Sophie, Dog Overboard : The Incredible True Adventures of the Castaway Dog (5 page)

Sophie had her favorites among Bridget's friends. She especially liked one friend, who used to pretty much ignore Sophie even as she sat beside him. He was the kind of guy who didn't say much but when he did speak, everyone listened. Sophie would sit by his side, unfazed that she was getting no attention, sensing a bit of a kindred spirit. To make sure she wasn't missing out on any cuddles that might be going around, though, she would visit Bridget and her other favorite buddies, putting her head through people's legs and wagging her tail in anticipation of a friendly pat.

But not everyone got the same treatment. Sophie could be quite selective about who she showered with her affections, and seemed to intuit misbehavior. There were times when she might have looked as though she weren't paying much attention, lying with her head between her paws as the fun went on around her, but she would always make her presence felt when the energy amped up in ways that didn't please her. If one of Bridget's friends was making a major nuisance of themselves, wobbling when they stood up and getting mouthy, Sophie would sense it. She would go over to the person and sit between them and the rest of the crowd. Usually, it would be someone who Bridget, herself, thought was getting a little out of control. “It was as if Sophie was issuing a gentle warning, saying, ‘Calm down, because if not, I might have to teach you a lesson,'” Bridget says.

In just three months since her arrival, Sophie had made herself a crucial part of Griffith family life and had won the adoration of pretty much everyone she met. Jordy would never be forgotten, but her successor was turning out to be even more special than Bridget and Jan had realized when they fell in love with her in the pet store. Bridget, especially, was devoted to her dog. In fact, the bond between hound and teen heralded a new era in the Griffith family's relationship with dogs. Until then, both Jan and Dave adhered to a philosophy the illustrious dog whisperer, Cesar Millan, would be proud of: dogs are dogs and people are people. And this applied particularly to cattle dogs. They were bred to work on farms, rounding up cattle and sheep all day in the harsh sun. Dave's standard take on the matter had always been that if Jordy were on a farm, “she'd be tied to the water tank and thrown a kangaroo leg twice a week for a feed.” In other words, treat dogs like dogs; and dogs, especially working dogs, belong outside.

But Bridget and Sophie had their ways of getting around this, right from the get-go, and Bridget used to sneak Sophie inside and sit the dog on her lap while she watched reruns of
Sex and the City
. Bridget's logic was impeccable: Sophie wasn't sitting on the couch, she was sitting on Bridget! Jan and Dave were also aware that when it came to bedtime, instead of putting Sophie outside as she was supposed to, Bridget would tiptoe past their bedroom with Sophie in her arms and the two would fall asleep together, Sophie at the end of Bridget's
bed, keeping her toes cozy. Jan and Dave had a hard time protesting against the pair's obvious delight in each other's company, but their behavior certainly raised a few eyebrows amongst the older siblings.

Ellen observed that the Griffith family's attitudes had changed since Sophie had arrived. When she came for a visit from Brisbane, she noticed all sorts of old rules being broken. “I was constantly amazed at how far Bridget and Sophie were pushing things,” she says. “There was the fact that Bridget would carry her like a baby, and that Sophie gradually worked her way from the door step, to inside the door, to the living room . . . Jordy used to get in trouble for even sitting on the door step.”

In their downtime, when Bridget wasn't whizzing from basketball to birthday parties, the pair of them would sit for hours on the front steps. It was Bridget's favorite place to sit and think, or not think. Sophie always joined her, lying at Bridget's feet or tucked up beside her, the two of them looking down the steps as the sun shone into the side yard, Bridget considering her future and Sophie just living in the present, relishing the company.

Not everyone was such a complete pushover though. When Luke was back for a few days, and if Bridget was not around, Sophie got a taste of the Luke Griffith school of dog care. The second youngest Griffith stayed downstairs in the movie room—from there he would plan his raids on Sophie's increasingly privileged position upstairs.

“I'd try to rattle her up to see if she had any mongrel in her,” he says. “And she did, she got all dingo.” Sophie would run around as Luke chased her. She'd get slinky, body low to the ground, and sneak around the cars parked in the carport. Then the pair would spend hours with Luke throwing the ball for her and Sophie retrieving it as the stars came out. Luke would steal a can of Dave's Fosters from the fridge and have a nightcap before bed. He would often drift off to sleep in the driveway, patting Sophie. “I'd wake up to her licking my face, reminding me to go to bed.”

The truth was that not even Luke, Jordy's biggest fan, was immune to Sophie's charms. “She's a bit of a top dog, she's got attitude,” Luke says of Sophie, remembering times at the beach when she was too busy chasing other dogs to heed his first few calls.

Luke took Sophie with him on his first date with his girlfriend, Heather. Luke was keen that Sophie came along with them to the beach. “I thought it would be good to have her there, just in case I needed an out,” he admits, recalling that he figured he could always pretend that his dog was out of control and needed to be removed from the scene. But Sophie's services as a distraction were not required, which was good, because she behaved perfectly delightfully. She chased a few other dogs and waded into the shallow waves for a dip, as always, but ultimately she charmed Heather as much as Luke did.

While Luke softened to Sophie's many charms, he still has a tougher analysis of Sophie's personality than
does his younger sister. He can't deny his admiration for her grace and enthusiasm, her loyalty and charm, but also says that Sophie has always known how to play on her appeal. “She's one of those dogs that puffs her chest up a little bit.”

Underneath this is a brotherly gripe that Sophie—like Bridget—has ended up getting a softer version of parental treatment. Bridget is the youngest by far, and by her time, the family business was humming along and Dave was home more often, even in the afternoons, when Bridget came home from school. Luke would say—with sly affection—that Sophie and Bridget are both as bad each other: bright, precious, and able to manipulate their way into any situation and anyone's heart. “Sophie is a bit like Bridget; she knows how to cast her spell,” Luke says. “I think she plays the game; she knows how everyone is and how to respond to them. She's intuitive.”

On the flip side, Bridget admits that she didn't like Jordy very much. But when she describes Sophie, it's with the parental coo of a mother proud of her awe-inspiring offspring.

Despite Bridget's adoration of Sophie, the romance was destined to have its limits. Sophie arrived in Bridget's life just as Bridget was gearing up for a new phase: her final high school year before university. She was just sixteen when she pleaded with Jan for a dog, and she was desperate for it to happen, partly because it really was her last chance. Bridget would be heading
off to college in just over a year. And in the meantime, she had a lot of things to do, some of which were going to take her away from home.

Just a few short months after Sophie became a Griffith, Bridget left for Germany on a one-month cultural exchange. She was torn, though: “I nearly decided to stay because a month is a long time to miss out on when they're puppies,” she recalls, sounding like a new mother deciding between being a stay-at-home mom and going back to her career.

But go she did, and sure enough, within a month, a lot happened. Bridget got food poisoning and spent days heaving on her host family's bathroom floor, struggling with sickness and her own non-existent Deutsch. Meanwhile, Sophie continued to fill out. She no longer wobbled when she walked, her fur darkened and her head widened, seemingly in a matter of days. While Bridget was experiencing a whole life (and not an easy one, at that) abroad, Sophie was becoming a gleaming animal worthy of a Purina commercial.

Crucially, she also became Dave's dog. Cattle dogs, like teenage girls, need to have a best friend. Without Bridget around to drive through town with or flop under a chair by the pool next to, Sophie needed someone else to follow around the house, and Dave, who wasn't happy without a pool filter to fix or a mission to the shops to fulfill, was the ideal candidate.

Bridget knew things had changed the moment she got home. “I came back hoping that I'd still be her
favorite and I totally wasn't. While I'd been in Germany, she'd become Dad's dog,” says Bridget. She saw she'd become second choice whenever Sophie had an option to stick with Dave. Dave could be sitting under the house with a newspaper and Bridget ready to go for a run and Sophie would stand looking back and forth between them, torn. “She still loved me but I could tell I had lost her.”

Sophie bonded intently with the man of the house. As inevitably seemed to happen with all the family dogs, Dave slowly emerged as Sophie's prime caregiver. Sophie seemed to decide that he was the answer to Bridget's absence. It wasn't a calculated thing, it was more that Dave just had an effect on dogs. He would talk to them and they would love to hang out with him as he got busy in the garden or puttered around the pool. Jan's explanation is simple: “I don't do things that dogs love to do; Dave does.” Dave is a busy guy, a doer who doesn't like to sit still for very long, and he understands that dogs are the same. It's Dave who insists on the family dogs being walked every day, and if it looks like it's not going to happen because of torrential rain, he will become almost as edgy as Sophie. “The dogs can't be happy; they need their walk,” he'll mutter.

While Bridget was away, Dave fed and chatted to Sophie. It was a crucial time in her life, as she went from sleepy puppy to confident dog. He threw her tennis balls across the swimming pool that she'd catch in her mouth, drop in the water, then nudge across for
Dave to fetch out. He whipped the garden hose around so that Sophie could chase it, snapping her jaws for what seemed like hours in an attempt to catch the water. He took her in the car down to the butcher just as Bridget had and she sat in the passenger seat, ears pricked, looking back and forth between the road ahead and Dave. And the two of them went on endless weekend trips to the beach. Sophie was a dog who really loved the sea. Bridget had reported this to the rest of the family but now Dave saw it for himself. Sophie would stand up in the back seat of the car and rush to put her head out of the window as they arrived at the coast. She seemed to be trying to inhale the sea air, sniffing and barking, her face a pure picture of joy. Once Dave let her off the lead away from people, she'd be off, heading straight for the water.

After Germany, Bridget and Sophie were still good buddies. Sophie would still bound towards Bridget as she came through the front gate in the red Honda, and sit on the bench loyally as Bridget scored points for her basketball team. But when Bridget returned, a few pounds skinnier and full of energy to exert on her cherished pup, Sophie wasn't the desperate, attention-starved pet Bridget sort of hoped for. She had been fed from another hand and seemed to know that, long-term, it was Dave, not Bridget, who was going to drop her pieces of steak or fish from the barbecue as she sat beside him devotedly. It was as if Sophie had figured out that Bridget would come and go, but Dave was there for the long haul.

Sophie now had not one but two of her beloveds wrestling for her attention. Perhaps Sophie knew what she was doing: doubling up on love, as Dave and Bridget quietly vied for the status of favorite.

The two of them would take her down to one of Mackay's quieter beaches and training would be on for daughter and pup. Dave would hold Sophie, her legs twitching as she tried to wriggle free, while Bridget sprinted up the beach. Sophie would whimper and twist and let out a few high-pitched barks before Dave would let her go. From one best friend to another she'd run, tongue out, galloping, gleeful and fast. She'd catch up to Bridget and run around in front of her, forcing Bridget to skid to a stop. Sophie made it clear that she knew the game, and in fact, she was one step ahead. The dog seemed to be herding Bridget the way she would have done cattle or sheep on a farm. There was none of the nipping or biting of ankles that cattle dogs are bred to use to chastise their charges, though. Sophie was in her element and made sure to share it with her family. She'd look back and forth to Dave and Bridget as they took mini breaks mid-game, as if to say,
isn't this amazing?
her tail whipping with joy. Father and daughter egged her on in pure admiration. “Go, Tuck,” Dave would call out as he released Sophie from his hold. And Bridget would run down to the shore with Sophie following her into the water for a cool-off.

Then the game would start again. Bridget would tell the dog to “stay,” and Sophie'd look at Dave, breathing
heavily, as if to say,
I have to wait?
Dave would hold her as Bridget sprinted back down the beach. Sophie would be twitching, waiting for either one of them to give her the go-ahead. “Sophie come,” Bridget would say, and Sophie would take off like a child at a school athletics carnival.

But try as Bridget might to win back her buddy, she knew the score. Even when Sophie was on board for an outing with Bridget in the car, she would stop before hopping into the passenger seat and look back at Dave coming down the steps, waiting for him to hop in the car with them. She'd look back and forth between Bridget and Dave tentatively, and Bridget would snap her fingers to lure Sophie in the car. “I was like,
whoa, did the last six months mean nothing to you?
” Bridget jokes now, though she was legitimately a little offended.