Sophie, Dog Overboard : The Incredible True Adventures of the Castaway Dog (3 page)

Just as Dave and Jan believed that children were best raised with lots of hobbies and activities, as opposed to video games and TV, they also believed that childhood and family life were better with dogs. Matthew had Mack, an unusually docile border collie who was the teacher's pet at puppy obedience school because he was so sweet and well-behaved, unlike Ellen's unofficial pup, Tina, a bossy silky terrier who Ellen took to school in fourth grade posed as Toto, while she was dressed as Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz
. At one point, the Griffiths had three dogs: Mack, Tina (who ruled the roost) and Biffy, an Australian terrier who Jan and Dave adopted from Jan's parents.

When he was twelve and the family was (temporarily, as it turned out) dog-free, Luke told his mother that he
must
have a cattle dog. His best mate, Adam “Jenko” Jenkins, a budding working dog enthusiast, had been telling him so, and had just found a litter up for sale. The answer was no: the business had finally kicked into high gear, Bridget was six years old and time-consuming, and Jan and Dave were not ready for another addition to the family. Luke, wide-eyed and well-armed with justifications, said to his mother, “What
sort of a boy grows up without a dog?” Jan couldn't resist her son, or his logic, and along came Jordy, an almost psychotically loyal, blue cattle dog who spent most of her days protecting Luke from anything or anyone who appeared to be making any suspicious moves, which included other members of the family.

Jordy had been around for almost eleven years when Sophie came along, and the aging dog was not happy to find she now had company. When Sophie emerged from the car in Bridget's arms, Jordy growled softly and looked at Bridget, who was preoccupied, rubbing her cheek on Sophie. She took her new pet to the pool area at the front of the house and plopped her on the red timber decking out in the sun. Sophie was drowsy and wobbly and only just managed to shake herself before her hind legs collapsed to one side and she leaned her whole body onto them, her belly flopping in a heap. Bridget got on her knees and crawled around beside her new puppy, nuzzling and rubbing her cheeks all over Sophie's soft white fur. Bridget found one of Jordy's slightly frayed tennis balls and crouched down to roll it at Sophie, who wagged her tail. She didn't know quite what to do with it but gamely clawed at the ball before letting it roll away. Bridget picked Sophie up and let the pup fall back to sleep in her arms.

Had Jordy been younger, she might have made a lot more fuss to ensure that this new dog knew its place, but her fierceness was waning when Sophie became a Griffith. She had heart problems and was suffering
from arthritis. And so, as Bridget and Sophie sat by the pool, Jordy retreated to the hole that she'd dug behind a Brazilian cherry shrub in the backyard, into which she often disappeared for a sulk.

Jordy stayed in that hole for most of Sophie's first week, coming out only for meals, which she seemed to have decided were the best moments for her to assert power over the puppy. Jordy would rush to the bowls of food, blocking tiny Sophie, who had no choice but to stand back while Jordy ate. It was a call to order that the puppy seemed to take to without question. She'd sit behind Jordy under the carport, no hackles up and no whining as she watched her superior clean up her bowl, instinctively understanding the pecking order.

Sophie, in fact, didn't seem to question much as a puppy. She spent her first weeks doing very little but sleeping and eating. It got to the point that Bridget began to fret about her.
Why wasn't
she more lively, rolling about in the garden and tripping over her tail? Sophie would sleep in a little basket in the laundry room under the house for hours and hours, only waking to eat, which she did a lot of—her appetite, at least, instilled the family with confidence. Bridget would put bowls of chopped meat and puppy biscuits down in front of her and (so long as Jordy had finished hers) watch Sophie gobble them up in seconds, then promptly flop back for more deep slumber. Bridget learned to stop worrying about her already beloved pet, but she still thought it was a bit freakish. Dave was reassuring, though, “A puppy's like a baby: all they want to do is sleep and eat.”

It didn't help matters, Luke and Dave thought, that Bridget insisted on carrying Sophie everywhere. Luke was living in a shared house not far from the family home, but he was around there pretty often, and not shy about sharing his opinions on his sister's dog-rearing. Bridget would pick Sophie up like a baby and hold her for hours, the two of them sitting on the front steps or out by the pool, Sophie curled up, snoring lightly as Bridget flipped through the women's magazines that Jan discarded after doing the crosswords. “That dog's never going to learn to walk if you don't put her down now and again,” Dave and Luke used to joke. “At the moment she doesn't even know she's got legs!”

Despite Dave's insistence that everything was fine with the new family member, after a couple of weeks the Griffiths began to wonder whether Sophie might be deaf, which they knew wasn't entirely uncommon in cattle dogs. The young Sophie did not easily pick up on her name. She often didn't turn around or even perk up when Bridget or Jan called out her name over and over, and she sometimes missed out on treats like Schmackos or dinner leftovers because of it.

Sophie's ear, which had flopped endearingly in the pet store, stayed floppy, whereas the ears of most cattle dogs stand up permanently within the first months of life. The floppy ear added to Sophie's cuteness and the Griffiths eventually came to the conclusion that it was probably the result of a sisterly nip from Jordy, the top dog leaving
her mark. Nevertheless, it led to a little bit of teasing. When Ellen, who was living in Brisbane, called to ask how the new puppy was doing, Dave said that Sophie was a lovely dog but a little bit stupid. Jordy, overbearing as she could be, had at least patrolled the house from the moment she became a Griffith, leading her family to believe she might just be the cleverest dog ever. But Sophie seemed to be more concerned with love, affection and daydreaming.

As the enigmatic pup got stronger, though, she started to wander out from her bed to come and join the family. She'd lope over to Bridget, who would be reading by the pool or shooting a few baskets on the family's makeshift basketball court beside the carport, and Bridget would inevitably stop what she was doing to scoop Sophie up for a cuddle, cooing, “Hello darling girl.” Sophie would lay her chin over Bridget's shoulder and her paws would hang just over Bridget's arm, flopping about as Bridget carried her around.

Bridget used tennis balls to test Sophie's coordination skills, throwing them to the pup, whose jaw was still too narrow to clamp around the ball. It didn't stop her from trying though, and she'd stand ready to receive the slow-flying balls with her mouth open, swaying her whole back half from side to side. But proving her catching skills was the least of Sophie's worries. As her days became more about doing than sleeping, she had an ongoing challenge to contend with in Jordy, who was still the top Griffith dog.

Jordy, built like a nuggety bulldog with a beefy chest, spent her days surveying the grounds of the Griffiths' home for any ripples in the suburban peace. She would snarl and bark at anyone who came within the vicinity of the family home, and nip at people's heels if they got too close to
her
family. Even Matthew and Dave were victims of Jordy's ankle-biting. Jordy's primary job, as she seemed to understand it, was to protect Luke, and she did this with the ferocity of a midday sunburn.

Her other job, it turned out, once Jordy had made sure that the new arrival knew who was boss, was to guide Sophie in cattle dog ways. The elder dog would take Sophie on her morning, mid-morning, lunchtime, afternoon, mid-afternoon and early evening rounds of the outer edges of the Griffiths' property. She relished her role as Sophie's mentor. The dogs could be lying in the sun, dopey and dreamy, then switch in an instant into stealthy huntresses. Sophie would observe Jordy's demonstration of the most effective way to harass a bird, then follow suit.

Right from those early days, Sophie was an exceptional bird hunter. When the Griffiths stepped out into the backyard they'd find feathers scattered everywhere, mostly the black and white ones of the small but loud peewees, which couldn't stand a chance against their nemesis. From Sophie's sleeping spot in the pool area, out of sight of the backyard, she could come running at the slightest hint of a bird's presence. Once close enough, she'd get down really low and slink towards the
unsuspecting bird. Her ears would go back and then she'd pounce, huffing and slobbering, tearing up the ground as she went in for the kill. Sophie could propel herself with those well-fed torso muscles from one end of the Griffiths' yard like a bullet.

Jordy also made sure to let Sophie know her place when it came to bathroom manners. Jordy being top dog, Sophie wasn't allowed to use the lawn as her toilet. Jordy, herself, had always been admirably tidy about her bathroom habits, never leaving unwelcome piles on the lawn, and Sophie was to continue the courtesy. The pup was relegated to the bushes on the garden edges, a habit she has never broken. “For a long time, I thought she was doing it because she didn't want anyone to watch her,” says Bridget. Sophie would always trot out of sight when she needed to pee. In her six years as a Griffith, Sophie never soiled a carpet or an empty bedroom and, even when she's out with the family, she pads off to a private place to do her business. It might be part modesty, but it must surely also be part obedience: Sophie has never forgotten Jordy's lessons.

The friendly competitiveness between Jordy and Sophie reflected that between Bridget and Luke. The two youngest Griffiths were best buddies and confirmed rivals. Both of them spent much of their childhood without other siblings around every day and both of them were surprise arrivals for their parents. When Bridget was a cheeky and emotional nine-year-old and
Luke a hot-blooded fifteen-year-old, he used to walk past her in the kitchen and say out of the corner of his mouth, “You were a mistake, you know.”

Eventually Bridget approached her mother to tattle-tale on her older brother's torments. “He can talk,” Jan apparently responded. As it happens, Bridget and Luke came into the world the same way both Jordy and Sophie came into the Griffith family: unplanned and with undeniable winning power. (“Bridget is the best possible advertisement for having a baby at forty,” Jan has been known to announce.)

As Sophie grew and adapted to her new life with the Griffiths, Jordy's health was going downhill. Her heart was weakening and her arthritis getting worse so, by the time Sophie had been there for a couple of months, the dogs had undergone a role reversal. Jordy now spent most of her days sleeping, barely able to move and without the energy to taunt her new little sister. When Sophie trotted by Jordy in her bed, the top dog wouldn't growl and block Sophie in her path as she had before, challenging her to a game. Jordy might open her eyes and lift her head to watch Sophie pass but she would lay her head back down, leaving Sophie free to continue on her way to the garden or the pool, where Bridget would be working on an assignment or Dave fiddling with mechanics.

Jordy no longer greeted the Griffiths in the carport when they came home; now it was Sophie skipping
from one paw to the other in the driveway when they drove through the gate. Jordy wasn't doing her protective rounds of the yard, either, and Jan would look out the kitchen window while she was stirring her grandmother's Maltese Widow's soup over the stove and miss seeing Jordy galloping around the garden perimeter, hackles up, stopping every few seconds to sniff for airborne intruders. Luke came round every afternoon just to sit with his beloved protector under the house. He would entice her out into the backyard and throw a tennis ball up the lawn, but instead of racing at it in pursuit, Jordy would saunter in the general direction of the ball and then flop in the middle of the lawn.

As the days went on, there was a growing sense of dread in the household. They knew Jordy was on her way out. She was suffering and they weren't going to be able to watch it. They had to have her put down, but when the subject came up, the Griffiths had a hard time discussing it. The conversation would veer back to Jordy's prime, with Luke regaling them with stories that they all knew and loved to hear over and over again. The unspoken prospect of what they were going to have to do hung over the Griffith household for weeks. One day, when Jan and Dave had woken to find Jordy more miserable than they'd ever seen her, barely able to move from her bed of blankets as her discomfort elevated, Jan knew she was going to have to face it. Neither Luke nor Dave had been able to volunteer for the job and Jan feared she'd be a basket case if she tried
to do it on her own. So she called one of the family's most trusted friends, Luke's best mate from childhood, Jenko, who had put Luke on to Jordy over a decade ago.

“Look, we have a huge favor to ask,” Jan said to Jenko, who was already feeling very taken aback. He knew the Griffiths as second parents and was alarmed to hear the shake in Jan's voice. As Luke's partner in crime, Jenko had spent years of his adolescence with Jordy and was one of the few people who could come through the Griffiths' gate and not have to brace for a nipping. He knew that Jordy was not well but had not realized the direness of the situation.

Jan told Jenko that she'd arranged an appointment with the vet to have Jordy put down. The family hadn't been able to decide on much but that they did not want to prolong their dog's pain. “She can't go on,” Jan explained. “She's just not happy anymore. And you can imagine, we're all hopeless. Luke won't do it and Dave is terrible when it comes to death. Would you be prepared to take her to the vet?”