SHIPBOARD PETS DEVELOP
HARDY SPIRITS AND UNIQUE SKILLS
Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats
Not many modem sailors wake up to a parrots' screeching, ''Pieces of eight, pieces of eight," but they may have to deal with an anxious dog or cat.
As a small child living on a boat, I remember our family dog had a bladder of monumental proportions. She never had an "accident" while under way, but she would start to dance as soon as she heard the anchor chain roar out the hawse hole. She wouldn't stop dancing until my dad had rowed her ashore in the dingy.
Most shipboard pets learn to do their "duty" over the side; our shipboard cat, Napoleon, performed like a gymnast as he hung over the starboard quarter in a following sea. Napoleon was a great shipmate in other ways. He destroyed the onboard mice and rat population and kept seagulls from making deposits on our varnished teak decks and bright work.
Napoleon was something of a legend. When we were in port he would lie on top of a beam across the dock and wait for a dog on a stroll. Napoleon would silently leap on the dog's back and wrap his front legs around the dog's chest. His back legs and claws would tear hide and hair off the dog's hindquarters. The dogs' reactions were remarkably consistent. They would run for shore at top speed, yipping and howling.
The local human wharf rats would bet on how far he would ride the dog before dismounting. The record, as I remember, was a half mile. After dismounting, Napoleon would walk home down the middle of the street. Legend has it that no drivers ever challenged his right of way. Napoleon so traumatized the dogs that he never got a chance to get one twice.
Napoleon left us to conquer new worlds in the Queen Charlotte Islands. We had made a bad passage with three days of beam seas and even the sea-wise old Napoleon got seasick. When we had an island on our beam, Napoleon abandoned ship. My dad anchored in the lee of the island and went ashore to retrieve Napoleon, to no avail.
My dad was always sure that Napoleon lived on. He heard that male lynx were dying in British Columbia and was sure that Napoleon was responsible. Years later when a world-record lynx was taken on Vancouver Island, my dad was sure that it was working off Napoleon's gene pool.
A reader from South Fork told me about having his dog with him when he was operating a fish tender in Southeast. The dog was well house-broken and would never soil his master's vessel. But he had much less proprietary feelings about other boats. When other vessels tied up along side, the dog would watch for a chance and quietly slip on board to leave his calling card. As you can imagine, this propensity caused some customer-relation problems.
The dog didn't always go on other boats; sometimes he just lifted his leg by the lee bulwarks. This habit also caused some problems. On one particular occasion, a set-netter had tied his skiff up on the lee side of the tender and the dog picked that moment to let fly. The set-netter was wearing his rain gear, but was still not too happy.
Such can be the perils of pets at sea. In another article I will tell you about a sea-going ferret that slept in the galley cushions, and about hero dogs at sea.
