Walker came to visit for a week, and things have never been quite the same.
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As soon as he walked in, our grand design open-plan kitchen/dining room with panoramic bush views felt like a doll’s breakfast alcove.
He was so big he could have snaffled a Vegemite sandwich off the bench without stretching a neck muscle.
He actually looked uncomfortable in the kitchen and the lounge room, as if any walled space contained hidden demons. He refused to walk down the hallway and looked anxiously around the kitchen bench for a waiting bear.
When we opened the back door, he bolted onto the verandah, wiggled his backside and did a little skip with his front paws — equivalent to an Olympic high jump for a 35kg dog.
Walker is a Maremma sheepdog, bred to guard flocks of sheep in the Abruzzo Mountains of central Italy, where winter temperatures can drop to -10°C.
His coat looked like it could keep an Arctic seal warm, and after a week of living with him, I was ready for a hike in the snow wearing just my black jeans because it looked like he had left half his topcoat on them.
To make him feel welcome, I bought him a juicy marrow bone, which he sniffed and then took into his mouth as lightly as if it were a baby’s hand.
He trotted off to the garden, but I never saw the bone again.
The next day, he took to crunching on empty plastic flowerpots, which he destroyed in one bite.
So, I bought him another bone.
his time, I followed him into the garden and watched him diligently scrape out a hole with his right paw, drop the bone into the hollow and then nudge the earth gently back over the top.
All my other dogs had clamped on a bone with the force of a hydraulic grab and gnawed it for the next three weeks.
Walker was too canny for that.
He behaved as his ancestors did and saved his bones for leaner times.
On his first night with us, he stared out into the dark from the verandah, then rested his giant head on his paws until he was satisfied there were no bears around.
The next night must have been bear picnic time because he barked to the point where I had to drag him into the kitchen.
He lay by the sliding glass door, staring mournfully into the night.
Out in the bush, Walker let go of his dignified guardian duties and became a giant galumphing rip-snorter of a beast.
He would tear through low grass, roll in puddles and race up muddy slopes like a hunted wildebeest.
If I heard him thundering up behind me, I got out of the way quick smart to avoid being bowled over or sprayed with muddy water.
I had forgotten the pleasures of being out and about with a young dog.
There is something infectious about the unbridled exuberance of watching a dog enjoying life.
Dogs find excitement and joy in the smallest things — water, sticks, mud, possum poo and grass.
I, too, joined Walker in the sheer excitement of being alive on this glorious bright blue and yellow early spring day.
But I did avoid the mud pools and possum poo.
People spend so much time worrying, thinking and fighting.
Dogs triumph over the mundanities and cruelties of life by finding happiness in every passing moment and by celebrating life — I’m alive, and this whole thing unravelling in front of me is just the best!
When his stay with us was over, I watched Walker chained and sitting in the back of a ute being driven up the street back to his real home.
I watched until all I could see was his pink tongue lolling in the sun. He was chained, but he was still smiling.
He’s been gone a week now, but I still think of our spring walks and the buried bones.
Was it all a dream?
Probably.
I dream a lot these days.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
Columnist