Sophie, Dog Overboard : The Incredible True Adventures of the Castaway Dog (32 page)

Sophie's breed was definitely an advantage. “A cattle dog was the best friend I ever had,” says Dr. Pert, whose first and most endearing dog was a blue heeler that went with him everywhere in his university days. “Their loyalty is more intense than in some breeds. Some dogs are pack animals, interaction between everything around them is very important. Cattle dogs tend not to have that. They are far more focused on one bond, with the owner. Other dogs are more aware of the pecking order.”

Pert's dog was his first real buddy, he says. It's a sentiment frequently expressed by cattle dog owners and devotees, like Jenko, who filled Luke's head nearly two decades ago with how unparalleled a pet Jordy would be. “If you have their trust, there are no dramas,” Jenko says. “They are just really sturdy, intelligent and
strong-willed dogs and I know what it's like to lose one that matters.”

Jan's experience with her childhood cattle dog, Biddy was part of the reason the Griffiths were such cattle dog fans in the first place. “They are so intensely loyal, sometimes it makes you cry,” she says, having experienced the breed's magic long before Sophie pulled off her astonishing feat. Biddy would follow Jan's baby sister around, gently nudging her if she ever strayed into the next-door neighbor's property. Jan also remembers that Biddy was wary of men, running circles around the girls whenever a guy attempted to walk into the yard. “You just cannot believe how much they love you.”

Like most dogs, Sophie was not shy of expressing her displeasure at being separated from the Griffiths. Jan and Dave had witnessed this in her even before her time away. It was one of the reasons they took her on
Honey May
initially—they couldn't stand to disappoint her. The pup always knew—and objected—when someone was going away, be it for a cappuccino down at Oscar's or a week in Vietnam, where Jan, Dave, and Bridget recently travelled.

For at least a day beforehand, as Jan and Dave finalized details, packed suitcases, and arranged for Luke to move in to dog-sit, Sophie sulked around the house and garden, not trotting out of her spot as she usually did to say hello when she heard Jan or Dave coming her way. When the day came for the Griffiths to drive to the airport, Sophie lay inside the driveway, head between her paws, looking around but not lifting her nose from
the ground and definitely not approaching her owners for pats and licks as she did when she was happy. When Dave drove the car out of the driveway, Sophie stared towards the front gate, tail down and motionless. Jan could barely look.
Had she behaved like this on the island?

On the one hand, Jan and Dave feel a little flattered to imagine that their Sophie was prepared to hang out for as long as she had to, for just one more day with them. But if they'd known this while she was gone, it would have torn them up to think of her suffering alone and missing out on the essential affection that she lapped up when at home.

“I still feel so emotional about her arrival on the island. Imagine how tired, thirsty and hungry . . .” says Jan, trailing off. “I can see her just lying on the sand with her head on her paws, looking sad and exhausted.”

How, then, did she survive all that time without them when in the past, a few hours or a day felt like too much? The Griffiths wonder,
day after foodless day, night after shelterless night, did she ever curse them? Did she feel even an inkling of rejection? Was she aware of how much time was passing and did she lose faith in the hope of a reunion? Were her memories of Jan and Dave starting to grow fuzzy as time wore on? Was her attachment to them ever threatened? And why didn't she seek solace with some of the other humans she encountered?

For over five months, Sophie chose loneliness and hunger rather than contact with humans she didn't know and love. She could have relished her newfound freedom, spending her days on the island with Peter as her best
friend. It was an opportunity to become a beloved pet but still enjoy the wild that dogs are physically built to revel in. She could have woken every morning to a sunrise over her private ocean bay, spent her days chasing yellow-crested cockatoos and spangled drongos, rolling in mud and sand and chewing on coconut shells.

She did none of this—all the accounts of Keswick and St. Bees residents and visitors point to Sophie remaining skittish, suspicious and solitary for five months. In the three or so months it's presumed Sophie was on Keswick, no bins were ravaged, no laundry room nooks or outdoor sheds inhabited. Keswick residents heard barks in the night, sighted paw prints around the beaches and the island tracks, but for the majority of her time, Sophie remained elusive if not downright antisocial. “Even native animals like skinks and monitor lizards have been known to come inside houses. But not Sophie,” says Keswick's Eva Browne-Paterson.

Dogs are loyal. And cattle dogs are known to be
really
loyal, but the Griffiths believe even their other cattle dogs would have befriended people on the islands, not being able to cope without company. Sophie didn't seem to have this problem.

“I just reckon her sole purpose was to get somewhere where Mom and Dad could pick her up,” Luke says, adding that his dog, Sonny, “would have waited six hours, then gone,
sod this, he's not coming to get me, what's up? Oh good, there's someone to pat me and scratch me.”

“Ruby would have been the same,” says Jan,
imagining the red dog all grins and panting at the first promise of love. Not Sophie. “I believe she got to St. Bees and when there were people on Keswick, she swam over to see if it was us. I think this, romantically, but she is certainly resourceful enough.”

“It surprises me that she never went to anyone. You'd think there would have come a stage when she would,” says Ian.

While breed determines a lot in a dog's nature, it does not dictate everything about the way a dog conducts itself. Nature and upbringing work together. There was a stark difference between the personalities and attitudes of Sophie and her predecessor, Jordy. Jan wonders whether this has more to do with nurture than nature, Jordy having been raised primarily by Luke, who would rile her up, wrestling her, chasing her, roughing her around. For Luke, this was because it was a ton of fun but also because he had a traditional, Cesar Millan-like approach to raising cattle dogs. “The Australian cattle dog is a working breed that requires a demanding physical and psychological regimen,” writes Cesar on his blog, Cesar's Way. “If left unfulfilled, cattle dogs become easily frustrated.” Luke, who now tries to take his two-year-old and hyperactive blue heeler, Sonny, everywhere he goes, is all about a dog as physical playmate.

“Jordy regarded us as her job—she was guarding us all the time. When we got home, she'd run around the edge of the garden before she came to greet us on the steps,” explains Jan. “Sophie, the minute we come
through the gate, she's jumping onto our laps in the car, she's just so excited that we're home. I think Sophie must have decided that she was just meant to love us. Perhaps, because Bridget was so lavish with love and affection, she got used to it.”

Sophie's instant switch back to playful, adoring dog the moment she heard the Griffiths' voices on the marina five months after going overboard, suggests a simplicity to Sophie's love and loyalty. She just never forgot that it was her job to love and be loved by her family.

Two weeks after Sophie's return, Bridget came home for the Easter holidays. As she flew into town to be picked up by Jan at the airport, she was a little nervous. She was going to see Sophie for the first time in months and she was worried.
What if she doesn't remember me? What if she's mad at me?
Bridget fretted. “I wanted to say to her, it wasn't me that lost you, baby girl. It was them. Please don't hate me,” she says, only half-joking.

As Bridget drove through the gates to the house, she readied herself for whatever treatment she might be in for from the dog who'd been through so much. But as the gate opened, there was Sophie, bounding towards the car to her original bestie, her behind moving from side to side, mouth open, tongue lolling, smiling in her dog way. Bridget opened the car door and cried, “Hello, baby girl!” Sophie jumped straight in, landing her whole wiggling self into Bridget's lap and looking at her straight in the eye. Bridget wrapped her arms around
her Sophie, brought Sophie's head up to meet hers and ruffled her around the neck. Bridget was tearing up and planting big kisses all over Sophie's neck.

Ruby, still outside, tried to get in on the action, lifting a paw up into the car, attempting to nudge herself up between Sophie's nose and Bridget's. Neither Bridget nor Sophie was having it, though. The girls were back together and they needed some serious alone time. This was Sophie's moment—yet another one—and Ruby was going to have to deal with it.

“She slept in my bed for the first night just like she used to,” says Bridget proudly. The slumber party didn't last long, though. Jan and Dave allowed one night on the bed, then it was back to the armchair for Sophie. Tough. They wanted to instill
a little
Griffith family discipline back into their heroine pet.

Sophie, respectful as always, complied. In fact, despite Bridget's brags that she always gets Sophie on her bed the first night she's back, she has to admit that it may be more Sophie, than anyone else, insisting on the order. When Bridget says goodnight on her subsequent nights home, Sophie is usually already in her armchair, and rarely makes a move for the hallway door leading to Bridget's room. She'll whip her tail on the wooden arm of the chair, lapping up all the goodnight snuggling and cooing that Bridget is giving. She'll happily be picked up and lugged around by Bridget throughout the evening. But Sophie has her armchair and she seems perfectly content with her place in the house.

“She looks at Bridget as if to say,
you had your one night. I'm a dog, I have to do my dog thing,”
explains Jan, the stern authority who Dave had to convince to allow Sophie in the house all those years ago. She is charmed once again by Sophie's doggy dignity. “They're dogs, we respect that. Just as our kids have their own lives, we respect that.”

Sophie has certainly resumed her role as top dog with quiet gusto, slotting back into the Griffith household as fifth child. In fact, she could even be accused of being a little more haughty than in her pre-island days.

It's somewhat sacrilegious to pick a favorite from the dogs at the Griffiths', but throughout Sophie's first year back when Ellen and Ben came to Mackay with Molly, the first Griffith grandchild, Ruby threatened to nudge her older sister off her perch. Sophie just didn't seem very interested in the baby. Ruby, on the other hand, found a best friend in Molly, who would squeal in delight when she saw “the girls” and would dangle her little hand down from her highchair to have it licked by a careful and adoring Ruby. Last Christmastime, when Ellen let the dogs in for breakfast while the rest of the house was sleeping off holiday joviality, Ruby was rewarded when she was allowed to share Vegemite toast and yogurt with Molly in the kitchen, while Sophie darted straight past the action to stand at the door to Jan and Dave's room.

Sophie seems to be not only primarily devoted to Jan and Dave but also quite miffed at being more frequently
asked to stay outside when Molly is around. When the baby stands at the screen door calling out to “the girls,” giving herself a dirty nose from having her face pressed against the screen, Ruby will stand nose to nose with her, oozing affection. Sophie will often sit on the next step down, looking up at Molly with heavy eyelids and barely a wag of the tail.

The top dog is generally more prone to sulking since she's got home from the island. Luke has become especially impatient with it, having had to deal with Sophie's moods when he's come to housesit when Jan and Dave have gone away. “She will go into their room and not come out for days,” he says.

Luke brings the manic Sonny over to the house to live there with him and Heather. While Ruby makes efforts to play and interact, Sophie has none of it. While she's gentle and friendly with Heather, it would seem she has decided that Luke is the reason that Jan and Dave are not there, and she has been known to sulk for up to three days. It gets to the point where Luke will have to take food into the room for her. Otherwise, she'll lay under the leather couch in the living room, only her tail or her nose poking out from under it.

“She gets so annoyed that Dad's not there. And I bring Sonny, so her little bubble has disintegrated. She gets that sulking from Bridget,” Luke laughs.

After a few days, though, Sophie warms up. Perhaps she has been listening to the activity out in the house, to
Heather and Luke talking and playing with the other dogs, the TV murmuring in the background. It's usually when Luke opens a bag of chips or wriggles a packet of treats that Sophie will saunter out of Jan and Dave's bedroom, having returned to her contented self.

None of this can dampen Jan and Dave's pride. Sophie has earned herself something of a pass in the way that wise old women can be forgiven for a little grumpiness at times.

“Sophie has done all the dog things she needs to do for a lifetime,” Jenko reckons. And Jan and Dave might sheepishly agree. Nowadays, there is no question of Sophie's place on the Griffith family tree. There is no question of whether she is allowed inside, whether she's allowed to lick the dinner plates clean, whether she should be sleeping in on her leather armchair, day or night.