Karoo Blog, The Journey Man - Chris Marais
Walks with German Shepherds in the Karoo
06
Jun
Jun
Text & Photographs by Chris Marais
TwoPack (our German Shepherd) has a fabulous daily routine here in the South African Karoo town of Cradock, and it goes like this:- Wake up in a good mood;
- Wake the owners up and take them for a walk on the golf course;
- But not before picking up the three other Shepherds who live over the road;
- Upon arrival, find a bush and answer the call of nature;
- Now dart across the bridge with Auntie Nuka (a non-related Shepherd) and clear the 9th green of all Hadedahs;
Jules and TwoPack have a quiet chat. - Give Poppa Shepherd (Shadow) a good-morning face lick;
- Try to wrestle wet stick from Momma Shepherd (Roxy);
- Dance around Chris so he can look out for more Hadedahs to chase;
- Hit the water furrow for a swim;
- Shake water furiously off body, in most cases over owners;
- Dart off to the Big Pine Tree and rootle around for the roundest pine cone to bring back;
- Start a game of Walk Soccer with Chris or Jules;
- Time for Second Swim;
- Follow Shadow to the reeds along the Great Fish River and pretend to be chasing a mouse;
- Hear a monkey chattering in one of the trees – gather up the team and stand barking at the base while the monkey grins down in anger;
- Hurtle back to owners to hear what they’re discussing;
- Visit a particularly yieldy willow tree and choose a stick to bring back to Chris;
- Ask Chris to engineer the stick into something throwable and fetchable;
- Entice Chris and Jules to stop walking and throw the stick at least four times;
- Have Swim #3;
- Ooh! Another flock of threatening Hadedahs need chasing;
- Inspect aardvark burrow with other dogs as back-up;
- Time for a dew bath (summer) or a frost bath (winter);
- Try to grab stick back from Roxy, who has quietly snuck up and snaffled it away;
- Be the first back in the bakkie and wait for biscuit from Jules;
- See other dogs off with a couple of lusty barks outside their house;
- Get home in time for breakfast;
- Leave big smiles on owners’ faces, as they begin their working day in a great Shepherd-inspired mood…
Dear 2Pack, we agree with everything. Ulfie, Gaia and I love all of those things too. In Delta Park where our mistress takes us every morning come rain or shine except for very cold weekends like this one when the lazy bitch prefers a long lie-in … we have guinea fowl to chase and sometimes we get so carried away we forget to come when she calls, though she’s usually so busy chatting to her walking friend Uscha, she doesn’t even notice sometimes.
After weekends we find the dustbins overflowing with old bones and other lovely goodies so we also gorge there for a while until Mistress accuses us of behaving “worse then street dogs”. You’d think they never got fed!
Sometimes we chase smaller dogs too … even though we know we are not supposed to!
Thanks for your wagging tale! We three dogs are German Shepherds too .. viva GSDs forever, Love and licks, Neo (slurp slurp)