A rather special dog is my dog Varkie

who started life the only bull-terrier in a mixed litter, the one and only chip
off the old block, looking exactly like daddy-o.

There is another just like him, a brother from the year before, who lives in Johannesburg...                                                                      

When he was little Varkie really loved to laze, play top dog and hunt for rats in the woodpile.

These days he mostly likes to laze...

Occasionally he remembers to also live up to his name Varkie (Piggy in Afrikaans).   He just loves to help dig the veggie beds.   With his snout.   How does this make sense in any doggy language?

Varkie doesn't seem to care much about being appropriate as a dog.

This is where the happy bits of the story of Varkie ends.

Even though he spends his days and nights mostly in a horizontal position, and loves people and seems mostly really useless, he is quick to respond to intrusion by other animals into his domain.

So being a farm dog definitely has its challenges, even if you are a bull terrier with uncertain ancestry.   We have porcupines who regularly raid the cauliflower and broccoli in the veggie gardens, which Varkie takes exception to although I have never seen him eat vegetables.... (?)   Har-har.






One morning this is how we found him, just sitting quietly at the cottage door feeling slightly sorry for himself.







He didn't flinch when we pulled it out, he just looked up as if to say "You done?"

I came away hoping it was a lesson cheaply learned
but maybe not...


                              The quill went in up to where Joe is indicating here...
              

If you are squeamish, close this post now.

Shortly after, the porcupine's bigger heftier brother (not really related I know) came to visit.

A big, mean bush pig decided to walk down the road past the fence at 2 o'clock in the morning

A huge and protracted commotion ensued when the dogs noticed the intruder and took exception to him strutting his stuff on their turf.

   

Thankfully our houses are fenced off from the rest of the farm, or there would have been (more) blood.

Dogs barked and jumped against the fence to show their displeasure.

My son Joe shone his torch over the fence and shouted and fired a paintball gun to make a noise.   You had to be there...

Mr bush pig didn't take kindly to this attack on his person, and with deep grunts he charged them from the outside, trying to gaff them through the fence.

One dog cried as if it was being murdered, but it was not Varkie.   He just came away bleeding quietly but profusely, after Joe managed to chase off the pig. 

One wonders whether he is just the most headstrong one who would not even try to avoid the charge from the other side...   Headstrong sounds better than dumb...

Follow the path of the tusk...   It went in through the upper lip, tearing all the way through and out the bottom jaw taking splinters of bone off on the way.... 

 And then ended with a jab to the chest







End of gory story:  Varkie is a tough guy and he was sewn up admirably at the local vet, came home the next morning and carries on with life as usual.   He's just fine and dandy and right now is trying to jump up onto my daughter's house's roof to chase off a monkey who dared come to visit.

This post will hopefully serve to chronicle the long and fruitful life of Varkie the bull terrier, without too much more shedding of the red stuff....