All in a Night's Work

L'il Jo

There was never a dull moment at the Merigal Dingo Sanctuary.

One February morning in the early 1980s Berenice was woken at 3am when the Dingoes started to scream with excitement, the sound bursting on the quiet of a brightly moonlit night.

There was a full moon, and stopping just long enough to slip on working boots, she rushed over to the kennels and yards.  

The noise roused no one else in her house but she mentally noted lights coming on at neighbouring properties on further down the road on. The noise was explosive - something was very wrong.

She ran through the main enclosure, desperately looking for the cause of the excitement. Peter Pan was screaming a challenge at something in L'il Jo's adjoining yard.

As she raced into L'il Jo’s yard, the excited dingo rushed up to her, then hurtled back down the end, with Berenice in hot pursuit. A young ginger cat, bristling and trying to protect himself on fronts, was 'holed up' near the fence.

Having no lead with her, Berenice had to lift and carry Jo out of her yard, as she was likely to attack the cat if she managed to pick it up.

Back to the cat.  It was trapped in the enclosure and with all the fences capped a terrified cat could inflict serious injury if picked up. Berenice looked around but there was nothing around to protect herself in trying to get the now panicking animal safely over the boundary fence. She gently touched the cat's back with a stick. It didn’t seem to alarm it. But, knowing it could suddenly panic again she needed something to protect herself from a potential clawing. She used the only thing available – her nightdress.

Quickly removing it, she draped it carefully over the cat, and with a quick movement scooped it up in the nightdress. Running down the fence line she threw the cat as gently as possible over the outside fence. He landed in long grass. The nightdress obligingly fluttered down on her side of the fence and her nakedness was quickly covered.

A few days later she related the story of the poor cat's predicament to Vice President Ailza Green. She roared with laughter. She reckoned if anyone had seen Berenice prancing around in the moonlight naked, holding a cat aloft, they would probably have thought she was indulging in some strange rite - not rescuing a cat from the Dingo yards.

By a strange coincidence, the cat belonged to Ailza. It was used to jumping in the yards with her collies who played with it.  What a shock he must have received on that nearly fateful night.