In the early 1970's I finally acquired after years of wanting, an Afghan.

Originally I lived on the coast and Madame was accustomed to being exercised daily at the local sports oval on lead and lots of free running on the local beaches. She was much loved and cared for with the best quality shampoos and conditioners, Mason and Pearson brushes, the right food and lots of grooming.

In the mid seventies I moved to the country and of course Madame accompanied me. I met a young man who owned a 2000 acre property. After a few dates he invited me to spend the day on the property with the dog. He had previously met Madame and spent some time with her indoors and outdoors (when she was on lead). She of course was always aloof and contained on these occasions and heeled perfectly on and off lead, sat when asked, dropped when asked - in fact all the things a well trained and well behaved dog does.

When we arrived I carefully let Madame out of the car on lead and asked if there was a safe fenced area where she could have a run. "Let her go here" was the reply "this is only a 50 acre paddock and there are no stock in it". Before letting her go I inquired as to the state of the fences just to make sure and was told "she can't go far and she knows her name so she will come back if we call". Before I could add sometimes to the last sentence Ed released Madame.

Little did we know Ed's father who lived on the property had put 50 fat steers in the house paddock that morning ready to be loaded to go to market that night.

Away the Afghan went - we hadn't seen the steers but she found them in seconds. She looked wonderful running free with her immaculately groomed coat. The steers had never seen such an apparition and took flight. Madame of course followed, ran side by side, followed and in short had a simply marvelous run. We eventually recovered her when she regained her hearing after having put the steers through various fences, creeks, gullies and any other number of interesting obstacles.

After we recovered Madame I discovered what havoc Bathurst Burrs wreak on coated dogs and spent the next several hours gently removing them and grooming my naughty but well satisfied girl.

Ed in the meantime spent several hours repairing fences, after rounding up the distraught steers and taking them further away from the house yard.

Fortunately none of the steers were badly injured apart from wire cuts and bruising from the fences. However with them having being completely stressed it was impossible to send them to market that night and of course bruising would have been unacceptable. They eventually went to market some 4 weeks later when fully recovered and of course the market price had dropped by over 20%.

Despite the tribulations of this first visit to the property romance flourished and about a year later we married and I and Madame went to live on the property.

At that stage there were 9 working dogs, Border Collies and red Kelpies. Their homes were bits of old water tanks and a stake and chain. When they were working they were thrown a piece of meat each night and on off days nothing. Vaccinations were unheard of and as for worming and flea control - what was that?

Just prior to the wedding we constructed over a weekend a wonderful set of kennels based on some we had seen on a New Zealand property. Each kennel was about 4 metres by 2 metres fully meshed and about 700mm above ground with a mesh floor. Gates were at the front, and at the back 2 metre by 1 metre wooden sleeping boxes which were also accessible from the back for cleaning. Stainless steel drinking and eating bowls were wired into each kennel and water nearby for watering and cleaning. We even went to far as to install a small septic system at the rear to gather the waste. A fridge was installed in the shed to house dog meat and dry food purchased (an all time first) and stored in sealed garbage cans.

Madame of course was to live in the fully fenced house yard (a half acre block) and have her own sleeping arrangements inside. Prior to her arrival however all the working dogs were subject to vaccinations, worming and de-fleaing. As the usual vet for the property was 90km away I approached the local vet (only 20km away) to see if I could purchase the vaccine and do the working dogs ourselves on the property as he didn't do calls. This was refused and I took all 9 dogs in on the back of the farm ute. What utter chaos. None had ever been on a lead so they all followed me in to the surgery. When the vet asked for one on the table and I gave the command up all 9 leapt for the table at once. We had dogs, injections and needles everywhere. Needless to say thereafter I collected injections and did them all myself at home. Worming was another problem and ended with mouths being propped open with sticks while tablets were inserted. One dog (the boss dog) refused to swallow under any circumstances even with his mouth held open and about a litre of water poured in - we solved the problem eventually with a sip of beer. Flea control was done with knapsack sprays both on the dogs and on their old sleeping areas.

We led a tranquil couple of years after that. Madame settled to life on the property and learned to ignore the sheep and cattle, mostly she ignored the working dogs too - they were obviously inferior.

Things went well until the female Border Collie had a litter of pups seven or eight days before Christmas and Madame immediately developed pregnancy symptoms in sympathy and dug holes throughout the house yard ready for pups. It was my turn for a family Christmas and I was cooking lunch for 19 family members and guests and just about to serve when my distraught father-in-law came in very distressed and announced that our best working dog was dying. She didn't die but it was pretty close. Being a very keen worker she had 5 pups and the following day managed to get out of her pen and help herd sheep. After that there was no stopping her and the men aided and abetted her working instincts by letting her work an hour or two a day. With 5 pups and the heat and work this was far too much for her system and she had collapsed with Milk Fever. Vets were unobtainable on Christmas Day, but I managed to get our Vet on the phone and he talked us through the procedure of adapting the drip sets and things we used for cattle with the same problem. The cure was instant and miraculous and in minutes the rigid scarcely breathing dog was up on her feet and ready to go. The vet recommended not allowing her to continue to nurse the pups so it was left to me to hand raise them.

It was an hour or so before I was able to get away from the house to check on the pups. Madame had not been seen for a while, but I had presumed she had dug a new hole and was basking in her Pseudo pregnant state. The Border Collie bitch was securely locked in a kennel and there were no puppies anywhere to be found in the whelping pen. After an extensive search eventually we found Madame in a freshly dog hole under the front verandah of the house nursing the 5 puppies. She somehow managed to produce milk and indicated in no uncertain terms that these were now her babies and take them away at your peril. We reached an agreement and she fed them some milk and I supplemented with a Denkavite mixture. Her beautiful coat turned to tatters with milk stains and puppies clawing through it constantly. For the first time I had to partially clip her. She was a wonderfully devoted mother and rarely left the puppies. Because she was so devoted to them we paid a little less attention to keeping her securely in the house yard.

After a few weeks Madame decided it was time to start feeding more solid food and apparently I was a little slow in organising this. It was only after I noticed her regurgitating meat for the puppies and examined her coat closely that I realised she had found a fresh meat supply somewhere. On checking the paddocks we discovered in one of them furthest away from the house where we had a small mob of fat lambs, a half eaten carcass. Further investigation found two lambs near the dam that appeared to be paralysed in the rear ends. What we worked out happened was that Madame had bitten through the spinal cords of the two lambs we found alive and though they were unable to walk they could move far enough to get water and eat and were available for Madame to use at her convenience. Her foot prints at the side of the dam and the sheep’s panicked tracks through the pasture were proof enough. After we found this we let her out to test the theory and after circling around almost the full property she made straight to the carcass and commenced gorging. On her return to the house yard she went straight to the puppies to feed them.

The normal sentence for sheep killing on a property is death, however there were extenuating circumstances. Although I was rather upset for the lambs I was also rather proud of the fact that my beautiful girl was a self sufficient hunter and provider for her adopted family.

After the puppies were weaned and most went to new homes things settled down and we never had a recurrence of a false pregnancy or hunting to kill. She now rests permanently on her favourite hill overlooking her domain.