for lila the labrador, each day is an adventure

lila harvesting banksia

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I wouldn’t say that I’m a particularly downbeat person, but I do find myself sometimes greeting the day with a touch of trepidation. Worrying needlessly that I won’t be able to get through my long list of whatever. Our Labrador Lila, however, awakens each morning with a sense of adventure. Bursting with anticipation of all the amazing things the day might bring! I think to myself: THAT is the way to live.

Although our house is made of mud brick, it features more than the usual amount of floor-to-ceiling glass. This means that when Lila’s wandering around the property, she can see in and I can see out. Even when I’m sitting at the computer and she’s outside surveying her kingdom, we can keep tabs on each other. Sometimes, however, she forgets I’m watching…

This week’s video clip features Lila caught unawares from my study. I spotted her in the garden “harvesting” the flower heads from a 10-foot-high Banksia shrub. She was so intent upon the task at hand that she failed to see me standing at the window with a camera. I didn’t know Labradors could climb like that, but a few awkward moments notwithstanding Lila managed to scale new heights.

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puppy gets a tummy ache

lila and the vet (with her assistant)

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When you awaken three times in the night to the sound of your puppy retching, it’s hard to feel that all’s well the next morning. And even harder when after breakfast your puppy for the first time ever behaves like the model dog. In our Labrador Lila’s case, morning is her prime time for mischief making, but yesterday morning she seemed hard-pressed to find mischief to make.

When her breakfast predictably resurfaced, I knew we’d be heading off to the vet. Not a mean feat either given Lila’s tendency towards motion sickness. And I had promised myself only to put her in the car when there was something pleasant at the end of the journey. The best laid plans. The poor doggy whimpered and drooled all the way there (with me stroking her head with one hand and steering the car with the other). Thankfully, she’d managed to empty her stomach before our departure.

Not shying away from the vernacular, the vet pronounced that a “sock or jock” blockage was unlikely owing to Lila’s bowel movements continuing in a timely, perfectly formed manner. She thought it far more likely that Lila had ingested something nasty enough to throw the ecosystem of her gut out of whack. She recommended a liquid diet for the remainder of the day, antibiotics, and nothing but chicken and rice (Lila’s favourite!) for the subsequent 48 hours.

We then headed home with me feeling the worst was over. Until Lila came within millimetres of ignoring the vet’s advice and wolfing down the three chicken breasts I’d just picked up from the butcher, without any regard for her proposed convalescence. And then, having averted that disaster (in case I had any doubt about the absence of a blockage), she proceeded to deposit another perfectly formed pile of poo on the back seat of the car.

I hope you won’t think less of me if I confess to pouring myself an extra glass of Shiraz at dinner.

[If you have received this post by email, please click “dog downunder” or “lila gets a tummy ache” in order to view accompanying video in a web page.]

lila the labrador encounters a kangaroo

kangaroo with joey at our dam

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A decade or so ago Phil and I moved from the Big Smoke to rural Victoria. A classic tree change. When we arrived, we felt like outsiders. City slickers. Some of our more seasoned neighbours muttered that we wouldn’t last. (I suspect they’d caught glimpses of our bungled attempts at “working the farm”…doing and undoing each chore at least a few times before finally and accidentally getting it right.)

When a crusty old fencer turned up on our property, he warned me to keep our border collie Rosie out of the paddocks because, he expanded with a sideways glance, the kangaroos would lure her into our dam and drown her. I figured he was playing with me, but I kept the information on file just the same. And even went to the trouble of relaying it to another local bloke while asking him to please shut the paddock gate. He replied that he’d lived around here all his life and had never seen the likes of that.

Yet he’d barely uttered the words (and hadn’t quite shut the gate!) when bullet-like Rosie shot through ready to round up a mob of kangaroos grazing a hundred metres away. And, lo and behold, within seconds one of them had hopped into the dam and swum to the deepest part with Rosie madly paddling behind. It wasn’t until the kangaroo faced her and started swiping the air with its razor claws that Rosie thankfully had second thoughts and hightailed it back to shore. Nevertheless, while scrambling across the paddock (the bloke pleading with me not to jump into the water), I’d managed to scream so violently that I was hoarse for days.

A pack of dogs can do horrific damage to a lone kangaroo. But a dog on its own does not stand a chance. Normally the kangaroos stay in our paddocks so when a 6-foot-tall rogue male bounded past me in our front yard this morning, I got a serious fright. Where was my little Lila pup?!? My heart racing, my eyes darting around searching for her while charting the trajectory of this massive kangaroo. And then, just as he sailed over the fence back into a paddock, I spotted her. Clever girl. There she was hiding behind a shrub. Wide-eyed and stock-still. Waiting for me to rescue her. We looked at one another and mopped our collective brow.

[If you have received this post by email, please click “dog downunder” or “lila the labrador encounters a kangaroo” in order to view accompanying video in a web page.]