Arnold was a Rottweiler, Bluey cross who entered our lives as a three-month-old rescued puppy. His foster-carer had named him King. We promptly re-named him Arnold. His namesake? The confident, domesticated, TV-watching pig from the old show, Green Acres.
He was our second dog; we already had a much loved Rhodesian Ridgeback (the regal and aloof Tess) who was completely neurotic, paranoid, highly strung and in desperate need of a doggy companion. Or so we thought.
In the days of her youth and before the unfathomable and unresolvable body odour had taken hold of her, Tess had unrestricted reign of the house. However, she often sought refuge in the garage on the velvet modular lounge suite; a perfectly good though superfluous item temporarily stored there for want of a worthier place. The comfortable lounge suite which pre-dated the dogs and even the kids had been superseded, although it was simply too good to discard. During the pre-Arnie era or in other words, during her glory days, the lovely brown, regal and threadbare Tess, who enjoyed the human comforts and felt the cold miserably, had ensconced herself in the space of the garage and claimed her rights to the sacred lounge suite. It was her very special and personal place where she found sanctuary in her solitude (when the love and attention we constantly showered upon her became too overwhelming).
She was a dog who personified to theatrical perfection the famous line “I want to be alone”! With the shrug of her shoulder and the toss of her head, she would retreat to the velvet three-piece, recoil into a tight ball, and refuse to respond to our affectionate mockery or to be coaxed from her indifference. Although she had three velvet modules at her disposal, she would inevitably return to the long, curved piece that echoed the curve of her massive body as she lay enveloped in its comfort, warmth and peace for endless hours at a time. The velvet lounge provided the aloof Tess with respite from the hustle and bustle of family life.
The introduction of Arnie shattered her world. Had she been able to speak she would surely have asked, “Why?” She simply did not deserve what followed. The chaos that accompanied Arnie’s arrival and his presence every day thereafter became the scourge of her life rather than the calming companionship we'd hoped for.
Although Arnie could lay claim to many events that caused us to question why we ever brought him home, his magnum opus was the destruction of that lounge suite.
By gnawing and nibbling at the edges with his sabre-like puppy teeth, he managed to first tear the fabric. Securing the edge of a torn strip marked the point of no return. Within three weeks he had reduced the entire suite to a splintered timber framework with a few strips of fabric and the odd remnant of stuffing hanging randomly from protruding screws. Eventually, we broke up the ruined timber frame for firewood. What remained after the clean-up was bagged and dumped in the rubbish bin.
So ended the love affair of ‘Tess the Regal’ and the sacred three-piece lounge. ‘Arnold the Terrible’ had arrived.
