A Free Man

For those of you who don’t know T, our 6 year old Siberian Husky, he’s a gentle, loving, calm dog - the very picture of zen-like dogness. However, he does have one weakness. Although there’s no scientific evidence to support this, I believe that huskies are a slight genetic step closer to wolves than your average dog breed. What that means is that they retain the hunting instinct that, for example, your Maltese has lost.

Now before, I get further, I need to tell you two things. First, the British love animals. There are more members of the RSPCA (protection of animals) than of the NSPCC (protection of children).* Second, a farmer, if he feels that his livestock is being threatened, has the right to shoot and kill whatever is threatening it.

So, in moments of lupine reversion, T occasionally forgets himself. For example, we’ve has the occasional run in with swans. Now, I don’t know what how you feel about swans, but I want to tell you they are nasty animals. They are very large, they hiss and they charge and they have no fear. They also belong to the Queen. The problem is, T finds them extremely annoying, I daresay the Queen’s swans are his nemesis - perhaps his republican tendencies coming through, he is after all an American. There have been many incidents but they typically go like this. Fur, feathers, and English women screaming “No, don’t let him hurt the swan!”. Result - frustrated dog and angry swan.

Ah, and then there was my boss’s BBQ. She has a fish pond. Now, to the dog’s credit, he watched one of the technicians in the lab pull a carp out bare handed, pose for a picture and return it. In addition, as you can see from the picture below, the fish are pretty tame, come right up to the surface. But as vigilant dog owners, we scolded him every time he neared the pond. And things were fine and the barbecue progressed and as these things go, vigilance was reduced. Later in the night, I was summoned from a game of Trivial Pursuit by one of my work colleagues: “Um, Chris, your dog got one of J’s fish.” I raced down to the pond to see my boss fruitlessly trying to resusicitate a large koi. Sadly, he’s never been able to replicate this feat. The closest he’s come is pulling a remarkably fish like beer can out of the Thames.

The pheasant. We like to go on a bit of a hike on sunny days, and earlier this year we were out in the Oxfordshire countryside on a nice long walk. Because there was no livestock, T was running as he should. Dr. O’C pointed out the large number of pheasants about and suggested that we put him back on the leash. Sagely, I said, “Dr. O’C, don’t be silly, any decent pheasant will fly away if the dog chases it.” I stand by that statement and am convinced that the pheasant that didn’t fly away needed to be culled. We hadn’t seen another person on our walk until a couple of ramblers strolled by while Timmins was shaking the pheasant around like a stuffed toy. “Bit early in the season for those, isn’t it?” was the response to my sheepish smile.

Because of the public nature of the internet its best that I don’t get to specific about the sheep. But if you’ve ever seen a nature documentary of wolves hunting caribou or something like that, you can form a mental picture. In a way, in hindsight it was amazing to watch. I’d like to point out that the sheep was not killed. So please put your shotgun away Mr. Farmer and tell the Queen it was a different white husky.

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*: This may not actually be true, but it could possibly be and it makes my point better than any handy statistics. Kind of like the Bush administration, huh?

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