Wally’s Dog Wattle
Wattle came into my life at two months old, an unusually large tangle of pipe cleaners with lower legs so substantial he prompted my farm neighbour to exclaim: “Cripes! He looks like he’s got gum boots on.”
My cat Sammy took one look and disappeared. Strange behaviour for a normally aggressive stalker of visiting dogs. Then reappearance with a fresh rabbit and “I’m definitely going to be your mate” attitude. And so it was.
Maternal instinct got the better of Silk, my (at the time) six year old deerhound/stag cross, so bonding was instant.
And he grew! 36 inches at the shoulder at 9 months. But importantly he grew in character. Hunting can never be a serious option in this area, so I adopted a joey and a lamb and set about teaching him to differentiate between stock, pets, native fauna and ferals.
That’s the great thing about being able to have your dog with you 24 hours a day. They, and this is especially true of deerhounds, sense your every vibe and soon know precisely what they can and can’t do. And the “hound ear?” Sorry can’t hear you you’re too far away? Well, I used a long lead at first but later on a well placed shot with a “shanghai” seemed to cure deafness.
For the next 7 years we were a familiar sight along country lanes and back roads in the district.
I seldom allowed the dogs on private property, so they restricted their activities to the couple of chain between fences although on occasions a rabbit or hare would be pursued over the fence if there were no stock that could be upset by doing so. A swim and drink in a dam on a hot day didn’t go astray either. And roos, wallabies, deer and goats encountered? Fun to run beside until the familiar call then veer off and lose interest.
Other dogs fell into three categories. Good mates - chased around and inevitably caught with much rich baritone baying. Aggressive strangers - flipped on their backs and demoralized without a scratch to fearsome growls and “move and you’re dead” intimidation until submission was accepted and promotion to first category. And, the “to be ignored at all cost” small yappers.
When it came to bitches, Wattle showed all the finesse of a cave man in line with that presence that emanates from a dog that always expected to be at the top of the hierarchy. He demanded recognition of his station. But he was certainly no rapist and took no for an answer with some grace although the question would be put again and again and again.
Wattle continued to grow and at the time of his debilitating ailments, caused, I now believe, by his pelvis being damaged in the very first days of his life, his weight was a massive 68 kg.
To put this in perspective he was by far the tallest deerhound I have seen and although I always suspected a weakness in his hind end through his inability throughout his life to stand upright on his back legs, he wasn’t disadvantaged in jumping or running.
He did, as time went by, exhibit signs of discomfort after a heavy workout and this was borne out by the discovery, during one of his operations, of muscles torn away from the inside of his pelvis and evidence of a fracture that certainly never occurred any time after he was eight weeks old and, I suspect that the younger he was when this unfortunate injury happened the less likely it was to be detected. Also a green fracture on a new pup would heal very quickly and nobody would be any the wiser about the detached sinews inside the pelvis.
It has been my fortunate lot in life to be able to have my dogs with me at all times and so I have had many great mates and all of them have been unique and appreciated as such.
Breeders whose dogs I have taken as my own include Dorita and the knockabout patriarch Finlay, Judy Fallon and the grand matriarch Gilly, Joe Hands and the dazzling tragic Myles, and my own sweet wonderful Lilka.
But the passing of Yvonne Wynd’s great dog Wattle hit hardest and as his adopted mother Silk and I grieve along with my wife Katia and all those fortunate enough to have known and enjoyed this wonderful ambassador of the best breed of all, I suspect that the only way to close the book will be to one day bring home another pile of twisted pipe cleaners with his gum boots on..
Wally Atkinson
Showing posts with label Dog Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dog Stories. Show all posts
Sunday, August 9, 2009
A Sighthound Story
A Sighthound Story
Wally Atkinson
A friend of mine had a beautiful black stag bitch he called Sweetheart and he’d asked me to find a big running hound, as he described it, to put over her.
Well, as it happened a bloke out in the west Wimmera had a deerhound/wolfhound cross and so my friend brought Sweetheart down from Queensland and left her in the good hands of a hunting dog breeder at Neuarpur near the Sth. Australian border.
This breeder, Greg, had bull terrier/boxer/rottweiler/stag crosses for pigs and he had about 50 of them. Anyway, they put the deerhound/wolfhound cross over Sweetheart and she stayed at Greg’s until she had a litter of about six or eight pups. For Greg’s part in this he was to pick a dog for himself and I would get one too.
Greg chose the biggest dog pup and I chose the runt that was a bitch. I called my pup Silk and Greg called his Shatan. Greg and his wife Toni had two very young boys and Shatan became their special child minder he being such a gentle giant.
It soon became apparent that there was another side to this magnificent hound. He could hunt like no other. As with most giant hounds Shatan showed no aggression towards any of the pig dogs and having been raised with them they just simply ignored each other.
Greg came to respect Shatan’s ability to hunt and so decided to put him over a large pig dog bitch named Audie. Audie looked like a Staffordshire except she was about 24 inches at the shoulder and weighed about 35 kg. The pups were awesome looking animals and Greg used to keep 3 of the males together in their weld mesh yard at the back of the main camp.
To this stage Shatan had never crossed swords with any of the pig dogs so what followed was never expected.
One day when the “soul brothers” as Greg called Shatan’s sons, went out for a run following Greg through the forest they caught up with their old man who had stopped and squatted to evacuate and probably thinking at first that Shatan was a kangaroo silhouetted in the misty dawn light they set upon him in a frenzy of blood lust and poor old Shatan didn’t know what hit him.
Fortunately Shatan survived the attack and although near death was nursed back to health. However, he now had a totally new attitude to any of the dogs Greg owned and being such a complete change of character for Shatan, caught Greg a bit unprepared for what eventuated.
Shatan became aggressive and unfortunately was prepared to kill any dog that didn’t avoid him. And no dog stood a chance for he was not much under metre tall at the shoulder and weighed 70 kg.
Normally of course the dogs all had their own pens and weldmesh yards etc. but for hunting they could be taken out in compatible groups.
Greg was now living by the Castlereagh about halfway between Dubbo and Coonabarabran and I decided to go up and visit him with my 18 month old deerhound and of course Shatan’s sister Silk.
I had camped half an hour from Greg’s the night before and arrived in time for breakfast to be greeted by Greg who suggested I keep the dogs in the trailer until Shatan returned from his constitutional and then proceeded to tell me about his problems with the dog fighting and how he needed to avoid Shatan coming across unrestrained dogs.
However I felt there was no danger in Silk being out, so I opened the tailgate and out bounded Silk just as Shatan appeared and ran over to investigate.
Well, I never saw a dog so happy in my life. Silk did her usual grovel for big brother, something she never did for any other dog in her life and she galloped about in a spontaneous display of hound gymnastics and joy and so too did Shatan. The activity naturally set my deerhound Wattle off and his deep baritone brought Shatan to the trailer. Still he grinned and I was sure he had no animosity toward Wattle or the other young deerhound I had aboard, so I let them out and they had the time of their lives for the next half hour or so because after all, hounds are gregarious animals and Shatan recognised this hound compatibility and obviously appreciate the chance to let down his defenses.
We had a great few days roaming about together and although I don’t hunt my dogs apart from a bit of rabbit or hare chasing they enjoyed the freedom from fences and their normal diet of country lanes and back roads.
There was still one thing though that bothered me and I put it to Greg.
My question was prompted by memory of a discussion I’d had with Greg about 20 years earlier when we were neighbours in the Adelaide Hills and I bred deerhounds and he took a deerhound/greyhound cross but passed him on to someone else because the bullies kept inflicting leg injuries on him.
So I asked him how it was that Shatan had not succumbed to a leg hold favored by many of the pig dogs. “Mate”, he said, “He just hangs out his leg as bait!”.
Shatan’s passed on now but his little sister Silk’s still going strong at 13 years.
Wattle passed on last month after a series of illnesses associated with a pelvic injury the vet tells me may have occurred as early as the first day or two of his life. But I’ll never forget how up there on the Castlereah, sitting by the camp fire, he jumped up and measured himself alongside Shatan and a chill raced up my spine as they stood motionless and stifflegged for an instant, then tore off together for a swim in the river.
Wally Atkinson
A friend of mine had a beautiful black stag bitch he called Sweetheart and he’d asked me to find a big running hound, as he described it, to put over her.
Well, as it happened a bloke out in the west Wimmera had a deerhound/wolfhound cross and so my friend brought Sweetheart down from Queensland and left her in the good hands of a hunting dog breeder at Neuarpur near the Sth. Australian border.
This breeder, Greg, had bull terrier/boxer/rottweiler/stag crosses for pigs and he had about 50 of them. Anyway, they put the deerhound/wolfhound cross over Sweetheart and she stayed at Greg’s until she had a litter of about six or eight pups. For Greg’s part in this he was to pick a dog for himself and I would get one too.
Greg chose the biggest dog pup and I chose the runt that was a bitch. I called my pup Silk and Greg called his Shatan. Greg and his wife Toni had two very young boys and Shatan became their special child minder he being such a gentle giant.
It soon became apparent that there was another side to this magnificent hound. He could hunt like no other. As with most giant hounds Shatan showed no aggression towards any of the pig dogs and having been raised with them they just simply ignored each other.
Greg came to respect Shatan’s ability to hunt and so decided to put him over a large pig dog bitch named Audie. Audie looked like a Staffordshire except she was about 24 inches at the shoulder and weighed about 35 kg. The pups were awesome looking animals and Greg used to keep 3 of the males together in their weld mesh yard at the back of the main camp.
To this stage Shatan had never crossed swords with any of the pig dogs so what followed was never expected.
One day when the “soul brothers” as Greg called Shatan’s sons, went out for a run following Greg through the forest they caught up with their old man who had stopped and squatted to evacuate and probably thinking at first that Shatan was a kangaroo silhouetted in the misty dawn light they set upon him in a frenzy of blood lust and poor old Shatan didn’t know what hit him.
Fortunately Shatan survived the attack and although near death was nursed back to health. However, he now had a totally new attitude to any of the dogs Greg owned and being such a complete change of character for Shatan, caught Greg a bit unprepared for what eventuated.
Shatan became aggressive and unfortunately was prepared to kill any dog that didn’t avoid him. And no dog stood a chance for he was not much under metre tall at the shoulder and weighed 70 kg.
Normally of course the dogs all had their own pens and weldmesh yards etc. but for hunting they could be taken out in compatible groups.
Greg was now living by the Castlereagh about halfway between Dubbo and Coonabarabran and I decided to go up and visit him with my 18 month old deerhound and of course Shatan’s sister Silk.
I had camped half an hour from Greg’s the night before and arrived in time for breakfast to be greeted by Greg who suggested I keep the dogs in the trailer until Shatan returned from his constitutional and then proceeded to tell me about his problems with the dog fighting and how he needed to avoid Shatan coming across unrestrained dogs.
However I felt there was no danger in Silk being out, so I opened the tailgate and out bounded Silk just as Shatan appeared and ran over to investigate.
Well, I never saw a dog so happy in my life. Silk did her usual grovel for big brother, something she never did for any other dog in her life and she galloped about in a spontaneous display of hound gymnastics and joy and so too did Shatan. The activity naturally set my deerhound Wattle off and his deep baritone brought Shatan to the trailer. Still he grinned and I was sure he had no animosity toward Wattle or the other young deerhound I had aboard, so I let them out and they had the time of their lives for the next half hour or so because after all, hounds are gregarious animals and Shatan recognised this hound compatibility and obviously appreciate the chance to let down his defenses.
We had a great few days roaming about together and although I don’t hunt my dogs apart from a bit of rabbit or hare chasing they enjoyed the freedom from fences and their normal diet of country lanes and back roads.
There was still one thing though that bothered me and I put it to Greg.
My question was prompted by memory of a discussion I’d had with Greg about 20 years earlier when we were neighbours in the Adelaide Hills and I bred deerhounds and he took a deerhound/greyhound cross but passed him on to someone else because the bullies kept inflicting leg injuries on him.
So I asked him how it was that Shatan had not succumbed to a leg hold favored by many of the pig dogs. “Mate”, he said, “He just hangs out his leg as bait!”.
Shatan’s passed on now but his little sister Silk’s still going strong at 13 years.
Wattle passed on last month after a series of illnesses associated with a pelvic injury the vet tells me may have occurred as early as the first day or two of his life. But I’ll never forget how up there on the Castlereah, sitting by the camp fire, he jumped up and measured himself alongside Shatan and a chill raced up my spine as they stood motionless and stifflegged for an instant, then tore off together for a swim in the river.
How it all began.
How It All Began
by Wally Atkinson
Fifty years ago I was attracted to an amazing hound owned by friends of my family living near Warragul.
Rex was a red “Staghound” and the preferred house dog from a pack of similar very large hunting dogs. As this was prior to the introduction of “Myxo” their main target was the huge rabbit population.
These dogs I recall leaping on to the tray of a flat top truck to be taken out for their morning hunt. About a dozen in number they left the truck on command and galloped away to catch their prey and retrieve them for their owner who dispatched those still alive retaining any undamaged for processing. Skins to the hat factory in Nth. Carlton and meat to several other destinations.
Occasionally a fox would get up and then even the laziest dogs would be spurred on to greater efforts and the fox quickly dispatched and discarded, generally in one action, and the dogs would resume their task of attempting to stem the tide of the irrepressible rabbit.
Of these dogs the undisputed leader was the magnificent red Rex.
Rex never killed or even harmed the rabbits he caught having been trained to preserve the rabbit for processing. Not all of the staghounds however were able to have that skill which required a very gentle mouth.
Rex’s owner told me that a dog - and I presume he was only talking about staghounds - that was not “blooded” early, would not instinctively kill lesser game.
He explained that “blooding” was the introduction of game that could defend itself to a young hound resulting in a painful bite or clawing and ensuring the dog dispatched the quarry quickly and furiously.
He was not in agreement with “blooding” staghounds he assured me, because the deerhound ancestry ensured that centuries of breeding for the purpose of hunting a gallant and courageous animal capable of inflicting serious damage or even death gave his dogs an innate knowledge of the necessary skills. In this way the hound’s sense of his own great strength and power manifested in his unusual tolerance of breeds of lesser magnanimity and temper.
That was my introduction to the concept of dog psychology.
Somehow I believed that the deerhound was no longer in existence although I had only my own perception to blame for this. Rex’s owner’s stories however soon had me totally captivated by this ancient and noble breed of - I thought - extinct hound.
However a few years later I was billeted out for Xmas holidays at a farm run by the Birkenshaws at Carisbrook and they also had their pack of staghounds. They too had them mainly for rabbit control but whereas the pack at Darnum included reds, brindles and blacks this pack was predominantly gray.
And surprise, surprise, he also had a pair of my mythical deerhounds! They were only a few months old though and he kept them kenneled away from the rest of the pack and of course did not work them with the others.
I remember this pair as very dark but not very hairy (of course) but still had no idea of what an adult looked like so I assumed they would be like those pups.
It would be another twenty years before I owned a registered deerhound although by that time I had owned several staghounds.
I was in South Australia when a cousin who had a horse agisted at Eltham told me of some huge dogs there and one thing led to another and I purchased my first deerhound - St. Ronans Finlay.
Fin had apparently been with Betty Wallace in Qld and was a three year old. This accomplished escapologist had been sent back to Worlingworth because he was a bit unruly. That didn’t faze me too much so I had him sent over by train and one Sunday morning I met the overland at Adelaide station and was led to his carriage in which was a crate designed for a somewhat lesser breed and a very anxious dog urgently requiring a large tree or post to relieve himself after twelve hours of indignity.
Luckily I had brought a choker lead with me because nobody had been game to let him out and he was fairly raring to go. And so we did, at great speed along the station with me sprinting and being dragged from pillar to post so to speak. Fin’s bladder just refusing to empty.
Fin had all the qualities I had expected, especially tolerance of those dogs, regardless of their temperament that chose to react violently to his presence.
If an aggressive dog was met with a physical response by Fin it was with an absolute minimum of fuss and although seemingly ferocious he never used any more force than needed to intimidate his rival usually flipping the astounded animal onto its back and very menacingly holding it by the throat without breaking the skin until it sunk- in that he wasn’t to be messed with.
Finlay had another quaint habit. Small yappy dogs were, as like as not, urinated on to drown out their protests.
Usually however, he would ignore noisy or aggressive smaller dogs as being below his station and not worthy of any response.
I didn’t get too involved in breeding although Fin did sire one litter of deerhounds with a bitch from Judy Hallet’s (Fallon) first litter and also a litter of staghounds from a black top greyhound.
One second generation stag bred back to deerhound produced a remarkable dog very well known in Queensland on the rodeo circuit. Called Hamlet by his breeder, Steve Harvey, his hunting was legend and he completely refuted the “stags are useless on Qld pigs” myth.
At seven months old Hamlet had “streeted” two greyhound bitches at the Echunga (Sth. Australia) training track. The operator hardly believed his age but acknowledged his desire to chase by asking to include him in his breeding program. The fact that Hamlet was three quarter deerhound and not fully grown could only be greeted with disbelief.
I do not breed with my deerhounds any more as I can not guarantee they will find the right home and to me these dogs are all very special and the thought of one of these being mistreated or abandoned is too horrible to contemplate.
However to those dedicated breeders who deal with these considerations please accept my gratitude, after all if we all felt as I do there wouldn’t be any of these noble hounds.
by Wally Atkinson
Fifty years ago I was attracted to an amazing hound owned by friends of my family living near Warragul.
Rex was a red “Staghound” and the preferred house dog from a pack of similar very large hunting dogs. As this was prior to the introduction of “Myxo” their main target was the huge rabbit population.
These dogs I recall leaping on to the tray of a flat top truck to be taken out for their morning hunt. About a dozen in number they left the truck on command and galloped away to catch their prey and retrieve them for their owner who dispatched those still alive retaining any undamaged for processing. Skins to the hat factory in Nth. Carlton and meat to several other destinations.
Occasionally a fox would get up and then even the laziest dogs would be spurred on to greater efforts and the fox quickly dispatched and discarded, generally in one action, and the dogs would resume their task of attempting to stem the tide of the irrepressible rabbit.
Of these dogs the undisputed leader was the magnificent red Rex.
Rex never killed or even harmed the rabbits he caught having been trained to preserve the rabbit for processing. Not all of the staghounds however were able to have that skill which required a very gentle mouth.
Rex’s owner told me that a dog - and I presume he was only talking about staghounds - that was not “blooded” early, would not instinctively kill lesser game.
He explained that “blooding” was the introduction of game that could defend itself to a young hound resulting in a painful bite or clawing and ensuring the dog dispatched the quarry quickly and furiously.
He was not in agreement with “blooding” staghounds he assured me, because the deerhound ancestry ensured that centuries of breeding for the purpose of hunting a gallant and courageous animal capable of inflicting serious damage or even death gave his dogs an innate knowledge of the necessary skills. In this way the hound’s sense of his own great strength and power manifested in his unusual tolerance of breeds of lesser magnanimity and temper.
That was my introduction to the concept of dog psychology.
Somehow I believed that the deerhound was no longer in existence although I had only my own perception to blame for this. Rex’s owner’s stories however soon had me totally captivated by this ancient and noble breed of - I thought - extinct hound.
However a few years later I was billeted out for Xmas holidays at a farm run by the Birkenshaws at Carisbrook and they also had their pack of staghounds. They too had them mainly for rabbit control but whereas the pack at Darnum included reds, brindles and blacks this pack was predominantly gray.
And surprise, surprise, he also had a pair of my mythical deerhounds! They were only a few months old though and he kept them kenneled away from the rest of the pack and of course did not work them with the others.
I remember this pair as very dark but not very hairy (of course) but still had no idea of what an adult looked like so I assumed they would be like those pups.
It would be another twenty years before I owned a registered deerhound although by that time I had owned several staghounds.
I was in South Australia when a cousin who had a horse agisted at Eltham told me of some huge dogs there and one thing led to another and I purchased my first deerhound - St. Ronans Finlay.
Fin had apparently been with Betty Wallace in Qld and was a three year old. This accomplished escapologist had been sent back to Worlingworth because he was a bit unruly. That didn’t faze me too much so I had him sent over by train and one Sunday morning I met the overland at Adelaide station and was led to his carriage in which was a crate designed for a somewhat lesser breed and a very anxious dog urgently requiring a large tree or post to relieve himself after twelve hours of indignity.
Luckily I had brought a choker lead with me because nobody had been game to let him out and he was fairly raring to go. And so we did, at great speed along the station with me sprinting and being dragged from pillar to post so to speak. Fin’s bladder just refusing to empty.
Fin had all the qualities I had expected, especially tolerance of those dogs, regardless of their temperament that chose to react violently to his presence.
If an aggressive dog was met with a physical response by Fin it was with an absolute minimum of fuss and although seemingly ferocious he never used any more force than needed to intimidate his rival usually flipping the astounded animal onto its back and very menacingly holding it by the throat without breaking the skin until it sunk- in that he wasn’t to be messed with.
Finlay had another quaint habit. Small yappy dogs were, as like as not, urinated on to drown out their protests.
Usually however, he would ignore noisy or aggressive smaller dogs as being below his station and not worthy of any response.
I didn’t get too involved in breeding although Fin did sire one litter of deerhounds with a bitch from Judy Hallet’s (Fallon) first litter and also a litter of staghounds from a black top greyhound.
One second generation stag bred back to deerhound produced a remarkable dog very well known in Queensland on the rodeo circuit. Called Hamlet by his breeder, Steve Harvey, his hunting was legend and he completely refuted the “stags are useless on Qld pigs” myth.
At seven months old Hamlet had “streeted” two greyhound bitches at the Echunga (Sth. Australia) training track. The operator hardly believed his age but acknowledged his desire to chase by asking to include him in his breeding program. The fact that Hamlet was three quarter deerhound and not fully grown could only be greeted with disbelief.
I do not breed with my deerhounds any more as I can not guarantee they will find the right home and to me these dogs are all very special and the thought of one of these being mistreated or abandoned is too horrible to contemplate.
However to those dedicated breeders who deal with these considerations please accept my gratitude, after all if we all felt as I do there wouldn’t be any of these noble hounds.
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