As the author of a book about an Explosives Detection Dog in the Australian Army I know the depth and extent of the oft quoted phrase, “man’s best friend”. Dogs are indeed man’s best friend, and those of us lucky to have a four-legged best mate, or had one in the past, understand intrinsically why.
But until last Sunday, I had never been to a wake for a dog. Neither had the 50 other people in attendance at one of Sydney’s oldest and most popular pubs in the eastern suburbs where the dog was a daily presence after he knocked off from his day job as a building foreman and union rep.
So there we all were to honour the long life of a pedigree Blue Heeler, ZinZan Brooke – aka Zinny or Brookey – who died at the age of 18 after a long, tenacious and determined fight against cancer.
The veterinarian who was with Zinny when he breathed his last breath in the arms of his owners, Bobby and Megan, told me that every dog family should honour their hound’s life with a wake. I agree.
Dogs make humans better beings. They bring unconditional love and joy and happiness. Working dogs, lap dogs, lazy dogs, house dogs, family dogs, security, guard and bomb sniffing dogs all have one reason for their existence – to please their owners and make them happy. And how they do it. So effortlessly. With a wag of their tail. A pink tongue lolling out the side of the mouth. A frenzied four-pawed tap dance of greeting when you arrive home – even if you’ve only been gone two minutes. Ears sticking up and moving with gymnastic dexterity upon hearing your voice calling their names. And what loyalty, unbidden yet true.
Zinny the Blue was all that and more. He was the top dog of all dogs he met. Never fussed, he was his own hound, and put up with the unsolicited kisses from his unofficial girlfriend, Seisia. Zinny was with Bobby 24/7. He and his best mate were inseparable.
We’ll miss ZinZan’s houndly swagger around the pub, his left ear bent over and crooked after a run-in with a pack of rats when he was a pup (the rats fared even worse!), the black patch that encircled his right eye but slowly went grey with age.
Zinny will be missed for more reasons than can be listed here. Indeed, he’ll be desperately missed, sorely missed. But our memories of this extraordinarily special dog will make those of us who knew him smile whenever we see a Bluey, or a dog on a working site, or a proud pooch sitting up in the front passenger seat of a car navigating, or a dog at a pub having a beer. Yes. Really.
As the Austrian zoologist Konrad Lorenz once wrote: “..there is no domestic animal which has so radically altered its whole way of living, indeed its whole sphere of interests, that has become domestic in so true a sense as the dog”.
Vale ZinZan Brooke. Top dog. Best mate. May his dear doggy soul rest in peace.
