"I catched you a lizard Mummy"

Rah and Ekky were always mad lizard hunters. They got it from Katie. One day they were out together and I could hear this mad ruckus. Rah had caught a big blue tongue lizard and was proudly screaming around the yard with it hanging out of her mouth (it's head was in her mouth) trying to evade Ekky, who wanted it too.

I caught Rah and thought "How do I get this thing off her? I know, I'll tug on the tail, say 'Ta Rah' and she'll cough it up." So I tugged and ta'd and promptly pulled the lizard clean in half, leaving the head in Rah's mouth and guts dangling everywhere. Ewwww. After I stopped heaving I went and got a garden glove and recommenced the chase. I did eventually get the rest of the lizard off her, but after that if Rah caught a lizard, Rah could have it!!! I have a tough stomach but not for lizard guts......

"Echoe's brown slithering friend"

Echoe was a mad hunter of anything bird or lizard like. We came home one day to find that Echoe had busted out of her run and was sitting in the front common section. This was strange as she was always such a good girl and not a fence destroyer like Katie.

I walked in and got her and checked her over and she seemed fine, just one or two hairless patches. We couldn't work out what had happened.

Bren walked into the common section a little later and noticed a large pile of meat ants going crazy in the corner. They were feasting on a five and a half foot brown snake that had been doggie crunched! We hadn't finished our snake proofing yet and one had got in - so Echoe had busted out of her run and killed it - protecting her family. I still feel sick knowing that we could have come home and found her, and maybe the others, dead. Thankfully she won the battle that time. What a brave girl.

"Breathe Sargey Breathe!"

December 23rd 2004 Sarge and Katie were out the back playing in the dust when Sarge suddenly stood up, vomited, erupted at 'the other end', vomited again and collapsed in the dust. We quickly called the vet but they weren't open for another 30 minutes and the emergency centre was almost an hour away.

I got him up and we carried him to the car. I lay in the back seat with him for the 15 minute drive to the vet watching my beautiful boy blow up like a helium balloon, his throat and nostrils close over and him struggling to breathe. Then he stopped breathing. He just stopped.

I can still remember trying to blow air into him and yelling at him to breathe baby breathe with tears running down my face. After what seemed an eternity, but was probably between 30 seconds and 1 minute, he took this great shuddering breath, sat up and looked at me. Almost instantly all of the swelling went down and he burst out into hives all over his body.

By this stage we were at the vet hospital. The vet arrived shortly there after and could not believe what they saw or what had happened to him. They believe he suffered a severe allergic reaction to a bush scorpion bite and was a very lucky boy. The nephews stopped collecting bush scorpions in the back yard that very same day and we were all so relieved that our big boy was okay. That event scared the you know what out of me! Love my Main Man. xx

"Major where are you??"

Major Lee was always a real character. He had learnt that if you were really clever, you could maybe, just maybe, squeeze yourself out under the fence like the wombats do and go for a wander. Now this of course wasn't something we liked him doing, so we did our best to peg that fence down. But one night, Major achieved success. He achieved the status of 'Master Wombat'.

When we realised he was missing we both went into immediate panic. I headed up the back tripping over rocks and sticks in a pair of thongs, yelling 'Majey Wee, Majey Wee, come to Mummy' and trying not to sound like I was in a panic. But no answer. Bren was racing around down the front bellowing 'Majey where's my cream bun, come on Majey'. But no answer.

Then Bren had a bright idea. He thought about the fact that if Major was chasing a wombat or a roo, they always headed down the hill to the spring fed dam. So he got into the ute, turned the lights on high and drove slowly along the fire trail beeping the horn. Sitting lost and lonely by the spring fed dam, was our Major Lee. Just waiting for his Dad and Mum to come and get him because HE WAS LOST - a horrible great distance of about 100m from the house.

From that day on, if Major got out, we just drove down to the dam and picked him up. He always knew we'd come for him. Such a sweet and smart boy :<)

"Digger"

This memory was kindly written by our very good friend Andrew Munden at my request just over 4 years ago, when I said I wanted to do a Bullmastiff Stories / Memories page. I may be slow Lurch, but I get there :<) Whilst Digger was not one of our kids, (and you might wonder why he is on the memory page for our kids) we greatly admire his temperament and the love he inspired in our friends. We are proud to be able to share his story. Thank you Lurch for this beautiful memory of your mate and for your ongoing friendship and support. With much love from The GrizzMuffley Crew.

This is dedicated to an exceptional dog, my mate Digger, who may not have been a great example of breed “type”, but had the typical Bullmastiff temperament in spades. I’d grown up hearing stories about Mack-dog, who was a huge English Mastiff we’d had when I was small. Dad always called him a bullmastiff, but looking back, at 240lbs and the height of a Great Dane, he was definitely a Mastiff. So, when I eventually got married I had to have a Bullmastiff. I convinced my wife we needed a big, strong guard dog type, because I would be travelling a lot with my job, and he would keep her safe.

Digger was our first bully; we got him from a backyard breeder in Dubbo, from a litter of about 12, with no papers. He was a bit of a sooky puppy, but had enormous feet, and a cute expression, so he was ours – for all of $50. He had a fairly inauspicious start, with friends picking him up from the airport for us and delivering him to our home, with all the windows wound down to try and clear the air - as he’d been fed just before leaving. Their car never smelt the same again…

At first, we thought he was going to be a useless guard dog, because he was so soft. One day, a baby bird fell from its nest, and Digger barked at the back door until we came out to discover the problem. He ran back and forward to the bird and the tree until I put the bird back in the nest. Some ferocious guard dog! However, not long after, when he was about a year old, an armed escapee set up in our neighbour’s garden shed. They had been away for a few days, and on their return late at night, let their two Corgis into the yard, so the intruder made a big mistake – he jumped the fence. I was woken by Digger’s “I’m going to kill something” bark, and went to investigate. Naturally, it was the middle of winter, raining, I was only wearing pyjama shorts and didn’t turn on the back light as I walked out the back door. The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back with 55kg of puppy slobbering all over me. Thankfully he had recognised me at about the same time as he impacted my chest.

Later, we had moved house and were having a new phone line installed. My wife was pregnant with our first at the time, and Digger was particularly concerned for her. She was doing some gardening in the front yard, I was inside the house, and we had introduced him to the telephone repairman. Digger was happily sitting in his favourite vantage spot, which gave him good visibility of the whole yard. The repairman had just retrieved the new phone line from under the house and was walking towards his van, when I heard a thunderous roar. Looking out the window I saw the poor guy, terrified, backed up to the wall of the house with Digger bouncing up and down, snarling, growling and slobbering right in his face. After calling him off (well, actually screaming “NO” in a mad panic!) it turns out the phone guy had been walking towards his van (where my wife was) carrying a big stick. At this stage, Digger was about 75kg of solid muscle and was about 29in tall. He had a long muzzle, and virtually no mask, so we had decided that he was a throwback to the old type of bully, looking at some of the pictures in older books. He wasn’t a show dog, but he was a great bullmastiff nonetheless.

Digger loved our kids. When our first arrived, he would just stare lovingly at her in the pram. One day, we were at the beach when she was about two, and whilst getting set up, we turned our back on her for a few seconds. We were interrupted by screams of “naughty boy digger” from our little independent miss, as he prevented her from walking into the little lagoon any deeper then her knees. He just looked at us as if to say “kids!”

He adopted all our family, and they all loved him too. My parents particularly fell for the big boy, and one time when on holidays at their house, my mum was making vegemite sandwiches (his favourite) for all the grandkids. Digger sat patiently in the kitchen, resting his chin on mum’s kitchen bench, a nice pool of dribble forming, as he waited for his sanger…

Eventually my mate got cancer. It was a terrible thing to see, the way it ate away at him as he dropped from 75kg to 45kg in about two months. Just before I had him put to sleep, my parents came down for a visit. Dad was on all fours chasing our three year old around the lounge room floor, as she squealed in fun. As they went past Digger, who was lying on the floor, he just moved across, put his head under dad’s chest, lifted him onto his feet and positioned himself between dad and our daughter. As sick as he was, his protective instinct never let us down. He was my mate and I still miss him.