Sophie, Dog Overboard : The Incredible True Adventures of the Castaway Dog (7 page)

Jan would leave each morning for Dave Griffith Electrical to take care of financial and administrative matters (and gossip with Megan, Dave's personal assistant extraordinaire). But this was not before she stopped for breakfast in Oscar's café in the center of Mackay. No more toast and marmalade and instant coffee at home. Jan became a latte-out-every-morning kinda gal the day Bridget left home.

“Jan was one of our first loyal customers,” says owner John Flanagan, whose wife, Lauren, has known Jan
since her teens. Jan would always come into the café looking crisp and colorful, her shoes usually matching some other element of her outfit, be it a necklace or a stripe on her sweater. As the kids had left, Jan increasingly lived the big-city lifestyle in her small town, driving around in a sleek silver Nissan 350Z that turned every seventeen-year-old male's head when Jan zoomed past, lipstick on, blond hair done. Jan says she doesn't care about cars the way she does shoes and outfits, but Dave had told her that they deserved to have a little bit of fun in their retirement years. “And it is fun,” she admits.

Some days, Jan would breakfast on her own. She'd chat with the waitresses, usually Europeans or Canadians on working vacations, or join Desley, a septuagenarian artist with incredible skin and a storied single life. Most days, Dave would join Jan after stopping in at the office to assess the day and to catch up with Luke and the “sparkies.”

The walls of Oscar's café are lined with photos of Hollywood greats: Marilyn Monroe, James Cagney, Lauren Bacall, Steve McQueen, Charlie Chaplin and a long-haired Brad. But there's another legend there, too: beside the coffee machine and above the cakes in the glass cabinet hangs a framed newspaper article about Griffo and his mates in their heyday as surfers, showing a twenty-something Dave with a washboard stomach riding a wave on a long board, white shirt ripped from left shoulder to right hip. John slyly “borrowed” this picture when he was around at Jan and Dave's at a dinner party.

After spending time at the office, Jan would return home by lunchtime to be greeted by Sophie as the gate opened, the dog's whole behind sashaying and a squeaky pork chop, one of the pup's favorite toys, in her mouth. As Jan would turn into the driveway, Sophie would always be waiting, eager to drop the pink rubber thing at Jan's feet as she opened the car door. “Hello, sweetheart,” Jan would say, and Sophie would look up at her and move her tongue in and out a few times.

After lunch, Jan might get the brush out for one of Sophie's favorite pastimes. Sophie couldn't resist when Jan or Dave brushed her, curling in towards them, a pup lapping up the love from her family. Add a tennis ball to the mix and Sophie would be in heaven, slobbering on it gently, lifting a paw or spreading her hind legs in complete submission as she was brushed.

In her quiet time, Sophie would lie for hours, belly squashed up against a fence or a tree, in the exact spot where the sun beamed down. Sometimes Jan would look through the shutters of the upstairs room to see Sophie standing over the pool, looking out across it as the sounds of a car entering the street or a distant dog barking grabbed her attention.

Later, Sophie would have her cheerful afternoon routine with Dave. Dave would take her for neighborhood walks, which were a vigorous affair. He relished the exercise, and was always charmed by Sophie's eagerness to get out there, and then her enthusiasm to stop for a pee or to say hello to a stranger. No matter
what the weather, even in the middle of wet-season storms, Dave and Sophie had their walks. Jan's friends would sometimes see Dave in his yellow raincoat, his balding head ploughing through the rain down the road as Sophie strode forward, tail and ears on alert. Sometimes, though, it was just too chaotic outside for walking. With gutters rushing and muddy puddles all over the paths and lawns, Jan would say, “It's not walking weather.” Dave might privately agree but would still look at Sophie and shrug his shoulders. “Sorry, mate, the boss has said the word.” For the rest of the afternoon, Dave would intermittently mutter that Sophie must be hating him just then.

When the pair came home from their long walks, Sophie would lap up water from her big red plastic bowl under the stairs in the carport while Dave cracked open his first Corona for the day and sliced a bit of lemon to squeeze it in. After a short break for refreshments, he and Sophie, excited to be off her lead, would then jog off to the empty grass block next door where she could run and roll and sniff around the weeping fig and mango trees to her heart's content.

Some days, Dave's neighbor from across the back fence would bring his bull terriers to run around with Sophie. The group of burly dogs would run and chase each other and bark, wrestling and pouncing and yelping, throwing slobber and paws into the air. If the neighbor wasn't home to bring the dogs out, Sophie would make a beeline for the fence behind which they
waited for their owner. She'd sniff them out, nose to the ground, and as she heard the barks begin, she'd run up and down alongside the fence, as if to say,
I
'
m out here, why aren
'
t you guys? Think what fun we could be having
!

Weekends, both Jan and Dave would be at home and Sophie would have non-stop companionship. Dave would spread out every national newspaper on the table under the house and spend hours reading them and snoozing in the sun. Sophie would be there, by his side, sometimes slinking under his chair to curl up in the shade and get some sleep, other times bringing him a tennis ball and politely dropping it at his feet when she was in the mood for a game. With her placid, self-contained nature, Sophie was content as long as there were people and activity around her.

It was something Matthew and his wife Melissa commented on when they came home from Brisbane for holidays and sat downstairs to catch up on life with Jan and Dave. They told stories of Bridget's exploits, as she was becoming a bit of a regular at the couple's Friday night TV football gatherings. It reassured Jan and Dave to know that the three of their children who had moved away had each other to call on. As the four of them sat around chatting, with tea and a slice of Jan's banana cake, Sophie sauntered over to Matthew and rested her chin on his lap.

“Wow,” Matthew remarked, a little melted. He was used to Jordy, who had nipped and bitten his friends over the years.

“She's lovely, isn't she? She's different from our other dogs.”

Sophie never wanted to be anywhere but with the family. As the Griffiths chatted and joked and Jan offered around more snacks, Sophie moved from one visitor to the next, nuzzling her nose onto Melissa's lap and looking up at her with tender brown eyes.

“Hello,” Melissa replied to Sophie, scratching her under the chin. Then she turned to Jan, who was looking on in open adoration of her pet. “You're right—she's just totally gorgeous, isn't she?”

As Sophie began to enjoy more and more of Dave and Jan's attention in the weeks and months after Bridget's departure, the idea that dogs belonged outdoors started to seem a little harsh. Both Jan and Dave missed the naughty evenings when Bridget held Sophie on her lap in front of the TV. And it wasn't long before Dave couldn't bring himself to look through the screen door into Sophie's adoring eyes and say goodnight if it was raining or there was a cold snap coming through Mackay. He'd step outside and Sophie would look at him, groan lovingly, snort and lie on her back as he rubbed her chest or stroked her between the eyes. She would never try to nudge her way in uninvited.

This all took a toll on the oh-so-tough Dave, who missed both his daughters terribly, now that neither was around to joke with and occasionally pamper. There was a lot of friendly teasing between Dave and the two Griffith sisters. Dave might shake his head
about how many new dresses or hairstyles they came home with—usually after a shopping trip with Jan—but he'd always offer his honest, considered opinion. He was not a fan of short hair so an ongoing joke between Ellen and Bridget was that Ellen, with her long thick tresses, was the favorite, as Bridget had been sporting a pixie do for several years. He still encouraged Jan to grow her blond bob out again, the way he always loved it. “She thinks she's too old or something,” he'd say, with his side smile.

Now Dave's affection for his daughters got channelled almost entirely into Sophie. The two of them spent a lot of time together out by the pool. If Dave sat down, Sophie would gently put her head on his lap and he would pat her, the two of them sitting there and looking at each other for minutes at a time. If Dave emptied the skimmer box on the pool, Sophie would be right beside him. She'd have her head slightly down as if listening out for vibrations in the ground, and her tail would wag every so often. Her ears would be up and she would sniff the rubbish that came out of the box, curiously, and then go and sniff it again when Dave threw it into the garden. “She was so interested in everything he did,” says Jan.

When Matthew or Ellen called Jan, weekly and sometimes daily, just to check in and catch up, the older Griffith siblings would always ask how Sophie was and be regaled with stories about how she was currently flopping by Dave's side as he read a
newspaper, or that she'd just performed a new trick that Dave had encouraged.

Several months after Bridget left home, as the evenings wound down and Jan was getting ready for bed, Dave started to bring up the idea that perhaps they could let Sophie inside on those cold nights. She could just sleep on the mat behind the front door and then they wouldn't have to worry about her shivering on her own, outdoors. And he wouldn't have to get up so early to check on her.

‘Think how much happier she'd be on the mat,” he'd tell Jan, who took a little convincing.

“So much for his ‘she's a cattle dog; she should be outside under an old corrugated iron water tank,'” she'd jive.

Jan had always taken pride in steering a course as a pet owner between parental affection and respectful distance. Cattle dogs aren't sissies. They are a sturdy, competent, self-possessed breed, built to work in Australia's fierce heat for days on end and control animals that could crush them with one hoof. “It's important that we give them their dog dignity—they are dogs and cattle dogs especially. There's that line in the sand that they draw themselves. They are your dog and you look after them, but you have to respect their dogginess. It's not all ‘oochy coochy coochy, baby, baby baby.' You can't call a dog ‘baby,'” says Jan.

So while Dave affected an air of authoritarianism it was in fact he, not Jan, who led the Griffith family
transition from steadfast canine disciplinarians to utter softies.

Of course, the always very polite Sophie needed some coaxing to be convinced that she was welcome inside the house. The first time she was invited in, she was completely coy. She slinked along the ground, bending her legs and creeping inside, butt practically dragging on the hardwood floors. As Dave and, eventually, Jan were inviting her in, they'd bend down and woo her, clicking their tongues and assuring her, “It's all right sweetheart, come inside.” As she inched towards the red Turkish rug in front of the TV, she wouldn't look them in the eye. Her ears were back, tail between her legs as Dave persuaded her. “Come on, Tuck, come inside.”

So much for tough love. Eventually, Sophie became more comfortable with the idea that she was an inside dog. And she was making Griffith history: never before had a family dog made it this far.

It took a few weeks, but in the end Sophie went from comfortable to cocky. Some nights when he couldn't sleep and came out to check on her, Dave would catch her stretched out on an old low-sitting leather armchair with wooden arms almost as wide as Sophie was long. She wouldn't turn to him or whip her tail in greeting; she was feeling too guilty. Sometimes she'd just catch his eye as she slid herself off the chair. But she'd been invited on to the rug, and the taste for domestic comfort had become addictive. It didn't take long for the armchair to become Sophie's.
Sophie loved her rug, came to revel in her armchair and especially relished the newfound comfort of being out of Mackay's wet-season summer days. Though Mackay locals roll their eyes at the assumption that the city's on a par with the extreme tropical climates of further north Queensland, it can rain for days and weeks at a time and is often 84 or 85 degrees; for a dog with a substantial fur coat, Mackay is rather warm.

When lying in the sun got too much, Sophie would saunter up the stairs and Jan and Dave would say, “Are you hot, darlin'?” They'd open the screen door for her to flop inside. She'd drop, belly on the hardwood floor, absorbing the impact of the air conditioner that was set to a delicious 73 degrees.

When Luke came over for veal schnitzel, his favorite of Jan's meals, the sight of Sophie regally sitting up on her green leather armchair made him slightly indignant. “What's this?” he'd exclaim. Not only had his Jordy never been allowed inside, she was never even allowed to climb the stairs up to the screen door. If she put so much as two paws on the bottom step, Dave would yell at her, “Get downstairs!”

Sometimes Sophie would look at Luke from her armchair, sheepishly, her head hanging a little, seemingly aware that, yes, she was getting special treatment. If Luke came over early in the morning on his way to work and caught Sophie flopped out and still sleeping on the armchair, just the tip of her tail would whip a
little on the chair, like a child giggling in the knowledge that it's getting away with something naughty.