It's a dog's life

When I was growing up on a sheep farm in New Zealand, there were dogs as part of the working life of the farm.  They lived in kennels, and we weren't encouraged to make pets of them. There was also another reason for treating dogs with a certain amount of distance. At that time, a particularly hasty parasitic diseas, hydatids, was a probem, and dogs had regularly to be dosed to purge them, as dogs are hosts in the life cycle of this parasite. http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/tapeworms_and_hydatid_disease

So, this meant that my contact with dogs was at a distance, and although we always had at least one cat as part of the family, we never had a pet dog.  Nor many years later, did we have either a cat or dog so our children grew up without the benefit of pets.  Possibly for this reason, a couple of years ago my son and daughtrer-in-law (who have two horses between them), acquired a terrier called Rosie.

Rosie is a mixture of terrier breeds, with Jack Russell predominating.  She quickly started to find her way into our affections, which prompted some thoughts on the long standing relationship between her species and mankind.  It's very clear that Rosie is very adept at reading the mood of the members of her human tribe, which includes not only her nuclear family (Patriarch, Matriarch & Juvenile) but of her extended family.  Surprisingly, my wife, also brought up in a pet free household, has quite taken to Rosie (fortunately, the feelings are reciprocated) and she is now a very welome guest in our household. In fact, when Rosie had been handed over to her other grandparental family, and our house was now dogless, my wife commented that it seemed to be funny without Rosie.

Rosie has come to associate me with long walks which take her into terrier heaven, a world full of woodland and rural scents -- and rabbits (lambs she's less certain of).  While scampering around, she quickly picks up rabbit trails, and then enters the totally focussed world of the hunter.  Instructions to return are ignored.  The hapless dog walker (me) has to wait until the thrill of the chase has worn off.

So, we now have a member of the family who, without fail, demonstrates delight in seeing me and manages to find a way of ensuring that I take her for a walk, come rain or shine.  Truly, it's a dog's life!