Paws for thought…

CHRIS BENNETT is in dog mode again.

RECENTLY I experienced another of those serendipitous moments that add sparkle to our lives. It was all to do with the search for my new dog. Or perhaps I should say my new dog’s search for me.

I seem to have been reading TIME magazine since birth, (my birth, not that of the magazine in about 1924) and each week I have always looked forward to it popping up in the letterbox. It is the only publication I do not read online.

The cover of the issue of August 16 this year depicted Bibi, a puggish dog with a whimsical expression of resignation and undying patience. Her balloon says, “Way to go, Einstein”, a comment obviously aimed at her owner. It is perhaps the most delightful cover I have ever seen on the magazine.

Not only was I seriously looking for a dog (f), not any dog but the dog, my sensitivities to Bibi’s delightful face were magnified by a recent visit to the Lower South Coast SPCA, my second in a few months.

I was lucky enough to meet Alistair Sinclair, the man who is top dog at the SPCA. Alistair is a devoted and passionate dog man who has many theories, born of a lifetime of trying to understand the mind of the dog.

My late canine friend, Maisie Wiggins, who died of old age in June last year, was a constant source of amusement, amazement and puzzlement to me.

If she did not approve of what I was doing, or about to do, a suitable reaction was adopted. A bath would bring on a balefully reproachful look, followed by her disappearance under some impossibly low piece of furniture, from which vantage she would growl, utterly unconvincingly.

She knew there was to be a walk on the beach before I. There would be a tail wagging frenzy and something approaching cartwheels on the bed. You should understand that she did not sleep in my bed; I slept in her bed. But then I would.

In order to build some sort of plan for retirement I have usually tried to buy a house when my work moved me around the country, as it periodically did. I have always bought a house suitable for Maisie Wiggins or her predecessors, whose names, believer you me, you don’t want to know. In other words I have always lived in a kennel.

Bibi is on the August 16 cover of the illustrious magazine because the lead article that week was about What Animals Think by Jeffrey Kluger. He tells us that new science has revealed that they are smarter than we realized.

Alistair Sinclair and I, I suspect, have known this for a long time.

My visit to the SPCA near the highway in Uvongo, was memorable. Alistair showed me all the kennels, the boarders, the strays, the puppies and the dogs people just did not want any more.

I should tell you the experience was a little more than somewhat harrowing.

This beautifully maintained and run facility (I hate the word, but can’t think of another) is to go on show this Saturday, August 28.

The Open Fun Day will be at the SPCA from 9.30am to 1.30pm, and should be a delight for all the family, especially the youngsters.

The organisation receives no help from the government, thankfully, and it is our SPCA and we should be more than happy to support it ourselves. A dog’s love is completely unconditional; a concept alien to about 99 percent of humanity.

We owe the good people who work, largely volunteers, for the Lower South Coast SPCA a great debt of gratitude.

Millicent was not there, by the way.