The Home Page of Miss Rosie P. Cattleperson

 

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Shortly after Christmas 1991 Sylvia and I visited a Pet shop in search of a large cane basket for Sylvia's old dog "Digger".

As we walked into the store we both saw a tiny Cattle Dog puppy laying fast asleep on its upturned water bowl in a cage in the sun. The pup was so very tiny, clearly too young to be away from its mother, the most striking feature was its large erect ears.

We felt that the absence of water was bordering on cruelty, so Sylvia went to investigate. Watching the way she looked at the puppy I made an immediate decision to bow to the inevitable and paid for it.

Once home we were both struck by the solemn purposeful nature of the little dog, I had doing some reading on the activation of the female labour force in WW2 and by some bizarre twist of association the pup became Rosie, named not for her fur colour but for Rosie the Riveter.

She continued to be a solemn little puppy who just immediately decided to accept that our house was where she lived, no whining for her mother, no need for comforting, just acceptance.

We did however quickly discover that it was near impossible to keep a water bowl or tray anywhere near her, she would splash, paddle or swim until not a drop remained, sometimes she would even drink. We amused ourselves by filling the bath for her and watching her swim endless laps with obvious and complete enjoyment. As an aside, in January 1999 we took her to my Parent's property north of Brisbane. The property has a number of fresh water dams on it in which Rosie would spend time to near exhaustion swimming in circles chasing the bubbles from her own splashing, and this is an 8 year old dog....

Here are a couple of Rosie's "baby" photos. She really was an incredibly pretty puppy, however little did we realise what a destructive little monster she would turn into for about the next year.....

 

 

 

 

 

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