We called him a mongrel, not as a slur against his character but for a lack of information. To this day I have no idea as to his constituent parts. For all I know, he could easily have been one part terrier, one part cattle dog and one part astrophysicist. Having decided to purchase our new pup from the Lost Dog’s Home, we had arrived knowing that the process was, more or less, a lucky dip. As we toured the floor, there was plenty of barking as animals bayed for attention, but of all the dogs we saw that day, he was the only one to look excited to see us. The choice was easy.
We called him a mongrel, not as a slur against his character but for a lack of information. To this day I have no idea as to his constituent parts. For all I know, he could easily have been one part terrier, one part cattle dog and one part astrophysicist. Having decided to purchase our new pup from the Lost Dog’s Home, we had arrived knowing that the process was, more or less, a lucky dip. As we toured the floor, there was plenty of barking as animals bayed for attention, but of all the dogs we saw that day, he was the only one to look excited to see us. The choice was easy.
There was always an element of mystery about him. Because no one was able to say precisely what he was, no one knew exactly what he would become. It was as though he had a secret identity. Some suggested that the length of his hind legs meant he would be a large dog. Others declared with confidence that he was as big as he was ever going to get. The dog said nothing.
The name was my father’s idea. I don’t recall there being a short list or anything that could be loosely described as ‘consultation’. He was given a name and that was it. Having regard for the animal’s somewhat humble beginnings, my father thought it only right that we should make up for lost time and provide him with the most noble name we could imagine. We named him Monte.
Having won his freedom from the Lost Dog’s Home, Monte the mongrel of indeterminate origin decided to live life to the fullest. He chased everything. He pursued us around the backyard and scurried after birds through the scrub. He set off at great speed after rabbits and foxes. His energy seemed to know no limit. He even chased our Orange Kombi van down the length of the driveway, giving up only after we pulled onto Coolart Road.
One day Monte pursued our van all the way to the road proper. Whether the thrill of the chase simply overcame him or he just forgot to stop running, I couldn’t say. Bursting into the public gaze, he kept galloping as though chasing the horizon. It was especially strange because, at the time, he had an ice-cream container around his neck. The container was supposed to stop him from scratching an abscess but it made him look like an astronaut.
As the dog burst out on the road, a chorus of children’s voices had alerted our parents to the fact that Monte had escaped into the wider world. The orange Kombi performed a rough u-turn and headed back search of our errant canine. In the time that it took us to turn the car around, a Council road crew filling in potholes had picked up our cosmonaut mutt. They placed our strange looking dog of unknown origin (although, by his appearance, outer space might have been a reasonable guess) on the back of their truck and headed back towards the depot.
With all the power the engine could muster, we got the Kombi up to nearly fifty kilometres an hour. We considered it warp speed. Lucky for us, the Council truck was slower still and we – albeit not quickly – gained ground. Monte saw us coming. Unable to contain himself, he leapt from the truck tray, launching himself into space. For that brief moment, he really was an astronaut.
Having landed on the bitumen, he was immediately hustled into our van and spent the next few weeks recuperating in the living room. I doubt that he ever wanted to move out. Sometime later, we relieved him of the ice-cream container. But within seconds, he was scratching at his neck, more than ever. Perhaps it was simply a case of abscess makes the heart grows fonder.
Whilst completing the first flight from a council vehicle onto Coolart Road was quite an achievement, it was far from his greatest accomplishment. That came in 1982 when he was awarded first prize in the highly competitive and prestigious category of ‘Dog with the Waggliest Tail’ at the Tyabb Primary School Pet Fair. The rest of the competition didn’t stand much of a chance. When he was presented with a sash, it only made him wag his tail with even more vigour. I had thought, at the time, that he could have gone on to other, larger competitions – perhaps even have a crack at the National title – but it didn’t seem to matter to Monte. All the same, it was a title he wore with distinction long after the wag left him.
He was a part of our family, there’s no doubt. When I left home to go to University, Monte remained, patrolling the yard, the paddocks and the bush at the back of the block. He never grew an inch. The most he conceded to his advancing years was a slight greying around the mouth and stiffness in the way he walked. Still, he paraded through the yard as if it was his own personal kingdom. When the time finally came to move from this world into the next, Monte took one last walk across the paddock and into the scrub. He simply disappeared.
Monte was eventually found and was buried in our back yard. On a small wooden cross there is an inscription – ‘Here lies Monte – born a dog, died a gentleman’. The term ‘mongrel’ no longer fit him. He simply outgrew it.