World

You can’t choose your family. You also can’t run them through an industrial grinder and feed them to the dogs… well, you can, but the practice does tend to be frowned upon in polite society.

For me, family is something best handled in small doses, a trait I get from my father. My sister, on the other hand, inherited insanity from her father and his brood of mad relatives.

This is part of the reason I was dreading spending three days trapped in the company of my mother and sister at — of all things — a dog show.

I knew my dog was entered in the show. His breeder had asked to see him again and, as my sister was entering her dogs, she entered mine as well. She just forgot to mention that she had entered both of my dogs, which meant I was required to be on hand to help handle the four dogs that would be attending. This was sprung on me a month before the event. Great.

After a month of dreading my long weekend road trip, the day arrived to pack the dogs in the trailer and head north. And an auspicious start it was, with my sister in full tantrum mode.

On top of this, the radio station of choice was some mindless, middle-of-the-road drivel, that mercifully died half an hour after hitting the Sydney to Newcastle freeway. That left the fun game of radio roulette with country music and stock reports on the menu. Stock reports won out, I’m happy to say.

Food on the road can be an interesting experience. Toasted ham and cheese sandwiches seem to be fairly safe, but when you start to enter the more exotic world of a steak and gravy roll, things go awry. I did learn to stick to simple choices that can’t be screwed up too much.

One notable thing about leaving the Sydney area is the lack of Pura milk. I don’t know what they do to the stuff, but it always tastes foul. As you head north Dairy Farmers, Oak and Norco take over; a welcome change from their substandard Sydney competitor.

Nine hours later, just on dusk, we pulled into Moree. A town that is little more than a large truck stop, but has the claim to fame of hot springs. I’d probably be a little more enthusiastic about the town if I’d seen more than the road in, a hotel, the showground and the road out again.

Morning sees us out at the showgrounds for puppy sweepstakes. I’ve never known what sweepstakes are all about, aside from an early start. Then it’s a good few hours wait until all the dogs have to go into the ring.

For the most part, the people attending the country dog shows lack the bitchiness of a lot of the city show attendees. There are always the exceptions, and spending a couple of days with the regulars will get you up to speed with the dog circuit gossip of who’s shafting whom. Needless to say, my mother and sister love this aspect of dog show life.

I did get to play with a heap of dogs while I was there. Two Akita puppies that looked like baby bears, a very regal Irish Wolfhound and a litter of pudgy Border Collie pups. I had the chance to meet the three month old sister of one of my dogs. I also got to see a Clumber Spaniel, a dog I’d never heard of before. And for some reason, there were Jack Russell Terriers everywhere.

The return trip was better because we were heading home. A late start following the dog show meant we would still be in kangaroo country when the sun set, something my sister was worried about, especially with the image of a pealed open caravan fresh in her mind from the trip up. Fortunately for us, if not the kangaroos, the only ones we saw near the road were already dead.

Of more concern was the amount of idiots on the road who apparently got their licences out of a box of Corn Flakes. I got to see brain donors pull in front of fully laden semi trailers and slam on their brakes; drivers whose cars barely had the guts to pass other vehicles on the road, get upset when somebody tried to pass them, then try to pace the overtaking vehicle; a box trailer, overloaded with what looked like giant bright red kiddie pools, being driven at night, on a main highway, with no lights or indicators; urban wankers with four wheel drives, no driving ability and a belief that they own the road; and the amazing way that people forget how to drive as soon as it starts raining.

My dogs seemed to enjoy the trip — one of them did well enough to win fuel for the return trip and a shiny dog bowl. But for me, I guess the time with my family was much as I expected, but it was the people at the dog show made the event more tolerable than I would have thought. And my belief that the RTA will issue a licence to a trained monkey was well and truly enforced.

I been informed that I’ll be going to the Inverell dog show in three months time. I can hardly wait.

The St Bernard dog, that symbol of hope for lost snow-goers in Europe, is becoming popular in China… though not for carrying brandy to a victim of frostbite