Outside this window #37

Outside this window is the view of a small farm called Mariangarth hugged by hills dotted with sheep and cows. I’m in an area of the North Island called Whatawhata (pronouned FattaFatta). My parents live here. Last year I had the opportunity to live in New Zealand. If you get the chance to explore this extraordinary country I recommend it. Due to reasons you are about to discover the majestic beauty surrounding me was upstaged.

Immediately outside this window is a wide wooden deck. On a hot day your feet can just about take the heat pouring onto the smooth wooden slats. On this deck are two steel bowls. During the six months I lived there I knew three dogs: Tessie, Simba and Star. I looked after Tessie for a few weeks before she returned to my sister. Star and Simba belong to my parents.

There’s nothing quite like being loved by a dog. I’ve learned everything I know about loyalty and courage from dogs, but I’ll save those stories for another time, because outside this window is a motley crew of canines forming the strangest pack I’ve ever seen. This is what happened the first time I fed them.

Star is a champion show dog; a Borzoi, or Russian Wolfhound. Imagine the kookiest person you know, multiply that by twelve and add fur. Simba is a Rhodesian Ridgeback / Lab cross. He’s gorgeous and spoilt rotten by my mother. As a result he’s perfected a wicked sad eye. He is also a natural leader and has one of the biggest hearts I know. Simba is older than Star and still mourning the loss of Maxi, my father’s beloved St Bernard. In the few months since Maxi’s passing and Star’s arrival Simba has gone into decline. He’s fed up with this tall mad bitch, and she doesn’t see the point of him at all: he won’t play with her and a host of other odd behaviours I do not understand having to do with either her breed, being a champion show dog — or both. Turns out it was neither.

Tessie is insane. Her official breed is chocolate lab. Tessie has known Simba for years as she used to live at the farm next door until my sister adopted her. In the good old days Tessie played with Simba, wandered wherever she pleased and generally lived up to the biography my father bestowed upon her: “She’s mad as a brush”. Star took one look at Tessie and decided there was only one mad bitch allowed on this farm. Tessie tried everything to show Star she was outclassed, and was happy to play second nutter. Star towered over Tessie and ran her off. Star was a champion alright. A champion for creatures the world over operating outside the bounds of reason. My family recommended I feed Tessie outside the flat, out of sight of the deck where Simba and Star supped.

So every evening at meal time I ordered an uncomprehending, devastated Tessie inside the house. She pressed her nose against the large window overlooking the deck.

Simba danced past leading the way to the dog biscuits.

Tessie looked at me as though I was about to offer the other two dogs her imaginary puppy as an entrée.

I counted out four large biscuits, told him to sit and arranged them in his bowl. Simba sat, head bowed, eyes trained on his bowl and drooled.

How that is much drool possible in under three seconds?

“Good dog.”

Simba launched himself at his bowl as though shot from a canon. The sound of his enthusiastic slobbery obliterated the incessant sparrow soundtrack.

It was all over in under a minute.

He licked his bowl until it gleamed and used his claws to lever trapped biscuit crumbs from between deck boards.

Star sat beyond the biscuit carnage and gazed at me.

Was she confused? Does she not know its dinner time?

Her warm brown eyes were full of sorrowful yearning. She looked like she was auditioning for the role of Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard.

I picked up her bowl and waved it at her.

Your turn, Star!

Star blinked and dipped her head. No dancing, no excitement, no charging the biscuit bin, no wagging tail. I’d never seen a dog react to being fed like this.

I counted her biscuits then sliced some of her special meat and dropped them into her bowl. I didn’t agree with Star being fed something different to Simba, but they weren’t my dogs and given my inability to feed the rest of the farm animals, I was hardly in a position to throw my weight around.

I told Star to sit. She reclined into a seated position slowly and reluctantly.

Simba threw Star the same look I give middle lane drivers on the motorway.

“Good dog.”

Star didn’t move. Simba shuffled forward hopefully.

I locked him in the house with Tessie. They sat side by side yearning to feast on this daft dog’s dinner.

I returned to Star. She was sitting where I left her. I looked in her bowl. Yup. All the food was still there.

How odd.

“Good girl Star!”

I gestured her toward her bowl. Nothing. To hell with dignity. I waved her towards her bowl, imitating the guys with ping pong bats directing a fighter jet in to land on an aircraft carrier.

Star approached her bowl and peered inside. A moment of contemplation.

At this point I threw the two real dogs trapped inside a look of solidarity.

What the hell is this?

Star licked the meat.

I went inside and poured myself another gin and tonic.

A scrabble of claws on the floor followed by a thump reminded me.

Oh God. Tessie.

Tessie was curled up on Simba’s bed, eyes half closed, whacking her tail with demented excitement at the prospect of food. Simba sat ramrod straight, his back to the room, his face pressed against the glass door leading onto the deck, his eyes boring a hole into Star fossicking about in her bowl.

Just as things couldn’t get any weirder, Star trotted along the deck, past our three stunned faces and beyond into the garden. There was a scramble as we rushed as one out the door to see what she was doing.

Star was eating one of her dog biscuits in a carefully selected location in the garden.

I was gobsmacked. Simba and Tessie practically pointed at Star, their eyes shouting, “What are we supposed to do with that?”

I ushered the dogs back inside, gestured to the freak show going on outside and addressed my parents.

What is this?

“This is how she eats.” Dad said, slightly defensively, as Star trotted past the window with a second biscuit. It seemed only he could see her genius.

Mum rolled her eyes and sighed.

“I know,” she said. “And she’s very cunning.”

Simba collapsed on his bed with a disgusted grunt and Tessie cleaved a path in the floor with her tail, her eyes willing me to get up off my ass and feed her already.

Off we trudged outside leaving a determined Simba waiting against the glass door. Tessie and I rubber necked Star as we made our way across the garden to the flat. Tessie looked up at me and I nodded.

Utter nutter.

Outside the flat Tessie danced around like a dog is supposed to at supper time and I scooped up her biscuits. She sat without being asked, her mad brown eyes full of excitement. I could have kissed her.

Good dog.

She leapt on her food, her eyes hugging her biscuits individually, then snaffled the lot in three bites. I watched Star nibbling her final biscuit in a third garden location performing a strange dance around a perimeter only she could see, occasionally darting forward taking tiny bites from her biscuit. Tessie glared at her. It looked like a dance. But not just any old dance. It was performed with absolute timing and precision.

Dear God. It’s a mock execution.

Only then did I recall my father’s description of a Borzoi.

“Three of these things can take down a wolf.”

And the one we have is a canine Morris dancer.

Marion unleashed a moo from the paddock reminding me of my failed attempt to feed her, and my father’s laughter when I panicked and asked what sort of teeth cows have.

I turned back to the lunatic.

Tessie rolled around on her back next to her empty bowl, her tongue lolling out of her mouth, loopy smile thrown heavenward.

Thank God for lunatic dogs.