Sophie, Dog Overboard : The Incredible True Adventures of the Castaway Dog (21 page)

“She had to have done it when the tides were slack,” says the Griffiths' seaman friend Warren Hill. “She was pretty clever; she wouldn't have done it at high tide.”

“I'm just fascinated by the fact that the dog made it across,” says Sophie's vet, Dr. Rowan Pert, who has also been an avid diver throughout the decades he's lived in Mackay, and who knows the odds against Sophie were astronomically high.

“It's amazing with all the currents out there,” says ranger Ross Courtenay, who has spent a lot of his working time out on Keswick and St. Bees. “To swim against the current and make headway is an achievement for anyone. The chances of a dog swimming even a mile or two from one island to the next, well, the chances of success are not good.”

Ross's colleague, Steve Burke, is in complete agreement. “Mate, it was a great effort, really,” he says. “Luckily, her breed, they're good swimmers, which would have helped her a lot. But to swim Egremont Passage . . .” Steve's look is full of awe, “she must have been smelling goats. It would have been a matter of life or death, otherwise there's just no way she could have made it.”

Sophie would have swum for at least an hour, plunging into a vigorous stroke the minute she cleared Keswick's
coral. She'd have stretched her head clear out of the water, moving her short legs in strong strokes, breathing heavily through her nose. She would have needed to keep her breath calm and her mouth shut. It would have been so easy to panic as the currents swirled and tugged at her body. But, extraordinarily, Sophie survived the potential predators and the strength of the ocean once again. As she clambered onto shore, she may have sustained cuts from rocks covered in oyster shells and coral that can slice flesh as if it were butter, although seemingly nothing too deep or severe that she couldn't lick and wash it into healing.

Either way, some time close to two months after washing up equally ragged and pumped with adrenaline on Keswick, Sophie found herself on the beach of yet another stunning, tropical island—alone, but this time in slightly more familiar territory. She had been near this island before on
Honey May
.

Once on land, she probably wasted no time searching for the smells that had enticed her—the goats or the water. There may still have been goat carcasses from the eradication programs, left to decompose into the soil system. Goat farmers and processing plants in the area had been invited to come and pick them up for free as part of the program, but had declined, as the travel out there made the enterprise less than cost effective. So after every cull, whole carcasses weeping blood from a shot wound lay close to St. Bees' shores and in different locations up through the mountains, where
the Judas goats had led the rangers and their rifles. Sophie wouldn't have been the first to find them; the eagles and the monitor lizards were all attracted to the carcasses, an abundance of easy food.

Feeding on a dead carcass was not something Sophie had done before. Apart from her months on Keswick, where the largest creature she might have slayed was an unwitting lizard or bush hen, she had never had to deal with the mess of intestines, the sorting through good and bad bits of a fresh kill, and she had not had to stalk a live creature and end its life to survive. In her bravado at home, sneaking up on birds or lizards was all a bit of fun. Her stomach wasn't empty then. Sophie had never brought home a decapitated gecko or a possum between her teeth, though she had definitely destroyed many a clueless peewee.

The Griffiths wonder whether she'd have approached a carcass with the same caution that she did the fish they pulled up onto the deck of
Honey May
. She would sniff her way cautiously up to the seemingly lifeless thing, then jump back if it flapped, looking around at her family as if to say,
Did you see that?
It was quite a leap for the Griffiths to imagine their girl going from that curious reticence, the sort of gentle enthusiasm for the wild world that is the luxury of domesticated dogs, to a calculated hunter, whether of living or freshly dead flesh. Their gentle house pet who loved nothing better than to rest her chin on Bridget's lap for hours, ripping into the bloody carcass of a baby goat? Let alone pinning it down for the kill?

The idea makes both Jan and Bridget uncomfortable, especially Bridget, who would like to think that Sophie would have killed only out of desperation. But the fact that she may have hunted for the sake of her own survival is also a matter of pride and admiration. She had dingo in her, after all, a side of the cattle dog ancestry (much argued about) that has been known to betray a working dog's otherwise disciplined ways by compelling some to rip into the animals they are charged with herding. Dingoes are natural hunters with extreme savvy and an unrelenting drive towards survival. It is just one of the breeding influences that has imbued Sophie's breed with essential aggression and tenacity. The latter trait, at least, Sophie exhibited over and over again during her time in the wild.

By the time she reached St. Bees and its doomed goats, she would not have had a good meal for nearly two months. Whether she could possibly have slayed a goat herself or simply fed from a carcass, that first feed, the flesh and the guts and the blood must have been heavenly. After having to chase creatures on Keswick with very little meat on them and possibly going for days without finding anything, Sophie would have managed to make her way to a meal with some significant protein. Her belly would have been acidic and in much torment by the time she made it to St. Bees, and whether it was the backbone of a decaying goat or the whole of an unsuspecting kid, those feral animals would have been the only solution out there for a carnivorous
pup who refused to go to humans. That, and the fresh water running down from the mountains in St. Bees' streams.

She might have risked her life to do it, but castaway Sophie had followed her nose to red meat and something to wash it down with.

A
s the weeks since Sophie left their lives turned into months, Jan and Dave were still not coping well in Mackay. Jan was spending more time at the office than she had when Sophie was waiting at home for her, finding every excuse to stay and check on another invoice or gossip with Dave's then assistant, Megan. But all the sparkle had gone out of life. Luke, who came over for dinner at least once a week, had to watch his parents drag themselves around, pretending that everything was fine. “They were moping about,” says Luke.

“I felt as though there was nothing really to look forward to,” says Jan, who wrestled with both her sorrow and the guilt over feeling so bad. There were so many
worse things in the world to have to deal with. She had a wonderful family, she and Dave were still in love after all those years. But the hole was there. When she was at home alone in the afternoons, she turned the TV on for company as she went about doing chores or sat reading. She would try to go for walks on her own, putting her sneakers on and heading off down the road, but it felt forced and sapped her energy. Walking with no onlookers smiling her way in affectionate acknowledgement of Sophie made Jan feel as if she were living by rote.

The Griffith siblings were all concerned and Luke had an idea for how to cheer them up: another dog. It was simple. His parents needed a new dog to spoil and to rouse them from their misery. They needed a new pet to adore them and to adore back. They needed someone to talk to when the other was not around, an energetic soul to beg them for a run and to make them laugh again at its antics. And it had to be another cattle dog—the Griffiths would accept no other breed after all their beloved blue heelers. But perhaps a blue dog was a bit much—they might too easily be reminded of their pain and the loss. It would have to be a red cattle dog.

Not everyone was convinced a new dog, of whatever color, was a good idea.

Bridget was especially against it. “I just knew it was going to be so obvious that we were trying to distract them, especially getting them a red dog instead of a
blue,” she says. Bridget was trying to get on with life in Brisbane, her student life was now in full swing and her social life finally flourishing as it had done in Mackay. She was also still in some denial about Sophie's disappearance. She had never got her head around how it happened and it was still too easy to imagine that it was all a dream. “Part of me knew that getting a new dog would mean admitting that it was time to move on from Sophie.”

Luke decided to tell Dave about his idea. He'd been planning to surprise his parents with a new pup, but Bridget's reaction made him think twice.

Dave had similar feelings to Bridget. “At first, Dad was completely against the idea,” Luke remembers. Gruff, practical Dave could not yet imagine loving another dog. “No way!” he told Luke.

“A few days later, Dad calls me up and says, ‘Have you found one yet?'”

Dave looks a bit sheepish when reminded of this. “No dog could ever replace Sophie but, well, it just wasn't any fun without a dog around,” he admits.

So, reassured and banking on the fact that the new pup would be a lovely surprise for Jan, Luke threw himself into the mission of finding a new cattle dog for his parents. He saw a litter advertised in the Mackay
Pocket Trader
and he and Heather drove to the farm for a look. The litter of blue and red cattle dog pups contained a female red who was both cheeky and lovely. Heather thought she would be perfect for the Griffiths.
The children of the breeders told Luke that the girl dog was their favorite and they'd nicknamed her Star for her flamboyance. “Don't worry,” he told them, “she'll be lounging in air-conditioned luxury in no time.”

Luke and Heather got Ruby ready for presentation to Jan, fitting her out in a shiny new red collar. But Jan already knew what was going on. “It was obvious a new dog was on the agenda for Christmas,” she says now. But at the time she feigned ignorance. “I didn't have the heart to say ‘we are not ready for this,'” says Jan.

Luke and Heather sat Jan down at the poolside table one afternoon just before Christmas, put a towel over her head and dropped a wriggling Ruby, a ribbon wrapped around her neck, on her lap. Jan shrieked. Ruby ripped the towel from Jan's head with her teeth and licked her new owner on the face. “Oh my God, oh my God,” Jan yelled, unable to contain her instinctive delight in this charming new puppy. Dave was rolling his eyes and smiling as Luke clapped him on the back, wearing a grin that said,
told you so!

The initial euphoria of Ruby's arrival didn't last. Jan didn't admit for a long time that having a new dog around made her feel exhausted and sadder still. “We would never have got Ruby ourselves because we had no inkling of desire to get another dog,” says Jan. “We had only just gotten to the stage where, when we saw other dogs, especially cattle dogs, we either talked to their owners about what great dogs they were or commented to each other that they walked like Soph or
they did something that Jordy would have done. But there was this feeling that no one would have healed the ache in our hearts.”

Sophie hadn't left Jan's mind for a second. She missed her and felt loyal to her and she couldn't fathom finding it in herself to become attached to another dog in the way she'd been attached to Sophie. And Jan knew that a new dog required energy—physical energy, but more importantly, emotional. It meant a responsibility to adore and delight in all the mischief as well as the devotion. For Jan, Sophie was still her number one pet. It was just too soon to extend her allegiance to another dog.

As if to confirm Jan's misgivings, Ruby was a typical cattle dog pup to boot, not the mellow creature Sophie had been but a tail-whipping cyclone that required a lot of attention. Unlike Sophie, Ruby was wholeheartedly enthusiastic and unquestionably needy. “Ruby ran around like a wild thing. She was a lunatic, shredding, wrecking, jumping, tearing through the gardens and eating the plants,” says Jan. “Not like Sophie at all and oh, it was hard to take.”

In mid-December of 2008, shortly after Brian saw the mysterious blue dog near the airstrip, Jan and Dave were starting to realize that their new daily mission was going to be getting used to the newest addition to their family. Just days into her life as a Griffith, the puppy was always ready for a wrestle, a pat, a lamb chop. “Even if you take the batteries out, she's still
going,” says Dave. The excitable pup was spending her time tearing around the yard, chewing on the shrubs in the garden, chasing birds and possums. And while she was bringing some much needed distraction to the grieving couple, she was also causing chaos. Jan and Dave were constantly bleeding from Ruby's sharp teeth accidentally scratching and biting them. Jan was covered in bruises from Ruby's claws digging into her when she jumped on her in the car, coming down the front steps, or while hanging out the washing. “She didn't do anything mildly. She could hurt you without meaning to, she was just that desperate for attention,” Jan says. Jan and Dave were always on the lookout to make sure that Ruby wasn't destroying something. They'd find her dragging a palm frond the size of a dinner table round and around the garden.

Ruby spent her nights watching Jan and Dave's every move from outside the screen door. Their beloved Sophie had earned their trust and admiration and been invited into the house, onto the armchair and into the bedroom every morning, but Ruby had come nowhere near that privilege yet. She was too prone to jumping on people and objects with zero warning, piercing them with her sharp nails and ruining otherwise sweet moments by licking and pouncing with all her unbounded love and enthusiasm.