Scotland: National Rural Network
Connecting Rural Scotland - Promoting Rural Growth

By Patrick Vickery

What follows is a tale about electrocuting a shaggy dog, so a ‘shaggy dog story' it might be.

The dog in question is one of ours, Jose, and a very shaggy dog she is too. Now ‘Jose the Shaggy One' (a pseudonym, of course, but as others in this column have pseudonyms then why not the dog?) has a habit of escaping from the garden, so to put a stop to this sort of malarkey we erected a six foot high fence to keep her in, very expensive, only she started burrowing under it, very annoying, and with sheep in the adjoining field, very worrying, so we purchased an electric fence to keep her in, very exciting, but being a shaggy dog the battery wasn't strong enough for the charge to penetrate her shaggy coat so we had to upgrade it to a device that plugged directly into the mains, very expensive, and then wait for her to realise that escaping through the fence came with a shock, very brutal, but better than being shot for harassing sheep, very final.

So we sat in the garden on our canvas chairs, the ones with the integral cup holders, and waited for the ‘Shaggy One' to be electrocuted whilst nonchalantly munching chocolate hobnobs, drinking coffee and pretending that we weren't waiting for her to be electrocuted at all, although for some strange reason she decided to stay within the confines of the garden, very unusual, so we wondered if she might possibly know what we were up to, very clever, almost human in fact, which reminds me of some advice dispensed by a dog expert some years ago: in order to know your dog better "you must be a bit of a dog yourself", or words to that effect, although I must admit it struck me as being somewhat dodgy advice at the time, a fact later borne out when an old colleague of mine, Vincent, joined with his pet dog on the kitchen floor to share a Bavarian Bratwurst sausage bought specially for the occasion and was savaged about the neck to his severe injury necessitating a hasty trip to the local hospital where he was diagnosed as being a ‘silly ass'. So there you are.

Now I briefly toyed with the idea of sticking my chin on the fence to show ‘Jose the Shaggy One' what would happen if she, too, did the same, it was very tempting, but in the end common sense prevailed. No ‘silly ass' diagnosis for me then, that's for sure, otherwise this column might be called ‘Rural Ramblings' by a ‘Silly Ass' and we can't be having that in the Ross-shire Journal or on the Rural Gateway.

Then suddenly it happened, the dog was electrocuted, only it was the wrong dog, the old dog, she sat fully on the lower fence wire, shuddered involuntarily as the charge took effect and then attacked ‘Jose the ‘Shaggy One' in the belief that such an effect had emanated from her.

Coffee finished, chocolate hobnobs partially consumed, we watched in disbelief as both dogs, young and old, lay across the wires with much barking, jiggling and gnashing of teeth.

Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed the goats watching in astonishment. Now it's difficult to make sense of the world at the best of times if you're a goat, you know, and they certainly didn't manage it this time, that's for sure. But anyway, what to do in a situation like that? Well, nothing actually (what can you do?), let things run their course, and now the dogs go nowhere near the fence (can you blame them?) we no longer sit in the garden on our canvas chairs with integral cup holders munching chocolate hobnobs and waiting for the dog to be electrocuted, and the expression on the faces of the goats have returned to near gormless normality. Thank goodness for that.

Copyright Patrick Vickery 2008

This article first appeared in the Ross-shire Jouournal and on the rural Gateway website

Editors note: The shaggy dog pictured here is not Patrick Vickery's. The real identity of 'Jose the Shaggy' remains unknown!