Dingo Lady: March 2020

Tuesday, 10 March 2020

A Dingo in the Library – Extract from For the Love of a Dingo by Pamela King. (As recorded by Berenice Walters)

Napoleon

By the time Napoleon was 16 months old, I could take him out in public. I would go to the library, put him in a 'drop-stay' and be confident he would not move. Even at the accountants or solicitors, he behaved perfectly.

Unaware there was a problem, we continued for many months to visit the library. Each time I placed him in a drop stay completely trusting him to behave.

I would go off, browse the shelves, and select my books. Of course, I kept a close eye on him in case someone bothered him.

I was always comfortable taking him with me and extremely proud of his behaviour until one day the Chief Librarian approached and explained dogs were not allowed in Council buildings. She explained the staff had avoided telling me in case I thought they were discriminating against Napoleon because he was a Dingo. “But I must add he is the most well-behaved dog we have ever seen.” she quickly assured me.

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Tuesday, 3 March 2020

But What About Dingo Pups?

No one was free from Berenice’s prodding them into awareness.

One evening in early 1980 she was speaking to a lady who had a part-dingo with behavioural issues. Her last comment to Berenice was 'Well, I must go. I'm going to a Greenpeace meeting to help stop the slaughter of baby seals.’

'What about our Dingo pups?’, Berenice asked her. ‘They are left to starve to death when their parents are ‘humanely' poisoned with 1080 laced baits, dropped from the air in our wilderness areas, during the breeding season'. Like so many Australians, this lady was well informed as to the plight of seals, but unaware of the plight of the Dingo.

This was not the only time she argued with well-intentioned people battling causes such as dolphins, whales, and baby seals. All well-intentioned but they were not in our own back yard. Was it (and the question still needs to be asked today) a case of 'out of sight, out of mind'?