THE SAGA OF NORMIE

THE THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL SAGA OF NORMIE By IAN MACDOUGALL The following is a true account of one of those crises in life which we all encounter from time to time, and from which we can emerge with a changed outlook; sometimes but not always ‘sadder and wiser.’ . Normie was not a mere one in a million. He was absolutely unique. That said, I must add that for the majority of our friends, his passing was an occasion to be celebrated with the finest bubbly, and it was generally agreed by those who knew him that ‘we will never see his like again.’ The religiously inclined, with one notable exception, added an ’Amen’ or a ‘God willing’ followed by a short prayer of thanks at that point, and an extra swig of bubbly. The exception was my dear wife Jenny, Normie’s adoring and ostensible owner, custodian, keeper, curator, charge d’affaires or whatever other term might apply, which could include ‘host’ as in the ‘host-parasite’ relationship; or perhaps ‘dupe’ as applied to the victim of a confidence trickster, or even ‘victim’, however unwitting. . Normie was a little monster; a white Maltese-Shitsu cross dog, whom I initially thought had been purchased at some expense from a breeder’s kennel. I later found out that his previous owner, who had the name of Normie Somethingorother had been only too glad to get rid of him, and I think of that ‘shit-sue’ transaction in terms of ‘I’ll sue the shit who bred him’; which helps my peace of mind no end after the awful event described below. I have nothing against any other dog-breeder, Maltese or otherwise mind. I’m no chauvinist. But if I had been given a say in it, I would have argued in favour of a pet rattlesnake, or maybe one of the tiger snakes found in abundance around Goulburn Shire, especially in blackberry clumps. They are more friendly, and far less aggressive, vicious and stubborn once enraged, and so make better pets. . Normie was joined early on by Charlie, a Goulburn street dog, who strayed in one day to the old family home on the Braidwood Road. He by contrast was a ‘westie’ – a west highland terrier, with a charming and most endearing personality, and much resented by Normie, who until his arrival had been Top Dog. But as Normie came under challenge, how did he perform? Before we consider that, I should add that Charlie ‘suffered’ from chronic flatulence, which the vet did his best to cure before finally giving up. I put ‘suffered’ in scare quotes, to raise the question as to who did the suffering: Charlie was oblivious to it; absolutely and totally. (For those interested, I later found by experiment that it is curable with a single feed of probiotic (eg Yakult®) mixed into dog food.) But while Charlie was blasé regarding his own sulfurous stench, that privilege was not extended to any other mortal on the Face of the entire Earth, and especially not to Normie. It was especially so on the occasion when the said Normie had to share the interior of a closed and damn-near airtight car with Charlie on a cold winter’s night while we were inside at dinner with friends at a neighbouring farm. On opening the door, we were confronted with a wall of stench, a highly indignant Normie, and Charlie in his usual cheerful mood, and his face the very model of innocence. Jenny’s sister Ingrid had originally composed an ad for the Lost and Found section of the Goulburn Post. “Found: Dirty little white dog covered in fleas. Contact …. “ But nobody availed themselves of the details supplied. So as well as his name, Charlie was given a warm bath, and was de-fleaed, which brought all his Christmases at once. Normie, by contrast, became so vicious when plonked into a bath that those doing the job on him had to wear everything short of Ned Kelly’s armour; heavy protective clothing and motorcycling gloves; in other words, rattlesnake gear. As time went by, and as an impartial observer, I concluded that in Normie’s view he had been put on this Earth for one purpose, and one purpose only. That was, to supervise Charlie. Specifically, to make sure that Charlie got no more than what he truly deserved: which was nothing. Repeat: nothing. Remember what I said about pet rattlesnakes and their endearing little ways. This was reflected in the canine sleeping arrangements. The two of them used at first to sleep in dog beds at floor level, but Normie through guile, cunning and whatever grovelling to Jenny he concluded after whatever period of thought was necessary, managed to wheedle concession after concession from her, and so steadily made his way upwards in the world. Never mind that garbage from the eminent jurist Lord Denning that “no matter how high you rise in life, the law is still above you,” or words to that effect. Normie was having none of it. He was the law, and at the same time far above it. He chose which, if any, bits of it were to be obeyed, and of course, on an ever-changing basis. (If he had been able to talk, he might have let slip in an unguarded moment that ‘keep ‘em guessing’ was his personal (or should that be ‘dogonal’? ‘houndonal’? ‘mutt-onal’?’ mongrel-onal’?) motto. But I digress. Thus it came to pass one winter that both dogs were granted a promotion from the floor to the foot of our double bed, in our necessarily well-ventilated bedroom. Normie went to the highly prestigious place on Jenny’s side, while Charlie had to be content with my more downmarket side. Once esconched there (as in ‘blow the trumpets and the conch shells’) he was tolerated by Normie, whose default position was of course total intolerance of any challenges to his own prestige and authority, even those backed-up by the sort of gas attack now banned under the Geneva Convention. On this particular memorable morning, Jenny had arisen and gone to the kitchen to prepare our usual morning cup of tea; a job which by choice was and still is normally mine. But exceptional circumstances can bring extraordinary developments in their wake. Isaac Newton only saw the apple fall because he was in rural retreat from the Covid-19 of his day, and sitting in an orchard pondering the elliptical paths of the planets as they orbit the Sun. And so it came to pass that my foot crept diagonally across the bed to a position directly below Normie, and I poked him with my big toe. The immortal lines of Banjo Paterson in The Man from Ironbark now spring to mind, and go off like a rabbit trap inside my head: And when at last the barber spoke, he said “’twas all in fun. It was just a harmless little joke, a trifle overdone.” Normie’s response was to growl and snarl like the nastiest mongrel from the dingiest back street in Ironbark, sufficient to turn even the most bad-tempered Alaskan grizzly bear into a miserable, cowering heap. That poke brought his ancestral wolf roaring out of its lair. In a flash, I saw the artistic and closely following monetary potential: a movie of The Story of Little Red Riding Hood, with me doing the narration and Normie cast as the Big Bad Wolf. There would be Hollywood moguls galore hammering on my front door, waving contracts and getting into brawls with one another over questions of priority. Before putting in an order for my new Rolls-Royce, choosing the colour and all that, all I had to do was workshop the script a bit. Thus incentivised, I began straight away; aloud. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose name was Little Red Riding Hood. One morning, she got up early in order to go and visit her granny, who lived in a house deep in the forest. But also in the forest there lived the Big Bad Wolf.” (Poke). Normie: Graaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrghh…..!!!! At this stage, the choice was between a bottle green and a vivid yellow for the Rolls; definitely not black. But sadly, it was not to be. There came instead Normie’s further response. It was all stops out bar the last. He had taken about one millisecond to deduce the poker’s identity (even though I was on the other side of the bed) to draw a conclusion on the moral responsibility arising, and to infer from that the most suitable procedure for bringing about his desired punitive result. In other words he had stood Rene Descartes on his head. ‘I think, therefore I am’ had become ‘I am (and I am bloody angry) therefore I think. And I think issue a threat.’ (Philosophers, please ponder that.) The next thing I faced was the sheer horror of Normie’s jaws at full separation, and the view straight down his raging and volcanic throat, which I can only liken to the seventh level of Dante’s Hell, or maybe Vesuvius or Krakatoa on a bad day. “Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggghhhhhhhh!!!!” As it came out, that roar rose and fell like the rhythm of the sea, but with an ever-increasing intensity of the fury it conveyed. The message there was inescapable: this rising crescendo could only lead to one finale. I have been a long time here in therapy, but my medical advisors are far more optimistic these days than they were when I first arrived and was placed under their care. The dietician allows me the occasional glass of a good Shiraz, and the nightmares are getting less frequent, down to one per night now. Well, most nights; for at least the last few months, anyway. All right, some. Perhaps I minimise a bit there. But who can blame me for living in hope, and that rock-bottom of desperation known in the cheerful world at large as ‘optimism?’ I am still anti-chauvinist, and given to making desultory notes in an exercise book I keep on my bedside table. Those notes I will work up into a thesis on my resulting insights into canine thought and perception, and submit it to some institution for a doctorate. Hopefully, Oxford and/or Cambridge will get into a brawl over the right to confer my PhD, but maybe if they are too preoccupied with other issues, I will work downwards from there, even if I finish up at Buck Jones’ University, Alabama. I assume that there is a gentlemens’ outfitter in Stockholm which will hire me a tuxedo to wear when I am duly awarded my Nobel Prize; for horror literature or something; or other. With such realistic expectations in mind, other changes were called for. For a start, I realised that the whole status of the household could be elevated by increasing the syllable count in the names of our two hounds. Normie became the more aristocratic-sounding Normanton, while Charlie was henceforth addressed and referred to as Charlton. It made a profound difference immediately. Normanton was well in touch with his inner Nazi. But like many such before him, he went completely to water when brought face-to-face with some person with whom no amount of bluff on his part would work, and against whom his own Will could not possibly Triumph. I refer of course to those abominations of the canine world known as vets. Even an offhand passing mention of the word vet would turn Normie (sorry, Normanton) into a pathetic quivering jelly, and he would dive for cover under the nearest bed. Once in such a redoubt, he would switch to his full Reichsfuehrer gotterdammerung self and his rattlesnake act would be turned on full bore. What did he have to lose? Moreover, he knew that our dual-cab utility went on public and usually tar-sealed roads, and in Normie’s mind all such roads led not to Rome, but to vets. He was always happy to jump into paddock vehicles such as the farm utility, and when riding on a quad bike he took the forward position on top of the petrol tank; in the manner of the figurehead on The Golden Hind, as commanded by Sir Francis Drake against the Spanish Armada in 1588. But getting Normie into a vehicle which had perhaps the merest chance of a possibility however remote of delivering him into the clutches of a vet, was a battle-royal. The opening salvo was usually delivered by Jenny, who would flick an old towel at him under the bed. He would always grab it with his vertical lower right fang, the left one being pretty well useless, as it had been gradually turned horizontal during many such confrontations stretching back into his good old puppydom days of yore. It stuck out sideways from his lower jaw, as if it could not decide whether it was a buffalo’s horn or a wolf’s tooth. But the strategy worked every time, and Normie always fell straight into its trap. Upon being dragged out roaring and snarling like the wildest lion, tiger, leopard or hyaena, Normie would have the rest of the towel thrown over his head and would have to carry on his performance underneath it, all the way to the vet’s waiting-room. But once there, his mode switched to the most abysmal and pathetic cringe. The lion did not become a lamb so much as a refugee earthworm seeking the comfort and security of total darkness away from the magpie’s beak, the closest approximation of which was Jenny’s loving and devoted breast. On one occasion he was shivering and shaking so violently that the waiting owner of an Alsatian yielded his place in the queue and insisted that Normie go in next to the surgery. The deluge of pathos would continue until the procedure was ‘all over now’, then his normal bear-with-a-sore-head persona would reappear. But needless to add, there were endless reasons for repeat visits to whichever vets were open for business, and they did what might pass for a roaring trade. One day, after one contest of wills, Normanton emerged with the score standing at Jenny 1, and his exalted self 0. He decided in short order to even the score, and when Jenny was absorbed in some other task, he snuck into our bedroom, jumped up on the bed, and piddled all over her pillow! He would of course, never have dared to perpetrate any such outrage on my pillow, or for that matter, on my pyjamas, clothing or anything else of mine. But none the less I believed that some appropriate response to this urinary crime was needed, and I hit upon a name change; for Normie. Sorry, Normanton. Read on, dear reader; all will be revealed in due course. But first, let me introduce you to what has become known internationally and on all the continents I can think of (yes, even Antarctica) as The Normie Song. It came out of a visit we made to our daughter’s house in Melbourne. There it was suggested that Normie should be desensitised to the word ‘vet’ so that its merest passing mention would not turn him into an Irish stew of rage, melancholy, pathos, snarling rattlesnakery and Wagnerian gotterdammerung. I decided to give music an opportunity to shine some of its eternal glory into Normanton’s stewpot, with as much repetition of the aversive trigger-word as possible. So I made up the following ditty and sang it as often as I could in Normie’s presence, to a simple and happy tune. Down in Camberwell town, There’s a vet of distinct renown, And also a dog-makeover shop And it’s only two doors down. Charlie’s in for coiffure Coiffure, coiffure, coiffure, They’re making him smell like a rose in spring Instead of a pile of manure. Normie’s off to the vet, The vet, the vet, the vet. The vet will get his needle out And jab the little pet. The vet has his big rough hands, Working on Normie’s anal glands, While Charlie’s having his hair tonsured Into delicate silken strands. Charlie’s perfused to his bones, With various eaux de Colognes, They’re making him smell like a rose in Spring While Normie’s relieved of his stones. And that’s the story of vet, The vet, the vet, the vet, The vet, the vet, the vet, the vet, The vet, the vet, the vet. Whenever we all visited a friend’s house, Normie would cautiously move down the hall and from room to room, for there could easily be a vet, lurking in a doorway; needle poised, ready to jab. Only after the all-clear siren went off inside his head did Normie resume normal transmission, his intense supervision of Charlie, and his normal blitzkrieg of Will. Hence the name change. Charlie died peacefully one night in the local vet hospital, but a short time later Piddleton went into decline too. His condition worsened to the point where the vet advised that he be put to sleep, and as permanently as was possible; as like a marble slab. Today he lies under a little flower bed in the homestead garden, Jenny having refused my every offer to drive a stake through his heart, lest he like the vampire Count Dracula rise from the grave and start terrorising the countryside. (For the record, he did once attack an Alsatian from up the street, which I understand is still refusing to come out of his cage down at the local RSPCA.) The fates of the immortal souls of Piddleton and Charlton are another matter entirely. I had a night-time visitation some time ago from the Angel Moroney (I think that’s how his name is spelt) of Mormon Church fame, who told me just on the quiet that Charlie is a great favourite up in Heaven, and has the full run of the place. Moroney’s information is that Piddleton arrived some time afterward at Heaven’s gate, to be greeted by St Peter in his usual friendly way. “What’s your name, little dog?” asked the Keeper of the Keys, looking down on him most kindly. Piddleton might well have been too embarrassed to tell St Peter his new name, though he, formerly Normie, recognised it and responded to it quite readily; albeit resentfully. A tactic commonly resorted to by any of God’s creatures when they find themselves in this situation is to create a diversion. So Piddleton’s response to St Peter’s enquiry, perhaps as a ruse to draw attention away from his new name, was to sink his fangs into the Big Fisherman’s foot; whereupon St Peter uttered a loud curse and booted him to blazes. And so, after a long trajectory, which I believe completely mystified all staff at every satellite tracking station world-wide, Piddleton came to a sudden stop at the Gate of Hell. It slowly creaked its rusty way open, and a hideous reptilian arm came out, grabbed Piddleton, and dragged him inside. The gate closed with a bang. Nothing happened for a little while. Then on the other side of the gate all Hell broke loose. The gate flew open fast, and Piddleton got booted out. Not even the Devil would have him. Meanwhile St Peter, whose foot had connected with the heavy and brightly glowing gate (because it was fashioned out of bars of pure radium) was still jumping around swearing he was “damn near crippled for life;” which meant for all Eternity. His language would have made any nearby intergalactic voyager or starry boatman blush a most vivid crimson. These days, according to Moroney (with whom I am now on easy first-name “just call me Mo” terms) Piddleton floats about in limbo awaiting the Last Judgement. Come that day, the hope is that St Peter’s foot will be out of the plaster and all will be forgotten and forgiven. Piddleton will be able to spend the rest of Eternity supervising Charlie, and everyone will live happily ever after. Maybe he will eventually be called ‘Normie’ again, though we had best hasten slowly towards that particular goal, in my humble opinion. HOWEVER, I am also told by Moroney that a surprise awaits Piddleton if he ever returns to Hell. The Devil has, upon serious consideration of the matter, promoted all the demons, archdemons, hobgoblins, imps, harpies, fallen angels and such, and has rebadged them as vets; Satanic vets, there to make life as hellish as possible for the likes of Piddleton. Presumably you have heard of the motorcycle gang called Hell’s Angels? Well, they are nothing compared to Hell’s Vets, who ride amongst Hell’s fires and flames on the backs demonic salty crocodiles, and terrorise the said likes of Piddleton. Meanwhile, back up here on Earth, the vets of Goulburn have an annual pilgrimage to Piddleton’s little grave. Mournful music is played, arguably because of the effect of Piddleton’s death on their separate cash flows rather than any other consideration. Though one vet did lift his dismal and weepy eyes skywards from his bank statement to where he thought Piddleton might just presently be, and was heard to say: “he had attitude. I’ll give him that.” Further reading: Hitler, Adolf, Triumph of the Will, with annotations by Heinrich Hoffmann, Leni Riefenstahl, et al; and enthusiastic paw prints by Piddleton. STORY ENDS