BATS and BONDING

Alex and I enjoyed a very special evening a few days ago. There was a very special connection made that tends to only happen in quiet moments where you both enjoy an experience in a personal way but with another present. To explain - every night the flying foxes leave their homes and fly over our house towards fruit trees in the south for their nightly feed. it is a spectacular sight to see with a colony of 1000's flying over... kinda reminiscent of the wizard of oz. In was a cold night and Alex sat wrapped in a blanket, waiting anxiously for the first tell-tale leathery flapping to indicate the start of the colony's evening migration. I sat opposite Alex on our balcony with bourbon in hand enjoying the quiet of the twilight. Alex broke the comfortable silence by asking, "Dad, are these bats, fruit bats?". To which I replied, "yes mate, they are fruit bats or flying foxes, they both eat fruit". He sat quietly and reflected on this and I could see him forming another question so I waited. "Dad?" "Yes, Alex" "Do gum trees have fruit?" "no mate, that have gum nuts" "oh" "why do you ask Alex?" "well i saw a fruit bat land in a gum tree once" "OK, well it might have needed a rest" "yeah, probably" I was really enjoying this little exchange - it felt like one of those dad to son exchanges you see in the movies whilst they are fishing. We scoured the sky with our eyes for a few minutes, looking for our entertaining friends and then talked about how some of the stars we could see might be satellites. Then Alex faced me and looked suddenly serious like there was something important he needed to get off his chest. He took a breath and said, "DAD?" "Yes, Alex" "We see fruit bats all the time" "yes" "So there are Meat bats too, right?" Well I sprayed bourbon off the balcony and nearly fell off my chair! That was the funniest thing I had heard in ages! Once I had calmed down I explained that vampire bats (or meat-bats as Alex had called them) have been known to drink the blood of cows and that they are very small. The moment had been lost and Alex began to glare at me for disturbing his serenity. I sent him inside to have a shower whilst still chuckling about meat bats. beware the meat bats!!!!!!!

You know, when I was the voice of reason, saying that keeping a small (for now) puppy when we have two cats that we complain about constantly, is a very bad idea, everyone thought i was a bit mean. "Aaww look at him!, I mean her!", they would say! or "Isn't he, I mean her cute?" I explained again and again it was not a free dog, it would need desexing(once we agreed what sort of bits it had), microchipping, it would need a kennel etc etc. Dogs need a lot of attention and plenty of exercise!!!!! Yeah, yeah, yeah they all said! It'll be ok! Well we are some weeks, 4567 poos, 25 dog toys, one kennel, 3 tonnes of dog food, a shredded lounge, 5 carpet stains, 2 doc mucas smeared glass doors, 10 swimming lessons, 10 surfing rides and a pair of chewed up goggles later and Jack the gender bending dog (GBD) had started to become an extremely naughty dog. I worked out that because of all the attention the dog was starting to feel like it was the boss. Well I wasn't going to have any of that nonsense! There's only one boss around here and thats Danielle! The kids have been told to treat the dog like you would a street mime. You secretly want to play but you don't want it to see you watching or it will single you out and become unbearable. Whenever we walk outside the dog is ignored until it sits. Jack the GBD then gets a pat and sometimes a biscuit. He I mean she has done very well so far and will sit on command and has stopped being so nippy and jumping up. I also brought home some Pallets (not CHEP ones - they were rubbish)and nailed them together to make a simple gate. We can lock Jack GBD away when we have scared kids over. After all we don't scared kids to become scarred kids. Anyway, there have been moments went they have all been a hair away from getting rid of the dog (including Danielle the goddess), but the committment has been made Jack GBD is now part of the family for better or worse and adds another dimension to this crazy old menagerie ! Just quietly I reckon the dog is great!

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