The Caravan Years

It's been a long time since you've worn a collar, as long as it’s been since I've donned heels, blazers, and pencil skirts. Those artifacts of modern city living, we left them behind for a slice of life more suited to both our natures. We only met because of a divorce; another dog taken, my father grief-stricken. You were supposed to be a family dog, instead you chose me.

Dad and I were visiting the Animal Welfare League’s Ingleside shelter to “just have a look.” Just a look. I still marvel at the serendipity of three Great Dane puppies when I’ve dreamed of a big dog companion since childhood. A homeless man, the shelter staff told us, his German Shepherd had an amorous evening with a Great Dane. The ranger picked up the puppies, would you like to see them?

The immediacy with which both Dad and I zero in on you, sitting quietly at the back of your enclosure, tail eagerly going even with kennel cough, is spooky. A week later, we pick you up and take you home.

You were so big; three months old and you had an inch on my knees. People never believe me when I tell them what great apartment dogs big breeds are; the lazy, lolling, lying around big breeds. A fifteen minute walk kept you exercised and happy although you were never a fan of city streets.

I like to think you were happy to leave them.

Living on the farm has kept you young, or so I tell people; there's salt and pepper on your muzzle where there used to be brindle but there's wisdom there too, the kind only dogs are privy too— smelling when the dingoes are about, knowing a kangaroo isn't worth the effort of the chase, how to make the best of rainy days on your veranda bed. And although the baby annoys you and you're less than enthusiastic about puppies visiting, I know it's me you'll look to when thunder rumbles and turns all 40kgs of you to jelly.

Harley. 8 years old. Great Dane/German Shepherd. Frightened by storms. Frightened also by ducklings.

When the bushfires came for us, those painful, adrenaline fuelled days off horror, you were often the only calm in a storm that raged and raged. It wasn't thunder I needed saving from but fear of another kind. Post-traumatic stress we humans call it though I've no doubt you dogs can feel it too; neither of us feel quite at peace around campfire smoke anymore.

The Black Summer bushfires took the farm— our home, the forest, the pasture— it burned hot and long and you sat there in the backseat, trusting me as we drove through flames. Later, when our home was ashes and melted metal and we moved in with friends, I remember the warmth of your fur; it was the only heat I could stand.

But before that, we spent four years living in a caravan together— you, me, and the man.

When we gave up the comforts of our little rental on 15 acres, packed our furniture and clothes away in that big blue shipping container under the plane tree, and pitched a tent on 111 acres without a house but that was all ours. You were entirely unphased. In fact, you liked sharing the three-man tent because we slept all in a pile together, like a pack of puppies after a romping play.

When the tent flooded we found an old caravan, set it up on bricks, and all four of your long lanky legs curled up each night in the nook beneath the fold away table. That was around the time you traded learning tricks for treats, became my student and I your teacher— sit, stay, lay down, roll over, lay down, come, beg, touch, back up, circle around my legs. Even balancing a treat on your nose. There wasn’t anything you didn’t eventually figure out how to do, including happily transitioning to the caravan.

It tested the man and I initially, tent and van living, but you were as you always are— fine as long as we were all together. And more. You have that something that all dogs do, a wisdom perhaps that comes naturally to you but that we humans spend lifetimes searching for.

Sitting in the pasture together, watching the sheep wander plant to plant in their lazy way as a sheet of rain rolls down the valley, I look to you and the something is there. You watch the ruminants graze and you blink slowly, your eyes relaxed, the drooping skin around your mouth relaxed, your slouched sit comfortable, content. I can’t put my finger on it but it's there, quiet as the weight of a blanket— a peace that defies the chaos of the world.

In an instant, you are the teacher and I the student and the lesson is how to melt away the anxiety of life and sit still and silent and completely, entirely, peacefully content.

And as I sit here now thinking back on a life unleashed, it is not what I expect. It’s not a life unleashed from responsibility, not a life unleashed on the world to travel, but a life unleashed from anxiety, the anxieties of life, those little things that grind and keep us pressed down, cynical and bitter, until we forget the bright things to live for. A subtle unleashing but all the more powerful for the day-to-day peace it brings.