I met Tosca when I was seven years old. A local family had advertised puppies to give away, and Mum took my brother Luke, my best friend and I to choose one. My first view of Tosca was seeing him chased around and around by his mother, including right through the back seat of our car and out the other side. He was born with an overbite, a condition that never gave him problems. But the original owners were planning to "knock him on the head" if they couldn't find a family for him. He was the black and white, stocky, pointy-eared brother of a ginger-coloured litter. He was the underdog, and we knew he was perfect. From that moment he was ours. But he was a dog who could never have been owned by someone. He belonged to us in the same way that we belonged to him. Just family.
Tosca wasn't a lap dog, or the sort of dog who would sleep at the end of your bed. He lived his own free and independent life. On the very first night he spent outside as a puppy, he bravely warded off a fox eyeing off our chooks. Our 13 acres were his territory, and he knew every corner like we did. He was a villain to the rabbits on our land, and spent much of his happy life chasing a sprinting rabbit along the hillside. In the long summers when the grass would be tall and golden, you could watch the waves as Tosca would weave through the grass. When the chase was on he would leap high, his head reaching above the sea of gold to follow the movement of his poor puff-tailed prey. He would visit our dam to cool off; wading through the cool water and mud, lapping some up with his pink tongue as he walked.
On our childhood adventures through the paddocks, he was always by our side. We would climb through fences, and he would stalk the fenceline with his nose, looking for the right place to follow us under. Sometimes we would lift it up for him, but he usually always found a way in on his own. He never walked on a lead, and could mostly be trusted to behave. He wasn't interested in chasing sheep or chooks, but he did have to be called occasionally when we ventured into the Sandon forest and he picked up the scent of kangaroos. Thankfully he never had a run-in with a snake, despite plenty of opportunities, but he did unfortunately do some minor damage to a rather angry blue-tongue lizard that he was 'protecting' us from.
He was by my side the day I ran away from home (unprepared, on a cool autumn evening in summer pyjamas). He sat with me at the end of our long driveway, and as he waited patiently beside me for nothing in particular, that was the moment that I knew he understood. He understood humans in more ways than one, including the year he ate all of the Cadbury Creme eggs on our Easter egg hunt, leaving the cheaper and slightly less delicious options unscathed. Despite chocolate's toxicity to dogs, his iron stomach won that round. He also survived eating a huge pellet of rat poison, and enjoyed many more years of healthy life after that.
When I left home, it hurt so much to leave my family behind and my visits to Sandon were the only time I felt whole. When the car would stop at the top of the hill, I knew Tosca's wagging tail and cold black nose would be waiting to greet me. Like big skies, cool floorboards underfoot and cups of tea with Mum, Tosca's presence at Sandon was something that was unchanging - a comfort knitted into every visit. Luke left not long after me, and Tosca and Mum became sole companions at Sandon. As the years rolled on by, he slowed down. That's we were so surprised when he showed up one Easter with a huge rabbit in his mouth, and he was as proud as could be.
His last few years were not his best; he had lost his stockiness, his big black ears were no longer really hearing, and his eyes were clouded with a darkness he couldn't see past. His nature became needier, and his loss of independence revealed the kindness, companionship and mutual understanding between him and my mum. If she left him inside for a moment without her, he anxiously waited by the door for her return. Mum cooked him special meals, and when he was too unwell to sleep inside, she created a small pen around his kennel with straw to keep him comfortable. He gave her companionship and a welcoming wag of his tail when she came home from work.
We lost our dear dog this year, after his 17th birthday. It wasn't a trip to the vet, and it wouldn't have been right for his free spirit. He simply wandered a little way from the house and came to rest. My first visit back home without him was at Christmas, and he should have been waiting for us when we arrived, and he wasn't. He should have had his wet nose making marks on the window at the back door, but he wasn't there. He should have been sneaking onto Mum's expensive rug without her noticing, which was their nightly game. But there was no usual outburst from Mum shooing him away.
In our life as a family, there has been so much difficult change to get through and Tosca has always been a comfort and our companion. We have lost our dog, and Sandon, with its rolling grass, creaky gum trees, and slow, winding creek, has lost its guardian.
Goodbye to our dearest dog.
