Jack

When the same thought pops into your mind on a regular basis even years after the event it may be time to put it in writing. Maybe that will clear the head or at least it will honour the memory.

One feature of every dairy farm is the farm dog or in most cases the farm dogs. Usually two if not more. To be fair all will get a mention although this tome is really about Jack for a very good reason. Anyway what happens is when you want to go milking all the dogs have to be let off the their leads so they can follow you or hop up on the quad for a lift to the dairy.

Well there was Jim a kelpie cross who was somewhere between 12 and 15, arthritic but would still wander the kilometre and half up to the dairy on his own because he was too old to jump onto the quad. He seemed to make a particular effort to get there after a new calf was born. Apparently the after birth is a particular delicacy but being a vegetarian I haven't tried it. Jim was semi retired but on a warm day would help muster.

Betty was a Border Collie, a bit deaf, a bit blind and probably had one too many kicks to the head. She would stay around the house except for one time when she came up to the dairy and mustered the herd with everyone else as if it was the normal thing. She only ever did it once and probably just to show me she could.

Then there was the new lead dog Sam. A good natured kelpie cross who only bit me twice when I tried to move his food bowl out of the kennel. I waited until he was out of the kennel for the third attempt. Always keen to catch a ride Sam rarely ran if there was a lift available. He unfortunately had a bad habit of disappearing when the irrigation was in use. I don't know how he got the energy to jump at the water stream for so long but 2-3 hours was the usual. Other than that habit he was reasonably reliable with a little selective hearing.

Jesse was only a baby sitting job for a neighbour across the river who was away but ended up staying permanently. She was the boss's favourite. A kelpie with perfect markings, lots of energy, always wanting to please. ran all the time, ate nothing, skinny and was the bantam version of a kelpie, so small you could fit her in your pocket.

Jack came along as Jim's replacement from a local dog pound. A very typical kelpie in markings except small in stature. Jack never rode if he could run. From the moment you released his straining body from the lead he was off jumping like he was on four pogo sticks. Then off to the dairy, not along the road but through the paddocks with his head dipping just slightly as he scooted under the bottom barbed wire. At the the dairy he was waiting as the rest of us arrived on the quad. Small, skinny with a constant grin Jack was born to run and he always did. Not too bad as a cattle dog but just too much energy to be really good. But a happier dog you couldn't get.

And then one morning Jack clipped the side of a corrugated iron sheet with one leg and bled. I got the phone call at 5.30am asking if I could come over and take over milking while the dairy farmer took him to the vet clinic. Jack wasn't very big and so a lot of blood was really a lot of blood. By the time the vet got to him there was nothing that could be done. He had lost so much blood they couldn't find a vein to put him down and an injection into the heart was all that could be done. And all through this Jack just had that big happy open mouth grin and wagging tail. It became impossible to forget Jack because he was so young, so happy and so full of energy.



Sam and Jack working the irrigation