3 Minutes.

“Three minutes of happiness borrowed from a dog”.

Michael Leunig.

 

“Friday is the best day of the week.”

My mistress says that a lot.

I’m not absolutely sure why she says it; one day is pretty much the same as another to me.

I don’t have favourite days.

There are only ‘days’, and I like all of them.

That’s not to say that some don’t turn out better than others, but at the beginning, they are all great.

The night has passed, we are rested and nothing bad happened. I probably had to chase away a possum or a fox but that is business as usual.

Now the day stretches out before us.

My mistress will make coffee after sitting on that strange water-filled chair. Personally, I prefer peeing on a tree, it seems more natural, but those water-filled chairs can come in handy. I got locked in the house once, without a water bowl. I was hungry, but it was the thirst that was the worst.

The water is a long way down, and I nearly fell in.

Thirst will make you do strange things.

Somehow my mistress manages to bring home food, which is good.

She says the food comes from her writing, “Got to get back to work Rufus, that’s where those dog biscuits come from”. That doesn’t make sense to me, but I try not to worry about it too much.

That’s her job and my job is to protect her; I take my job very seriously. I’m at a bit of a disadvantage because I’m not very big.

I have friends who are big, the Dingoes who live close by for example. They would come in handy if a fight broke out.

I sound worried, but I’m not; it’s very quiet around here, but you never know, and you should never drop your guard.

That’s what Bluey told me.

He was a very old Greyhound.

He was big, and I do mean big.

He was once a champion runner. He could run really fast. He was very wise and he risked ridicule by befriending a small dog.

Actually, I was only a pup and I didn’t know that I was supposed to be afraid of him; everyone else was.

I wandered into his yard one sunny day and the young dogs I was playing with started shouting at me to come away.

I was young, and I didn’t listen.

They ran away, but I kept on walking.

Next thing I know, there is a giant shadow over me.

I turned around and there was the second biggest dog I had ever seen. The biggest dog I had ever seen was Tinker Bell.

He was as thick as two short planks, whatever they are, and he didn’t live very long.

He had an argument with a bus, and the bus won.

Dumbest dog ever.

So there I was, in the shade of a huge old greyhound.

He didn’t growl at me, he didn’t have to. I knew I was in a spot of bother.

He looked down at me, from a great height, and asked me why I didn’t run away like the other pups did.

I told him I was curious, I wanted to know who lived here.

He smiled, at least I think it was a smile, I haven’t spent much time around greyhounds.

He asked me if I was hungry. I’m always hungry, so I said yes.

He walked a short distance and dug up a small bone. I think it had been in the ground for a long time because it smelled great. He offered it to me but he asked that I not tell anyone that he had done it. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold”.

We talked for a long time; at least it seemed like a long time to me but it might not have been, I got distracted very easily back then.

When it was time for me to go, he asked me what my human called me.

I said “Rufus”.

He said he liked that name but here I would be known as ‘Small, Black, Brave, and Furry’.

He said I could come back and visit anytime I liked.

Sadly, I didn’t take him up on that offer nearly often enough.

One day I wandered in, and I was met by his human.

“He’s not here little fella. He died last night. Just got old I guess. He loved your visits, they made him feel young again.” The human’s eyes were very red. He looked like he had a cold and his voice sounded funny.

I kind of knew what ‘died’ meant.

Mostly it meant that you would not see that person again and you would not be able to talk to them, and you felt very sad when you thought of them.

Bluey taught me heaps of stuff, and I like to remember our talks.

There is a little poodle pup who sometimes comes and visits me and I try to look out for him the way that Bluey looked out for me.

You have to look after the young ones; they don’t know a lot of stuff and they have to grow up very fast if they are going to survive.

It’s a fun job, I can see why Bluey enjoyed it so much.

Every time I feel like running really fast, I think of him.

.

Rufus gets around a bit. If you would like to read some more of his stories you can go here………………

http://barcaupthewrongtree.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/rufus-and-millie-not-a-love-story/

http://barcaupthewrongtree.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/rufus-finds-a-body/

https://araneus1.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/rufus-and-the-mysterious-case-of-the-missing-dog-biscuits/