“We thought that getting a dog would also deter some of the brazen Vervets that keep stealing all our fruit – oranges, guavas, bananas, blackberries – but I’ve actually watched a whole troop casually raiding the tree at the back while said dog is snoring on the porch.”
Oribi Mom Heather Lind and latest addition to the family, Ranger (aka Marley).
It’s been a long five years or so keeping chickens, rabbits, and yes, having three bouncing boys join our family. Now, we’ve finally gone ahead and completed our family with a large, beautiful fluffball called Ranger.
His family emigrated, and was relieved to find ours a perfect fit for their beloved Golden Labrador. Except, I’m suddenly understanding how the screenwriters got all their fantastic material for that movie. Should I change the name of my column to Marley and Me?
Dog Stories, Boy Stories, and Family Memories
It seems that I’ve already acquired a file’s worth of stories surrounding this new addition to our family. For example, did you know that dogs like to chew wooden alphabet blocks?
The ones I had big plans to teach our eldest to read with.
I’m still waiting for that miracle to happen by itself because I’m a little bit too busy to force that on a completely uninterested farm boy preferring his free time in the sun. He’s started Grade R, so playtime is precious for him in the afternoons. There’s plenty of time for reading, right? He’s only five.
That’s a good thing because those wooden alphabet blocks keep appearing in pieces on the porch. The 10-month-old inevitably takes a block out there on his travels, and then the family dog shows the baby how to break it into pieces that he can choke on. Can you see my eye-roll?
Slap “Watch” Onto This Dog and Watch the Fruit Disappear
Marley, I mean Ranger, has also managed to chew a hole in my compost bin. What on earth is a grown-up dog looking for in the stinky lettuce and potato pile? Probably a rat. We get some gigantic ones around these parts.
We thought that getting a dog would deter some of the brazen Vervets that keep stealing all our fruit – oranges, guavas, bananas, blackberries. But I’ve actually watched a whole troop casually raiding the tree at the back while said dog is snoring on the porch.
It doesn’t seem like the eagle owls mind him, either. One landed on the roof the other evening and he made a few obligatory warning barks at it. It just looked at him.
But I think the noise disturbed the quiet hunting spot, so the owl flew away after a while. Ranger also stepped right over a night adder the other day without even noticing it. That’s why our kids wear gumboots in the yard.
But I must say, this beautiful Golden Lab is phenomenal with our three boys. What a patient, wonderful dog to play with and love. They are so lucky to have him, and we are, too.
I’ll only call him Marley when he’s naughty, which is not that often it seems.
Published here.
Since we were in Kenya having a bunch of ‘first’ experiences, like seeing the magical 
Whitewashed textured walls under the shady reach of enormous trees, where exquisite black Colobus monkeys shake their bushy white manes and call to each other like motorbikes starting up (as Daphne Sheldrick describes in 
Tuk-tuks and bora-boras (motorbikes) crowd the market places in hopes of a good day.