Sophie, Dog Overboard : The Incredible True Adventures of the Castaway Dog (27 page)

At first, no one had an answer to that one. As at every point in Sophie's tale, the truth, that she had not been abandoned, that she had survived against all odds and was still very much missed, was too preposterous to suggest itself. But then, in a moment of pure serendipity, Jodi's partner Ray, a fellow of few words, remembered something.

‘Didn't your mother's friend lose a dog out that way a few months ago?' Ray said.

The party turned to him.
What?

Jodi thought about it. “Well, yeah, but that was ages ago.”

Ray shrugged. “Just thinking. What sort of dog was it?”

Jodi didn't know. She and Ray had heard the story just a few weeks earlier when they were visiting Jodi's mother, Heather. Heather was Jan's old friend and ladies lunch partner, the one she had called, just after Sophie's disappearance, to tell everything. Jodi had assumed the missing dog was a poodle or something similar—a small, manageable dog, just like Heather's Carly, perfect for boat trips. Not like a cattle dog at all.

“All I know is that they're a slightly older couple and they used to take the dog on the boat,” she said. “They were devastated when they lost it.”

Ray had planted a seed and as the Sunday evening evolved, as glasses were topped up, the conversation escalated about the mystery of this dog surviving out there on St. Bees. All of a sudden, there was the possibility that it could be more or less a family friend. Everyone let the story run, laughing and calling out over each other, imagining the long-lost pet being rescued and reunited with the family. They tried to picture who would play the dog in the movie, who would play David, who would play Frank who had thought the hound was a wolf. And all through it, Ray had a niggling feeling.

“I didn't even know what sort of dog Jan had lost, but Ray said, ‘Let's just give it a chance. You never know,'” Jodi recalls. “I guess we were getting all excited about it.”

When Jodi and Ray walked home some time around nine, Ray was still hooked on the possibility of a fairy
tale ending. “Why don't you just call your mother and find out?” he suggested.

Jodi, still in the spirit of the evening, thought,
Why not?

It was half an hour later when the phone rang at the Griffiths' and startled Dave, who was sitting watching TV. Jan was already in bed, weary from a weekend of activity. The couple had had a lounge-y evening and Dave was just about to follow her when the phone rang. Dave grumbled to himself—
what time was it?
—but figured it was one of the kids calling. He was in the mood for a chat, anyway.

In fact, it was Jan's friend Heather.

“G'day Heather,” said Dave, perplexed. He thought this a strange time for Heather to call. “Jan's gone to bed already.”

“I know I'm calling late,” said Heather. “But I had to phone you. Look, bear with me, Dave. I've got to ask you—Sophie, she was a cattle dog wasn't she?”

The question jolted Dave. It was Sunday night, he was ready for bed and here was Jan's old friend calling and asking him about Sophie. Dave wasn't used to hearing her name out loud.

“Yes, she was a cattle dog,” answered Dave. “A blue one, she was blue. What's going on?”

“I knew it!” said Heather. “Listen, this is going to sound a bit far-fetched but I might have some news.”

As Heather spoke, Dave's heart rate increased. This was a bit of a stretch, and yet . . .

Heather reiterated that if there was any chance it was Sophie, they'd have to start making phone calls first thing in the morning. This dog was going to be trapped any day now—it was all set up.

Dave had a feeling. A positive feeling mixed with dread. He thanked Heather in a bit of a daze, hung up the phone, sat down, and thought,
well, what do I do now?
He was bursting to wake Jan but the stark contrast between a potential miracle and further heartache was already making his head spin—there was no way Jan would sleep a wink if he woke her now.

The house had become disturbingly quiet.
This is a bloody long shot,
he thought.
What are the chances?
But the positive feeling was so strong that he had to tell someone. So he called Bridget.

“There's a dog on St. Bees,” Dave blurted out when she picked up.

“What are you talking about?” asked Bridget. She was sitting in her flat in Brisbane chatting with her roommate, Sammy. She could hear the hopeful excitement in her Dad's ordinarily stoic voice. “Your mom's friend Heather just called. Her daughter Jodi knows the owner of the island and there's a wild dog out there. We're thinking it might be Sophie.”

Over in Brisbane, Bridget stood up. “Dad, you're not serious?”

After all these months, now this news?
Father and daughter felt a bit light-headed.

“Listen, don't get your hopes up,” warned Dave.

“We're going to call the marine park guys tomorrow.

Whatever you do, don't tell any of the others. Let's just wait and see.”

Dave hung up, leaving Bridget dumbfounded and shaking. How could she go to bed now without calling one of her siblings? Ellen, who lived just a few blocks away, was heavily pregnant, tired, and working. She shouldn't disturb her.

But Bridget couldn't keep it in. So she dialed Ellen's number. “There's a dog on St. Bees and it might be Sophie!”

Ellen had been snoozing in front of the TV with Ben and when she saw it was Bridget calling, wondered what her little sister wanted on a Sunday night. This was the last thing she expected. They hadn't spoken about Sophie in months.

“What? Is this even possible?” she said to Bridget.

Both sisters were excited and terrified.
What if it wasn't her? What if it was her? Could she really have swum there? What if it
was
her but she'd gone feral and she had to be put down? How would Jan and Dave cope? How would Bridget cope?

Ellen and Bridget made a pact to call each other the minute they knew anything more.

The next morning, Monday morning, March 30th, Jan woke at six thirty to find a note from Dave on the kitchen table.

Call Heather. It's about Sophie.

Her first thought was,
Oh my God. What now?
Then she felt an awful ache and put her hand to her heart, as she had on the St. Bees beach, months ago. Seeing Sophie's name jarred her. She frowned. Her day was taking on a surreal tinge.

She glanced outside. There was Ruby, her tail whipping madly against the screen door in the hope that this would be the morning that Jan finally invited her inside.

Jan phoned Heather immediately. She didn't beat around the bush. “What's going on?” she asked her friend. Jan had one hand pressed to her forehead and was starting to sweat a bit.
What was going on, here?

Heather told Jan that Jodi had been over at her neighbors' the night before and had called afterwards in a somewhat incredulous state. Apparently Jodi's neighbor, David Berck, said there was a cattle dog on St. Bees. It all seemed pretty outlandish and coincidental, really, but Jodi's Ray—you know how quiet he is—had a feeling. And now Heather had it, too. When Jodi said the dog had been mistaken for a wolf, Heather knew,
This dog could be Sophie.

Jan couldn't get her head around a word she was hearing.
How was this possible? Was she dreaming? Sophie? Still alive?

When Heather told Jan that the rangers were out there that very moment trying to trap the dog, Jan snapped into action. The two women hung up and Jan immediately dialed the number for David Berck that Heather had given her, her hand shaking a little. Jan counted the ring tones, willing someone to pick up the phone. It rang several times, then clicked. Jan breathed in, ready to speak. But it was the answering machine. “Hello, this is Jan Griffith calling,” Jan said. “We think the dog on St. Bees might be our dog.” She didn't bother with niceties. She was already in a state of shock.

Jan put the phone down and her eyes scanned the living room, distracted. She looked out at Ruby, still
waiting for some attention, and put her hands on her hips.
What was she supposed to do now?
If what Heather had said was true and the dog was being trapped and it could be Sophie, then they had to get out there.
But where? Who should they call? And . . . what? Sophie? On St. Bees?

Jan was incredulous, but then she started to think back to that day on the beach. New Year's Eve. That nest she'd found with the animal skeleton. The feeling she'd had.
Could Sophie really have been there? How far from where she went overboard was that? Surely not.

She called Dave on his cell phone.

“Is somebody pulling our leg, Jan?” Dave asked, not really joking. “It was late when Heather called last night; I thought she was crazy.”

“I couldn't believe your note this morning,” Jan conceded.

“Let's just see what David Berck says, hey?”

Dave was feeling anxious about investing too much in the possibility that this dog was Sophie when they really had very little information to go on. It was surreal, for sure. “I mean, she was a good swimmer but . . .” he trailed off.

They made a plan. Dave would call David Berck again and if they didn't hear back from him, they would try the Parks and Wildlife guys. It was still early in the morning but if there was any truth to Heather and Jodi's story, they had to try everything they could.

While Jan sipped a much-needed cup of tea at the
kitchen table and went through the phone book looking for the number for the QPWS Mackay office, Dave tried calling the Bercks. It took a few attempts. The Bercks were in the throes of morning chaos and not expecting a call.

Finally David Berck answered the phone and told Dave that it was Ross Courtenay he needed to call. He also warned Dave not to expect miracles. “Look mate, I don't like your chances here. As far as we know, she's been bringing down goats and has the thirst for blood. It's going to be up to the authorities to make that call.”

Dave heard it: The call was whether the dog needed to be destroyed or not.

He put the phone down and called Jan. He gave her the number to call Ross Courtenay. He told her what David Berck had said. “Who knows, darl. It could be her. It's bloody hard to believe but it could be. The thing is, she might be feral. Apparently this dog has been bringing down goats.”

Jan nodded silently on the end of the phone. “I don't know if I can take this,” she said simply.

Dave was quiet.

Both of them were thinking,
can we go through this again?
They had only just found their footing with Ruby, who had become the tiniest bit mellower in the past few weeks. They had agreed to take her for juvenile dog training together, and now, after her third lesson, it seemed that while she was still a bit of a wild thing, she
was learning quickly. They were feeling as though they could be proud cattle dog owners once again. Now here they were, getting their hopes up that despite all the agony of the last five months, this story might really have a happy ending.

The Griffiths went into action mode. There was not much use in talking about the negatives. Or the positives. Both of them felt it. They had hope. It really could be her. It all just seemed right. But the clock was ticking and there was no time to hang around ruminating. According to David Berck, the rangers hoped to be trapping the dog this morning.

“Call this Ross Courtenay guy,” Dave said. “Call me back and let me know what he says.”

Ross Courtenay took a phone call in the QPWS Mackay office. The lady on the other end said she'd heard that somebody had reported a dog on St. Bees. She seemed to think it might be her dog.

Ross was skeptical at first: this dog had been out there for months and today of all days, when the rangers were going in with the trap, this woman, Jan Griffith from Mackay, calls up and wonders if it's her dog.

He wasn't even ordinarily in the office at that time on a Monday morning. “Jan was lucky she got through to me,” Ross admits. “It was completely random that I was in the office that morning and if I hadn't been there, there was nobody else who knew anything about the mysterious dog.”

Ross, with his own rescued mutt at home, could hear the desperation in Jan's voice.

“I know it sounds ridiculous,” she was saying, her words falling out in a rush, “but this dog, who we foolishly lost, is our beloved pet and we have mourned her and felt terribly guilty. We have to give her every chance.”

When Jan told Ross that the dog's name was Sophie—Sophie Tucker—and she was a cattle dog, Ross had the same rush of optimism that David had the night before: it was Sophie. He could feel it.

“It does sound a bit crazy but, well, it sounds like it could be your dog,” Ross said.

Over on
Tomoya,
where the rangers were sleeping, Steve Burke was having his morning coffee when the phone rang.

“Ross was telling me that someone had lost their dog over by Hesket Rock back in October and her name was Sophie or Sophie Tucker,” Steve recalls. “It was a little surreal—this call was coming through today, after all these months of hearing about the dog and wondering why nobody was claiming it.”