip in happy anticipation, the visitor would freeze then hastily retreat. Only the chooks were more effective.

The thing with dogs is they are all descended from the wild. One of the most fascinating documentaries I ever watched was on a breeding program for Russia's Black Arctic Foxes. The breeders were looking at how wild dogs got to be tame so began breeding for just one trait: friendliness. What happened wasn't what they expected. They got friendly foxes but they also spawned a whole plethora of mutations: colour changes, coat changes, eye colour variations, curly tails, straight tails, short tails, long tails. You name it they got it. Weird isn't it?

Christy was really good with my kids. They used to ride her like a horse but she got her revenge. Waiting till the boys were standing in a close huddle she would sweep through their centre swinging her hips left, right left, sending them flying then stand & grin at them but she would put herself between them & any snakes they stumbled across, rounding them up & herding them homewards out of harms way.

Eventually on Easter morning she presented us with 9 puppies. I had 4 overexcited kids trying to feed chocolate to newborn pups. I had my hands full. Dalmatian pups are born pure white so we had to wait a couple of weeks before we knew how spotty our pups were but Christy was an excellent mother & all 9 survived to eventually go to new homes.

Christy met an untimely & sad end & we never got another dog. I don't think we are good dog owners but we have been lucky with our cats. They have all been happy to parade down the road with our boys & laze beside them while they fished. Mind you they didn't necessarily come home with them & come cat meal time I would have to go look for them & carry them home drugged with sun & satiated on stolen bait.