Sophie, Dog Overboard : The Incredible True Adventures of the Castaway Dog (6 page)

Bridget admits, though, that she too had changed and could no longer devote the same level of time to her best friend. In 2006, when Sophie was six months and growing, Bridget was busy with her final year of high school and heading for her next stage of life. She was busier than ever, involved in every activity known to a zealous senior student—the school musical, debate, mediation, netball, rugby league and basketball—and she and Jan coached a basketball team together, yet another weekly activity at which Sophie was always a regular spectator. The period was exciting, but also deeply scary for Bridget. She knew she was just lurching towards the time when she would be leaving her
highly functional small-town childhood for everything that was new and strange. There were endless parties and final hurrahs and the spectacle of the year, the prom, to which Jan arranged a vintage car to chauffeur Bridget and her friends.

But no amount of custom celebrations could put off the inevitable. The new year came and when the day for Bridget to move on finally hit, it hurt. “I ended up leaving two weeks early because I just couldn't deal with any more goodbyes.” Even her siblings, Matthew and Ellen, who were already in Brisbane, where Bridget would be attending university, were a little unfamiliar—she was relieved that they were there but with the huge age gap, Bridget was still just considered “the baby” in the family. Sophie seemed to feel the turmoil, as dogs do. The moment that she had been sensing, when Bridget would leave home, eventually came.

The day she left Mackay, Bridget packed the car at dawn with Jan's help and Luke came over with coffee for everyone. It was a rainy day in early February 2007. Luke and Dave stood in the driveway. Luke, who had joined the family business, chatted with his father about electrical jobs that were coming up and various bits of gossip, a distraction Dave appreciated. Dave watched out of the corner of his eye as Bridget, her face blotchy and stern, went about readying to leave. He was proud of her, but happy for Luke's chatter. Jan, who was accompanying Bridget to Brisbane, continually fussed around with last minute details. She was doing her best
to keep from getting emotional. Crying was not her style; tending to domestic details filled that space.

Sophie, meanwhile, may as well have had her hands on her hips.

“She got in the car and she wouldn't get out,” remembers Bridget, who still tears up when she thinks about that day. “She was like,
I know you're leaving and you're not coming back, therefore I'm not getting out of the car
.” Sophie plunked herself in the passenger seat while Bridget waited in the driver's seat, taking deep breaths, unable to say any more goodbyes to Dave and Luke. She grabbed Sophie, hugged her tightly and then tried to push her away. Sophie had her tail between her legs, not looking at Bridget—sulking but demanding. “I was like,
just get down, just get down, I need to get out of here
.”

Sophie wouldn't budge. In the end, Dave had to grab the devoted dog and pull her by the collar, paws clinging to the car as he slid her out.

Bridget and Jan drove out of Mackay listening to the song Bridget had chosen for the occasion: Oasis's “Half the World Away.” Neither of them looked back.

S
ophie sulked for days. Her impressive appetite waned and she was not even rushing in for tidbits from the barbecue. She would still bound up, all smiles, to greet Jan and Dave when they got home, but afterwards she would drift out to stand at the top of the porch steps, where she had spent so many placid hours daydreaming with Bridget, and stare out dolefully, searching for her. She'd lie with her head between her paws, rolling her eyes up, seemingly without even the energy to lift her head. Jan and Dave started to worry as this continued for nearly a week, before Sophie, seeming to acknowledge that Bridget wasn't coming back anytime soon, began to regain her appetite for steak and socializing. One day she dropped a tennis ball at
Dave's feet as he sat out by the pool, and looked up at him with her tail wagging. It was as if to say,
OK, brooding time is over, let
'
s have a game
.

Bridget's departure marked the end of an era for each member of the Griffith family. Both Dave and Jan were missing their youngest's lively presence around the house, but they were also proud parents, and were beginning to be able to relish the fact that the two of them had a lot to look forward to, themselves. All their hard work with the family business was paying off, they were living in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and they had Sophie.

For Jan, in particular, Sophie was a godsend. In the hurly-burly of Bridget's final year and the bustle leading up to her leaving, Jan had managed to avoid thinking too much about what life would be like once her youngest had left. Having cooked, mentored, tutored and been as active a parent as possible at the kids' schools since her first two were born in the seventies, Jan was now faced with a childless home. She had spent the last year of Bridget's schooling busier than she'd ever been, and that was how she liked it.

So when Jan arrived back in Mackay after helping the apprehensive Bridget get through her first few days of city life, she walked into the kitchen to a silence so deep she could almost hear the walls cracking. For days after, Jan felt really down. There was a massive hole in her life and she felt sluggish and anxious at the same time. She moped about wondering what to cook, whether to
rearrange the living room furniture or to call the library and volunteer her time. Had she not had Sophie there, she might have plunged into a deeper gloom. “The bottom fell out of my world,” Jan says.

Bridget was slowly absorbing the new freedom down in Brisbane but she was also feeling really homesick. She called, sometimes teary, and it was always the same thing. “How's the dog?” Bridget would demand. Jan was almost reluctant to tell her how gorgeous Sophie was being, following her around and keeping her company. She also didn't want to tell Bridget that Sophie had sulked for days and that she clearly missed her. She didn't want to encourage Bridget's nostalgia. Nevertheless, Jan would walk out to the steps where Sophie was sleeping and put the phone up to the dog's ear.

“Sophie Tucker!” Bridget would sing into the phone and Sophie would cock her head and prick her ears up and down, looking all around to work out where the noise was coming from. Bridget could have gone on like this for a long time, but Jan felt responsible for helping her daughter move on to the next phase of her life. “It was a bit pathetic, really,” Jan jokes now. “I felt uncomfortable about her talking to a dog on the phone.”

For all her maternal eye rolling, though, it was at this time that Jan and Sophie started to really bond. With no Bridget around, and Dave either at work or down at the marina polishing
Honey May
and chatting to mates, Sophie now started to attach herself to Jan. And after a week or so, Jan realized that the only way she was going
to beat the gloom was to get out of the house and start moving. She began to take Sophie on the walks that were usually Dave's domain. Late in the afternoon, they would take off to Mackay's Botanic Gardens and Jan's friends would see the two of them, walking along the road with Sophie pulling Jan, the pair in a sort of tug of war. Sophie bulldozed along the path, nose down, as Jan leaned her whole upper body back, attempting to maintain control while not messing with Sophie's posture. The normally gentle Sophie showed her brute side on these walks, as she perpetually tugged on the lead, at times frothing at the mouth just so she could go a little bit faster. The dog would be in pain, the lead digging into her as it muzzled her jaw, but none of it seemed to matter to Sophie or stop her from trying to go faster and further.

“She would absolutely not give up,” says Jan, who remembers that even wild Jordy was better behaved on the leash, realizing after three or four walks of being constantly pulled into line by Luke or Dave that the choking and the frothing was just plain unpleasant. Not Sophie—she was not a gentle walker.

Gradually, Jan and Dave both began to adjust to their new reality. Yet, while the fun levels were slowly rising for the residents of the family home, Bridget was still struggling to detach from her hometown. She was calling every day and, in fact, it was only a few weeks after her departure when the Easter long weekend fell and Bridget was on a plane back to Mackay, where Jan met
her at the airport. Jan was ecstatic to see her daughter again but nervous that it would further prolong Bridget's adjustment to her new life. The euphoria of independence wasn't quite taking hold of the baby of the family yet, and Jan worried that that was partly because things were so good for her at home.

Despite her concern, Jan was not going to skimp on homey treats for her daughter's return. The consummate mother busied about in the days leading up to the visit, baking up one of her famous lasagnes and Bridget's favorite iced apricot cake—there was enough food for several families of Griffiths.

The much-anticipated reunion between Bridget and Sophie was a moment worthy of daytime television. Jan drove Bridget through the gate on the Thursday evening before Good Friday, just as the sun began to turn orange and a slight breeze rocked the palm trees. The neighbors probably heard the squeals. Sophie was aware that something was going on in the days before, perking her ears up and down as she followed Jan, who was peppier and chattier than she'd been for a few weeks. And as Sophie coasted towards the car it took no time for her to figure out that it wasn't only Jan in there. Sophie began to grunt from the back of her throat and her wagging tail broke into a whole bottom wiggle as Bridget opened the door and yelled, “Sophie Tucker!” Sophie didn't have time to jump in the car, Bridget was out and picking the now fully-grown and sizeable Sophie up and swinging her around. Bridget was tearing up and
Jan was shaking her head. “Put her down, silly girl,” she said, nevertheless beaming.

Bridget didn't listen. She carried the dog around for most of the weekend. That evening, after standing at the kitchen island stealing slices of tomato and red onion from the salad Jan was preparing, she skipped out to the screen door where Sophie was looking in at them, picked her up and lugged her inside to sit on the kitchen floor while Jan cooked. Bridget sat with her long legs in front of her, cradling Sophie, whose legs sprawled over Bridget's.

Dave stood at the kitchen door and shook his head at his daughter and his best buddy draping themselves all over each other. “Pathetic,” he said, shaking his head. His eyes were shining in clear admiration.

The weekend went by with several late nights and lots of chats about university and Bridget's studies. Was she liking business and commerce, as Matthew had? Or did she still want to pursue acting, as she'd always wanted to? A combination would be better, Dave and Jan urged. Sophie stood by all the while, either pressed up against the screen door, content to be close to the action going on at the dining table, or flopped belly up, resting in the crook of Bridget's arm on the green leather couch in front of the television. Sophie was there when Bridget's friends came over for a swim and Sophie was there, standing once again in the driveway with soapy eyes, ears dropped and legs splayed apart, when Jan and Dave drove Bridget back out the gate on their way to the airport.

Bridget's visit—and several subsequent visits in quick succession thereafter—helped to temper everyone's new existential anxieties. Bridget moved on with her new life in Brisbane and Jan and Dave's routines began to take full advantage of all the good things their life had to offer. “Another day in paradise,” is how Dave would greet his days in Mackay. From the kitchen window, he'd look out onto the giant poinciana tree in the backyard and marvel at the sun on the weeping fig tree next door. But not before a big slurp from Sophie, who would wake some mornings at six, and others at eight. Like a social adolescent, how early she stirred would depend on the sort of night she'd had before: whether she was taking in the atmosphere of one of Jan's famous dinner parties or, on most nights, simply hanging with Jan and Dave around the barbecue area or lying under their feet as they watched TV.

Most mornings, Sophie would nudge open the door to Jan and Dave's bedroom and pad around to Dave's side of the bed, claws clicking ever so gently on the hardwood floor. As Dave slept, Sophie would take a seat as close to the edge of the bed as she could get, her nose a matchbox away from Dave's. Then she would wait quietly. If Dave didn't wake in good time, Sophie would put a paw up and rest it on Dave's arm. Dave's eyes would open to look straight into Sophie's, whose tail would start wagging, and she'd turn to lead the way. As Dave would throw off the covers, she'd look back at him, her body directed towards the door. She'd lead a
barefoot Dave out of the bedroom, passing by Jan who'd let out a sleepy, “Hey, darlin',” scratching Sophie on the neck on her way by.

During the week, Sophie had her early mornings with Dave, fetching the
Daily Mercury
from the driveway and sitting beside him as he unwrapped and read it. Then Dave would head off to work and Sophie would go looking for Jan. The least favorite part of Sophie's days was around quarter to eight, when Jan, freshly perfumed and blond bob casually blown dry would descend the steps with her handbag over one shoulder, keys in her right hand. Sophie knew what this meant: alone time. And Sophie was never happy about it. She'd stop wagging her tail and the patter of her paws on the concrete carport halted. She'd look up at Jan with sad eyes, a wrinkle between them, blinking. It broke Jan's heart every day as she clicked the remote to shut the gate behind her, leaving Sophie standing in the middle of the driveway, turning her head but clearly watching Jan drive away to work.