Mhudi

by Sol T Plaatje

  Another test is the cheekiness of warthog piglets scampering around and playing on the lawn. This provokes even the most restrained dog to chase them, but unfortunately Mother Pig with her razor-sharp lower tusks is usually only a belly-ripping swipe away. Baboons and warthogs were part of his first real world lessons, and undoubtedly amongst the most important for him to learn. Shilo took to these instructions very well, and was soon taught not to chase anything unless given the command ‘teksit’. There were times I could swear he was co-operating just to see how happy it made me. As luck would have it, we were moving bricks from a brick pile and came across a nest of young snakes. I recognised them immediately as egg-eaters. These little snakes resemble night adders, but because they’re absolutely harmless and don’t have a tooth in their mouths, they strike repeatedly at the least provocation to make themselves appear dangerous. As a result, they turned out to be the most perfect props for teaching Shilo that snakes were to be avoided. This was one occasion when he was encouraged to bark.

  Shilo was built leaner than a Labrador but heavier than a Doberman, his deep chest and relatively narrow waist predisposing him to speed. He really loved to run, so much so, that unless you reined him in, he would run the pads off his feet on the rough roads in the Tuli Block, which were littered with quartz, and this would put him out of action for a few days while they healed.

  As an aside, I understand that timber wolves have thicker pads than any domestic breed. Apparently, during the Angola/Namibia border conflict era, the military canine unit was looking into the possibility of cross-breeding dogs with wolves, in order to obtain a breed with hard-wearing pads. This would have enabled this unit to track terrorists over rough terrain for longer periods. Shilo could have done with some of those calloused and hard-wearing ‘wolf pads’. At one stage I contemplated importing or making those booties they put on Huskies’ paws for those gruelling sled races in Canada and Alaska, but it turned out that these shoes could only be used in snow and ice, not on sand or gravel. Anyhow, I believe the toes and claws of dogs play a crucial role when turning or needing to gain purchase on dry ground, particularly at speed. With his feet covered, Shilo would have been seriously handicapped, so we abandoned the booty idea.

  Shilo’s first journey to the big city, the first time he placed his pads on paved roads, was in Johannesburg. What I saw him do on that trip convinced me that he and I were destined to be together, for life. A good friend of mine, South African 250cc motocross champion, Tyrone Stevenson, invited me to watch him race while I was in town. I told him I would love to, but had a dog I couldn’t leave on its own. I explained that my dog had never been to a city before and was totally street unwise.

  ‘No problem. I’m sure he’d love Sasha,’ Tyrone said.

  ‘Who’s Sasha?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s my dog, a cross Doberman Rottweiler’, he answered.

  When they met the next morning, it was love at first sight. Sasha was slightly bigger than Shilo, but both dogs were about the same age and appeared to have similar energy levels.

  Despite this ideal match, I was a little apprehensive, as this would be the first time I would be leaving Shilo on his own with an attractive lady in unfamiliar surroundings. But, the high walls and secure gate gave me a measure of assurance; I was sure that he’d be safely confined and enjoy himself at the same time.

  We returned late that afternoon, in high spirits, for it had been a successful day at the track for Tyrone, and Meagan and I were looking forward to a hot bath, eager to soak away the day’s dust and grime that is part and parcel of motocross. I must admit to being quite keen to see if Shilo had missed me, as much as I had missed him. I imagined him waiting at the gate for me, but when we arrived at the house, only Sasha was there to greet us.

  My heart sank. Despite an extensive search, Shilo was nowhere to be found. The maid then informed us that when she came to work and opened the gate, Shilo took the gap and slipped past her out into the road, and there was nothing she could do. This meant he was now exposed to busy road traffic to which he was totally unaccustomed and with no familiar smells or landmarks to guide him who knew where he could end up. I began to paint a really negative picture in my mind. Meagan and I decided to drive around the area, which we did for what seemed like hours, questioning everybody we could and calling his name repeatedly. When it became too dark to see anymore, we decided to call it quits and head on back to my father’s house, which was about six kilometres from Tyrone’s.

  Dejected, expecting the worst, we drove in silence through the two busy intersections where I half expected to find Shilo’s lifeless body. Thankfully there was nothing. I was going through the mental process of preparing for the prospect of never seeing my dog again and I was behaving like a zombie, just going through the motions. Then, nearing the turn-off to my father’s house, I caught sight of a familiar shape in the headlights as they swung in an arc round the corner.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes initially, but it was no mere illusion, it was Shilo! Nose to the ground and only 200 metres away from my father’s house!

  ‘Shilo!’ I called, not quite as loudly as I would have liked. Either I was choked emotionally or some motocross dust must have been lodged in my throat, but it was loud enough for him to hear, and in a flash he was on the front seat between Meagan and me, licking my face, something he was not normally encouraged to do. He also smiled a lot when he was happy or embarrassed, which made him sneeze, so it was lick-smile-sneeze, lick-smile-sneeze, all the way home to my father’s house.

  So what is so extraordinary about this? Countless domestic dogs throughout history have been known to run home from hundreds of miles away. Be this as it may, Shilo’s situation was rather different as all the odds were stacked against him.

  He had never set foot on the ground between Tyrone’s house and my father’s, nor had he ever walked on a tar road, or seen so many people and cars, except from the inside of my vehicle. He had come straight out of the Botswana bush to Johannesburg’s concrete jungle in the back of a vehicle. What scent he was following when we found him, and how had he negotiated two busy intersections without mishap, I will never know. All I do know is that this was but one of many instances which made me realise that Shilo was a dog in a million, and that I was privileged to share part of my life with him.

  Being a cross Doberman Pinscher/black Labrador, meant firstly he wasn’t the ideal colour for the hot bushveld environment, and secondly, he had a light layer of underfur inherited from his Labrador genes, which assists with insulation in cold weather. Strangely enough, this proved to be no problem in the heat either, as this under-fur also trapped and held water, so once wet, the ‘radiator effect’ lasted a long time, proving to be an effective means of combating the heat. Having been born and bred in the bush, Shilo showed a remarkable degree of tolerance for the bushveld heat although he appeared to be more comfortable in the freezing wetlands of the southern Drakensberg or eastern Free State.

  At one stage I considered dyeing his coat a lighter colour for the summer months, but never got around to doing it. In any event, this cosmetic solution was never really necessary.

  Shilo’s own characteristics soon proved to be the attributes that allowed him the ability to work in the heat of the bush and earn a legendary reputation as one of the finest retrievers around, and also in temperatures well below freezing.

  Besides running, he loved to swim, and thought nothing of swimming in icy cold water. Often the pans and dams had two or three metres of thinnish overnight ice around the edges, which he would have to crack through before swimming out to retrieve waterfowl. With ambient temperatures sometimes as low as minus ten, which caused the steam to rise off his wet body, he would remain completely focused on the horizon and the next flight of duck. These were his finest hours. His retrieving skill went beyond the retrieval of waterfowl, sticks and balls. One afternoon at Motswari camp in the Timbavati, he jumped into the swimming pool, grabbed a young girl by the arm and pulled he
r to the safety of the shallow end. It wasn’t much shallower than the rest of the pool but did have a set of stainless steel rung-type steps. The only way Shilo could get out of this particular pool was if you helped him by grabbing the nape of his neck as he got close to the edge, then he would push himself against the resistance of your hand and clamber out. Worried that he may have hurt the girl, Meagan questioned her friend who then confirmed that the young girl was having difficulty in the deep water and splashing excessively. This, I suspect, is what triggered his instinctive response to retrieve. We had purposely never taught Shilo to grab or retrieve people in water rescue scenarios, for fear he may exert too much holding pressure and puncture their skin. We could never lose sight of the fact that while he was able to employ the soft mouth pressure essential for retrieving wild fowl and attributed to the Labrador in him, he was still 50 per cent Doberman.

  Shilo very seldom barked, so when he did, we knew that there was usually a problem. This was another necessary discipline in the tourism/game lodge environment. You couldn’t have a yapping dog around while guests are trying to enjoy the sounds of the African bush.

  As it happens, this is also one of the biggest problems with dogs in urban areas, and yet it was one of the easiest things to teach him not to do. I had Shilo sleep with me in my bed from day one, until many years later when he took to sleeping next to the bed. When he was a little pup many of the night noises were strange to him, so every time he heard something out side he yipped. When he did, I’d utter an urgent ‘uh! uh!’, dog speak for ‘no! no!’ Then, if unable to suppress the urge to keep quiet, he would growl. When he growled, I praised him. Initially the growl would break into a yip, but, with praise, he was soon able to control this. So, Shilo became a growler not a barker.

  Sixteen years ago, when Meagan and I went to interview for the position at Olifants, Shilo came along as well, of course. As I mentioned earlier, he was my shadow and where I went, he went. It really was a case of ‘love me, love my dog’. The back of my truck was customised for his comfort while travelling and for when he had to spend the night in the vehicle – when, for example, a B&B didn’t allow dogs. In these instances I used to leave a Fisher Price baby monitor in the back with him.

  Knowing that the Olifant’s interview could last for an indeterminate length of time, I had to make him as comfy as possible. So, in the courtyard-cum-parking lot of Dimension Data, I found a shady spot to park and let him out to do his ablutions on a nearby patch of lawn studded with lovely trees. Once this function was complete, it was back into the truck and onto his mattress. Sliding both the side windows of the canopy open, I then filled his water bowl, turned the 12V Hella turbo fan on to medium, and closed the door. I never locked the canopy door when he was in the back.

  Unbeknown to us, we were being watched the whole time from one of the upper floors. On termination of the interview, I was asked directly, ‘and what about the dog?’ My answer was simply that my dog was old, bush-wise and well-trained, and if I were to go to Olifants, so would Shilo.

  Time passed and age was catching up on Shilo.

  Slowly, his quality of life was deteriorating, to the point that in his 14th year he could hardly walk without discomfort, and this condition became progressively worse. I knew the day I had dreaded all these years would soon dawn, and when it did, I phoned Gerrit. About 30 minutes later, his Cessna 172 touched down on the airstrip. Without elaboration, we drove in virtual silence to the house, this wasn’t the time for usual small talk and both of us knew that. As usual, Shilo had heard my vehicle and was waiting for me at the door, smiling so hard he sneezed repeatedly. His tail wagged with increased vigour when he saw Gerrit. He may have thought we were going wildfowling together again, something we hadn’t done for a long time. His mind was now occupied with excited anticipation of what he lived for.

  When Gerrit ruffled the skin on the back of his neck, as he usually did when they met, Shilo didn’t notice that this time, a tranquilliser was gently injected into the loose folds by those same hands, nor had he noticed that Meagan had taken Eleana and Dino for a walk up the road past the water tanks. Soon after, in the basket next to my bed, where he always slept, I held his head in my lap while the final ‘sleeping’ drug was administered. Moments later, the canine love of my life for so many years slipped quietly away in my arms.

  Shilo lies buried under a shady knobthorn tree at the bottom of our garden on Olifants. There could never be enough space on a headstone for a fitting epitaph to his memory, so I chiselled a granite sliver to clearly mark his grave. It reads, simply, ‘Shilo’.

  With a Little Human Help, ‘Hang-lip’ Gets a New Lease on Life

  June 2008

  I don’t like giving names to wild animals. I believe there is a risk that name association creates a too personal, almost domesticated impression of the creature in question. Wild animals are living free and are not pets. Emotional attachment can, and often does, cloud your judgement if and when you need to make an objective decision in their management.

  That may sound harsh, for in our reserve’s history, we have had many names tagged onto many wild animals. In the 1990s, there was Tripod the hyaena, so-named after his three-legged configuration. There was Pumba, the grumpy old warthog who got even grumpier when deprived of his human friends and their highly disapproved-of feeding routine. There was a pair of civets called Windscreen Wiper and Babe, who would watch their human neighbours from just outside the circle of light created by a braai fire. I am sure there were, and are, many other names for reasons of affection or convenience.

  In my case, exceptions are made to my judgemental position on a temporary basis when needing to identify a particular group or individual, as, for example, during certain research projects. Further to that, I accept that over time certain individuals can grow on you, especially if you’re seeing them virtually every day. Then, the natural progression is to give them names. It’s inevitable – and no more so than in the case of what are arguably the most popular animals on the reserve … lions.

  So lions will get named and that’s that!

  Neil Hulett, one of the longer-standing shareholders of the reserve, and whose name is synonymous with Olifants, was out with his wife Morag on a routine morning drive when they came across the resident pride of lion at Hide Dam.

  Neil noticed a number of broken porcupine quills protruding from the chest of one of the two dominant male lions of the pride. It happened to be the older of the two, known as Hang-lip because his lower lip, although completely healed, hung open all the time. Male lions often carry scars from fights and I suspect his torn lip was a result of an old injury sustained in a territorial dispute with rival males.

  However, the predicament in which he now found himself didn’t appear to be one he would recover from without help. The lion had obviously tangled with one of our large prickly rodents recently and apparently didn’t get off too lightly. Yes, a porcupine is a rodent … and in this case, a few of the rodent’s quills appeared to have been broken off by the lion’s repeated attempts to remove them. The result was that remaining portions of quill shafts had become deeply embedded. There was no way this lion was going to be able to remove the quills himself. He also appeared to have lost a considerable amount of weight and was in obvious pain and discomfort.

  It is not unusual for a lion that tackles a porcupine to get ‘quilled’. Even the most skilled porcupine killer gets ‘quilled’ now and again. It is an occupational hazard with which wild lions have had to contend since they discovered porcupines are delicious. In most instances they’re able to remove the quills themselves. Nobody knows what happened to the porcupine in this case, but it was obvious the encounter was not one-sided, whether or not the porcupine became a meal.

  Hang-lip, now past his prime, was starting to show his age and had not been in the best of health lately. Over the years, Neil has spent an enormous amount of time observing the lions on the reserve and has built up a special relationship with them, man
y of which he has watched grow from tiny cubs. Taking pity on the plight of his old friend, he radioed in to ask me if there was anything that could be done to improve his lot. Having bred and raised cheetah on his farm in KwaZulu-Natal, Neil was no stranger to big cats. He understands more than most the ‘tough love’ attitude that is often necessary, particularly with regard to self-sustaining wild predator populations.

  The life of most large predators in the wild, particularly lions, is not an easy one, and the majority of them never reach maturity. The battle-scarred veteran of the Olifants pride was now in trouble and Neil could see this. Given Neil’s experience, I was able to make the call on his observation alone. This was around 05.30 so there was plenty of time to arrange things. A few minutes later, I phoned my long-time friend and local veterinarian, Gerrit Scheepers, who is based in Phalaborwa.

  Brushing aside my apology for waking him so early, he mumbled something about ‘have some good coffee ready when I arrive’ and, ‘it’s never too early to save an animal’s life’. He then grabbed the necessary darting and medical kit he always keeps in a 90 per cent state of readiness, drove the short distance to the airport and scrambled his light plane. Less than an hour later, the familiar silhouette of his Cessna 172 appeared in the early morning sky and then, dropping the little plane with practised purpose, he touched down on our runway.

  Within minutes, we were on our way to Hide Dam and the lions, some ten minutes’ drive away. While waiting for Gerrit’s arrival, I had acquired the carcasses of a couple of large impala rams which would be used to distract the rest of the pride, keeping them occupied while we worked on Hang-lip. This is not as easy as it sounds, these were wild lions that had never been ‘baited’ before. Hang-lip was successfully isolated from the rest of the pride, which enabled Gerrit to dart him without any hindrance from the other pride members. Once the drug had taken effect and the lion was tranquillised, we moved in and immediately started to work on removing the quills. Two were very deeply embedded and required the judicious use of my ‘Leatherman’ to extract them. What fantastic tools these are, I use mine all the time and am completely lost without it. Please excuse the commercial (unpaid!).