Ann Wason Moore: Comical canine tales

Sparky, my food-obsessed hound, has a long list of ‘crimes’. These are his most entertaining, writes Ann Wason Moore.

Kanye West is running for president, COVID-19 is back and booming and racist trolls are rampaging on social media … it feels like the world has truly gone to the dogs.

Which is why I’m taking a break from the news of the day and offering instead a mental palate cleanser in the form of comical canine tales. It’s the print version of bingeing on cat videos.

Inspired by my own four-legged flabrador and his lowbrow hijinks, I’m confident that you, dear reader, have a similar appetite for animal anecdotes given the popularity of this paper’s recent story of a pug’s very unfortunate accident.

Riley the pug was hospitalised after eating human faeces containing magic mushrooms at a popular Gold Coast dog beach.

And how could you not read on after digesting this headline: “Gold Coast dog hospitalised after eating ‘human faeces containing magic mushrooms’”.

While Sparky, my own food-obsessed hound, has never ingested drug-spiked poop (yet), he’s participated in enough unfortunate escapades to earn his own page of shame. In fact, it was a long and arduous task to cut his list of crimes down to just the following.

In these dark days of 2020, may his humiliation be your hilarity.

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1. Naughty neighbour

Four weeks ago, I was quietly working in my home office when I heard a knock on the door. It was our neighbour’s son, holding an empty takeaway container, explaining he had discovered our dog in his 87-year-old mum’s kitchen, paws on the table, eating the Chinese food he had just delivered to her.

While I apologetically reimbursed them for my dog’s indiscretion, it remains a mystery how the furry fatso escaped from our fenced property as we are on constant guard for any getaway attempts. Let’s just say this was not his first neighbourhood kitchen raid rodeo.

Indeed, there’s the property across the road from which, early one morning, I heard the lady of the house scream: “Oi! Sparky! That’s my breakfast!” She had only just lifted the kettle to pour a cup of tea when the scavenger struck, stealing the toast off the plate beside her.

And then there was the time when Sparky slipped through the gate before we could stop his 35 kilos of barrelling energy. As we searched down the street, we suddenly saw him come bounding out of a house with a Tupperware container clenched in his doggie jaws … still full of potato chips.

To be honest, I’m amazed anyone on the street still speaks to us.

Sparky has a nose for trouble – but who can resist those eyes?

2. Macadamia madness

Sometimes Sparky’s food addiction bites him in the butt. Literally.

So it was when he broke into the house one afternoon while we were out (he was slim enough at that stage to make it through the oversized cat door), only to find the pantry doors left open. And it just so happened that inside we had a half-kilo bag of macadamia nuts, and it just so happens that macadamias are the only nuts which are toxic for dogs. And Sparky ate every last one.

Which would explain why, the next morning, he was paralysed from the back legs down.

I had to lift his gargantuan mass into the car and drive him to the vet, where they administered an emetic which soon saw nuts flying from both ends. The staff were in a mild state of shock when I returned, admitting they had never seen anything like it. A veritable macadamia shower coming from a dual-end dog-shaped sprinkler.

By the end of this process, Sparky was somewhat dehydrated so they had to give him an IV to replenish the fluids. As he became a little anxious by the needle, they had to inject his backside with a shot of methadone.

The drive home with a drug-addled dog is one we’ll never forget … although I am happy to say Sparky has never touched another macadamia.

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Cheeky Sparky has been responsible for a trail of destruction.

3. Appetite for destruction

To complete the picture, I’ll simply offer a list of all the things I can remember that Sparky has destroyed, consumed, regurgitated or defecated. In no particular order: a Weber barbecue, my tax return (40 pages), my wedding ring (no diamonds), countless socks, a leather belt, multiple shoes, feminine hygiene products, fabric softener, Beakoncye the pet bird (it was traumatic, he thought she was a toy and I had to chase him around the yard with the cockatiel carcass still in his mouth), ear plugs, modelling clay (he pooped out colourful castles), my son’s birthday cake, and more snacks and meals than I care to remember.

Still, he is the most loving and gentle giant, a treasured member of our family, and in this disturbing year, his misadventures are often one of the few things to smile about.

Although I’m not sure the neighbours feel quite the same way.