From: Darryl Daniels

A friend of mine used to own a dog named "Sam". Now this dog was his faithful companion whenever he went fishing.There was nothing Sam loved more than a couple of days up the River Murray with all those red gums to cock his leg on.

You would have thought he'd never had a pee before let alone store all that fluid somewhere in his body, it was amazing see this dog running aroung on three legs! Now you know what sort of character Sam was I might mention that Sam was also a bloody BIG dog as well. He was a cross sheppard/labrador/mongrel/something else that had about as much brains as a sun struck galah! This dog loved digging holes BIG holes and you could always tell where they had been fishing previously by the altered landscape.

It's unusual that a dog like Sam ever gets to be the age he was as I heard his owner (on more than one occaision) nearly broke his neck by stumbling down these craters whilst night fishing. He would charge off into the darkness to the bell ringing on a springer he had set and end up in the hole.

The funniest part of all this was that the dog would think its playtime and want to play hard to get by playing that little game they do by putting their head and front legs flat on the ground while still standing at the rearend. Bounding sideways just out of reach and barking and wagging his tail like mad. All this while his owner was being so sweet to him so he could get close enough to kill the dog!

Another of Sams favourites was pulling the yabbie lines in and eating the lump of roadkill (usually rabbit) that was being used for bait. His owner never found out what was happening to his baits until he decided to put a trace and a 4/0 hook in one and yep you guessed it Sam ate it and had to be rushed to a vet 60 miles away, all the time he was telling the dog how he was gunna kill him!

After many years of abuse from this dog my mate's tether had all but worn through, what with the dog digging up his breeding gents (maggots) and rolling in them, eating his special bucket of berley and throwing the lot up right in the middle of his garage, chewed the butt off his favourite whiting rod then digging up his entire tiger worm breeding farm, it was getting close to having to hide the shotgun!

Of course (secretly) he loved the dog, but he wouldn't show it, maybe because the dog was a lot like its owner. He did draw the line one day and gave the dog away to someone (who obviously didn't know the dog). Two days later he comes home from work and there's Sam tied to his letterbox with a piece of rope and his food bowl full of water!

Sam was given to several new owners but everytime ended up back at the starting point. He came home often enough to warrant thinking about changing his name to "Boomer" short for Boomerang 'cause you couldn't throw him away!

Eventually he was given to a truckie and it was love at first sight. We used to regularly raise a glass to old Sam, so Sam here's to you.

(Posted: 1 April 2004)