Keith Wilson

• 2010-08-31

  BO & COOP 1

  

  My name is Coop.

  One of the servants, trying to be funny, calls me Gary, evidently after some film actor or other, but I don’t see the joke. I started life as Minnie and then in the course of time that little racing car the Mini Cooper appeared on the TV screen, which made my friends think of Mini Coop and finally Coop.
   I suppose you will be surprised when I tell you that I am a catte. You may also think it’s a peculiar way of spelling it, but it’s a matter of logic and clarity; if you have dogs and bitches, horses and mares, tigresses, waitresses, goddesses and so on , why should all cats be cats? I am forming a movement called Cattes’ Lib, with the chief objective to remove the stigma of being mistaken for one of those smelly tom cats. See what I mean? As far as I know, we are the only species that does not have a different name for the females.
  I  should also let you know that I am proud of my intelligence which enables me to read and understand a lot of English, and also to write a daily diary on the staff’s’ computer.. Of course I never let the staff know. They love an obedient intelligent animal - but not that intelligent. Nor could you call me obedient. Bo is; I’m not. It’s as simple as that.

  As far as I am aware my ancestors were the first cattes to acquire these skills, indeed the first animals to do so. We inherited the abilities from an old catte called Mehitabel who learned literacy, almost a hundred years ago from a cockroach, (of all things), called Archie. Archie used to type by high jumping on to the keys, one after another, a laborious process. It was complicated by his inability to produce upper case letters, because he couldn’t jump high enough to work the shift key; so all his stuff had to be in lower case letters. As it was Archie who taught her, Mehitabel had a similar handicap. On today’s machines, of course, with their easy SHIFT it’s a  piece of cake.  So each evening when the whole world is fast asleep I go to work in the dark, recording the events of the day. As you would expect I make spelling and other typo mistakes, because our night vision is not all it’s cracked up to be. Please, as a reader, you have to be tolerant.       
  After an hour or so I click all my work into the Refuse Bin to hide it and periodically, say once a week, I restore it all and print it. Bo then takes it to his lair under the house.
   

  Bo, my best friend, is a dog. Not an ordinary common-or-garden dog, but quite a pedigree, because the staff have a piece of paper which records his full name, Beaufort Labrador. He is said to be yellow but in my mind he’s more of a pale raw sienna. I have learnt a bit about colours from one of our servants, Grunt, who does illustrations which he sells to make money to buy our food. Grunt’s real name is Grant, but he has arthritis and grunts all the time. The other member of our staff is Nosh, who cooks our food. She has an impossible Welsh name, which sounds like Mfannwi, so we have simplified it to Nosh = food.
  Bo is slightly ahead of me, in that he can make a variety of noises, some of which approximate to speech. I can’t. This endears him to Grunt and Nosh, when they remark now and then, that Bo has just said OK.  They adore him because he is obedient. too -  tell him to sit down and he does.  On the other hand, as a catte, I never do, even though  I fully understand the instruction. I mean, given too much power, the staff will think they own the place. And it is a great advantage to be able to understand their conversation at times. For instance, when you learn they are going away for a week, and you realise the
  neighbours will give us short rations. In these circumstances, I go bird and rabbit hunting and share the lolly with Bo. Did you ever see a giant Labrador gobble down a dead baby rabbit?  One swallow and it’s gone, bones and all. You’d think he would need indigestion pills, but - no way.                                          

• →

  BO & COOP 2

  

  I know it will be difficult for you to understand our conversations, Bo’s and mine. I often wish I could teach humans about our telepathy.  I have read in the newspaper that it does become possible for some humans, but they are regarded as a bit queer and their fantasies are held in doubt. Let there be no doubt about ours though. Bo’s communication with me works. A good deal of it started from body language - he learned to nod and shake his head for instance, but it rapidly evolved into complete telepathy, mind finding mind,
  a long way beyond the need for body movements.
  Many animals have this ability without  talking. Like cattle and horses in the field can foresee an earthquake, you know.
  But there is no way he is ever going to be able to type. He has tried, but his paws are too big, so while we are able to discuss events of the day it is I who has the job of typing out our discussions.
  Today, a typical subject, which Bo originated: Do animals have souls?
  ‘Well, I said, ‘of course we have souls. We all have different personalities and that’s our soul.’
  Bo suggested we should look it up during tonight’s typing session in the library. So we did.
   In the dark from the internet I read out : ‘Theologians say no. Man was created superior to animals and animals can’t be equal to them.’
  ‘WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH! ‘ was Bo’s reaction. Me too. Humans are the most conceited species ever conceived and ignorant with it. A better debating subject would be: Do men have souls?
  If there was a pecking order of intelligence in animals I would be generous in placing humans in the first ten. Naturally I would put dogs and cattes at the top with cattes a whisker ahead.  Humans suffer from a disease called the work ethic which consumes most of their day. Some are actually proud of sleeping only six hours . And yet they acknowledge that felines have nine lives and ignore the advantages we acquire through our extended sleep hours.
  And anyway, did you ever see humans covering up their poose?   

• →

  BO & COOP 3

  
  Because Bo is about ten times the size of me, he finishes his breakfast about ten times as fast. I have mentioned elsewhere how he will down a baby rabbit in five seconds flat, and this is why most of our conversations start while I am still eating. We both have biscuits in the morning, and he is very good at not trying to pinch any of mine. This may be that being specially bred as a sporting dog he has acquired a sense of fair play.  It’s just as well because his breakfast is one biscuit. Even if I was starving I could never break off a piece of his .It would be like trying to bite off a piece of kauri board. But he crunches away, loving every minute of it - which is about how long he takes.
  ‘Hey, Coop’, he says this  morning, ‘Isn’t it engaging that all animals have distinguishing idiosyncrasies?’
  I told him I didn’t know idiosyncrasies .
  ‘Neither do I,’ he said.

  After a moment’s thought he said ’ But I think  it’s something like those souls we were talking about.’
  ‘Aha, I know, like wagging tails?’
  ‘That’s right. Tell you what, about tails,’ he added, ’cattes point their tails up in the air, like straight up, when they’re glad to see you.’
  ‘Do I do that?’
  ‘Yup.’
  ‘I never knew!’
  ‘And you waive your tail slowly from side to side when you’ re stalking a bird.’
  ‘Really!’
  ‘As well as that, you also turn the tip of your tail up when you’re lying down and pleased with yourself.’
  ‘Well, Mr Smart Aleck,’ I said. ’ you have some characteristics too, that you don’t know about. I laughed like a drain the other day when that big Rottweiller walked past and you dropped your tail between your back legs, scared to death.’
  ‘OK, but mostly I wag it because I’m happy.’
  ‘But that’s not all. For instance your ears convey messages.’
  ‘You’re kidding.’
  ‘Nope. You point them when you’re concentrating and you set them back when you’re roused, and your hackles rise too.’
  ‘Do you have hackles.?
  ‘I truly don’t know.”
  ’ Do humans?’
  ‘Well, I’ve seen cartoons of their hair standing on end, but I’ve never seen it actually happen.’
  ‘I suppose all animals have idiosyncrasies that they don’t know about.’
  ‘Would you mind calling them characteristics?’
  ‘OK, OK. Don’t blow your top.’        

• →

  BO & COOP 4

  

  ‘What do you think of George Bush?’ Bo asked me after breakfast as we lay in the sun.
  This must have been just before Obama took over the Presidency.
  ‘I think he’s a very brave man who was prepared to risk all, in going it alone.’ 
  ‘You mean the Iraq war?
  ‘That’s right. You see, when the Arabs blew up the Twin Towers there had to be a retaliation.’
  ‘Even though he didn’t consult his allies?’ Bo is really quite well informed
  ‘You bet.  He knew it would take six months or more for Europe to make up its mind, and what was needed was a prompt reaction. He had to set an example to the Arab world that you don’t mess with the US.’
  ‘But Iraq wasn’t involved in the New York bombing. It was some character called Abu Ben Adhem.’
  ‘No, no, it wasn’t him at all;  it was Osama Bin Laden.’
  ‘Who was Ben Adhem then?’
  ‘He was the character who had a conversation with an angel.’
  ‘Honest?’
  “Absolutely.  The angel who was writing in a book of gold.’
  ‘I remember! He wasn’t religious but he liked people. And the angel told him that was just as good. You read me the poem before I learnt to read.’
  ‘I’m glad that’s settled.  Now where was I?’
  ‘You were banging on about George Bush.’
  ‘Well, Bush’s father had let Hussein off the hook in a treaty after the desert war some years before and Hussein invaded Kuwait contrary to the terms of the treaty, and so it was a timely opportunity to give the world a picture of what would happen if anyone confronted the US.  And you must admit nobody has since.’
  ‘But it ended up with a lot of people getting killed.’
  ‘I agree, but it released the Kuwaitis from serfdom as a matter of principle.’
  ‘Someone very wise once said principles are expensive,’ said Bo — smugly.    

• →

  BO & COOP 5

  

  In the winter Bo and I watch TV with the staff, although the programmes are pretty naive. I mean, who wants to watch some dumb poms arguing and complicating their lives in a pub? Nosh loves it, but Grunt walks out.
   Bo enjoys Orangutans on their island because he identifies with them. His theory is that they are half way between dogs and humans. I refuse to identify with tigers and lions on the animal programmes, because I feel aloof from them, they being crude and vicious.  A lot of humans resist the identification with apes for the same reason, though it’s quite obvious they are related.
  I heard the staff discussing us today. Some friend who was fluent in French told them if you put our names Bo and Coop together it means a lot to the French. They thought this was hilarious but as I don’t speak any French I don’t see the joke. I suppose if you do, you will.
  Beaufort is named after a town in France, but he doesn’t understand a word of their language either. His understanding of English is improving in leaps and bounds though.
  Talking of TV, we were watching a film last night which involved a crook trying to entice a nice old lady to give him some money. Bo actually growled a warning for her, and Grumt and Nosh were impressed at his comprehension of the plot. Cattes only mew when they are hungry, so I am easily able to control my emotions. But I had to give Bo a talking to afterwards for almost giving the show away. I mean our future survival depends on the staff’ maintaining the archaic notion that they are in charge.

  Bo collects  the newspaper from the gate very early in the morning and gives it to me first and I read out the pertinent bits; then he puts it on the kitchen table for the staff.
  In the letters today some jerk suggests all public areas should be made smoke free. How  ridiculous! You might as well try to make fornication illegal.  Or special containers for discarded chewing gum.  Never the less future letters to the editor will make suitable subjects for Bo and me to talk about.
  Unfortunately my movement Cattes Lib. is losing steam. Not a lot of cattes can understand my propagander.  

• →

  BO & COOP 6

  

  

  Bo very timidly asked me if it was all right if he had a go at writing poetry and if so, would I type it out for him. Naturally I agreed, expecting some rubbish.  But it wasn’t. Not a bit of it..  He’s good, and I am encouraging him to keep going. Not very PC, as they say, but Bo is far too intelligent to harbour any prejudices: —

  When it rains in the North and the South has a drought it
  Is time people say
  In their gullible way
  That the government did something about it.

  (Quite a shrewd observation on humans, for a dog.)

  The newspaper habit of referring to a lengthy name by its initials is confusing and will get worse.(Unless the government does something about it).
  I am working on a list of confusing examples. How about:

  PC   Politically Correct, Police Constable, Personal Computer, Prince Consort, *Privvy Council
  ACC  = Auckland City Council, Accident Compensation Commission, Australian Credit Control, Ashburton Cricket Club
  BBC  =  Baptist Bible College, British Broadcasting Corp
  CYF  =  Child Youth &  Family, Canterbury Young Farmers
  THC =   Tourist Hotel Corp, Tetrahydrocannabinol, [I bet you never knew - it’s a chemical in marijuana] + All Black THC (Sir Harcourt) Caughey.
  CD   =    Compact disc, Corpse Diplomatique, Canadian dollar, Civil Defence + many others
  *I didn’t miss that typo, but I read somewhere sometimes an accident like that introduces a welcome note of humour into an otherwise dull and pedantic narrative .

  I often wonder when a GM became a CEO, and why do the newspapers always find cause for concerns? Concerns are businesses; concern is a worry, surely?
  And when did the Scottish proven replace proved?
  Or am I old and too set in my ways? At five years of age?
  Why do radio announcers talk about beating when they mean betting?
  Would dancing elves create an imp act? (This from Bo).
  Today a reporter wrote: ..with regards to…..such and such an idea, as if he was ending a letter. Surely that should  be :  In regard to, ? Could a catte teach humans how to speak English?

  Bo says not to get smug.  Look who’s talking.

• →

  BO & COOP 7

  

  In looking for alternative meanings on the internet for the initials , Bo and I came across this profound comment:

  Integration of ontologies begins with establishing mappings between their concept entries.

  How could an ordinary catte, even a super-intelligent one, be expected to interpret what that means when I bet most humans would be struggling. I looked up the thesaurus to find a suitable word to describe the nature of that statement and came across ESOTERIC, which, when I first saw it, was all Greek to me. But it means knowledge confined to the few. If philosophy professors express themselves in that way, no wonder their knowledge remains esoteric. You will excuse me I am sure, if I use the word more than occasionally in future notes.
  Bo’s contribution was as follows: -

  When a small dog has eaten his food would that be interrier nutriment? Very funny.

  In the morning newspaper Bo and I always read the Letters to the Editor because it keeps us in touch with what the local community is thinking.

   Isn’t it amazing how some schoolboy in Hokitika will feel free to write to the Editor with his answer to the question of how President Obama should handle the Senate on the national health issue. Or even more modestly, how PM John Key should solve the leaking homes problem.
  Bo and I were impressed with a recent remark by a radio announcer that he wished he was seventeen again and knew it all. (When did schoolboys get promoted to students?)
  I suppose editors have lost the clue - the handwriting that used to separate the men from the boys - because of the universal ability to type .
  Here is a draft of a letter that I would love to send to our Editor:

  Dear Sir
  I am an avid reader of the letters in the paper every day but have to confess they are recently getting a bit boring .
  Take today’s lot. First of all, who cares if someone has proposed a radical eye-catching design for QueensWharf. - just leave it as it is, rough as guts, like us.
  Next, a bikie alleges that motorbikes themselves are not dangerous,  It’s people in cars hitting bikies; that’s the trouble. Another declares that the money being spent on refurbishing Eden Park would be better spent on fixing the potholes in the Onehunga footpaths.
  [Haven’t you noticed how, if government or a local body plans to spend some money, there will be a series of letters telling them a better way to spend it? Why spend money on school buildings when we should be saving poor African children.]
  A third claims the cure for drunk old people driving and causing accidents is to increase the price of booze.
  Then there is a beaut.  This guy hints that if NZ rejects the proposal to congratulate China on its 60th year of Communist rule. we could cause a change in their government. Another letter says it is all very well for the newspaper to run an article on eye healthcare but his cataract operation cost $3,900 while Fred Hollows does it for $40 in Africa. He overlooks the $4,000 return air fare.  Finally there is yet another letter about plastic bags in supermarkets.  Please could you possibly declare that this correspondence is closed?
  I believe some newspapers actually have a reserve of letter writers to send in letters to the editor on request. It would be an improvement and might sell more papers? I’m willing.

  Yours etc
  Coop                                          

• →

  BO & COOP 8

  

  Late one night Bo came bouncing into the laundry where I sleep, full of the joys of spring..  He had been watching TV with Grunt.
  ‘We beat the bastards!’ he announced
  ‘Basketball?’  I was having him on. He’s an avid rugby fan.
  ‘Don’t be dumb.”
  ‘Well, first of all in starting a conversation, you should name the subject.’
  ‘All right then, you being so high and mighty, what’s a hooker?’ I could see he was going to produce one of his erudite lectures.  Esoteric. Holier than thou. You can tell when he smugly introduces a question you’re supposed to know nothing about.
   I said, ‘It’s an amoral woman.’
  ”You mean immoral .’
  ‘No I don’t.’
  ‘What’s the difference?’
  ‘Look it up.’
  But he wasn’t going to let an opportunity pass.
  ‘I bet you don’t know what it means in Maori”
  ’ It means sugar or froth, like in the Huka Falls.’  That stumped him.
  ‘Look, I just wanted you to know we beat the Aussies 35 - 6.’
  ‘That makes the All Blacks respectable again..  Did you realise, when the Springboks beat us three times in a row, the sharemarket took a nose dive?’
  ‘You’re having me on .’
  ‘True. Anyway a rugby hooker is in the front row of the scrum.’
  ‘You’re not as dumb as you look.’  This is as close as Bo can get to apologising. Kiwis are not renowned for apologising.  Helen Clark was an exception of course.

• →

  BO & COOP 9

  

  You mustn’t for a moment imagine Bo is unintelligent.  I do make fun of him which is a little unfair, but you must bear in mind that he is the very first dog in the history of the world to be able to read, and quite possibly the first to enjoy communion on a telepathic plane with a pretty rare species of catte. .
  As we are in a sort of partnership I have made it my duty to learn all I can about his passion, which is football - rugby of course. I remember Grunt taught Nosh how to play golf to cement their relationship. And it did. They now talk about golf as if it is a religion, which, in a funny way it is, and they watch it for hours on end on TV. Ultra boring if you ask me, and I have a suspicion that whipping a ball like that with all your might and main could give rise to all sorts of mental aberrations and aggressive behaviour. 
  Rugby, on the other hand, according to Bo, is character building and teaches young humans to endure life’s hard knocks.
  However, as a study, it is hard to learn about its ramifications on TV. First of all, kicking a ball that is not round like soccer but oblong like a testicle, is supposed to teach boys to cope with life’s unpredictability, though in my view it possibly encourages an atavistic instinct.  But I may be wrong (as Bertrand Russell was in the habit of saying, when he actually knew he was infallible).
  Well, with soccer you know very well there is no variation on the original theme, or the bounce of the ball, worldwide. But with the oblong ball there are; and the difficulty is telling which form you’re watching. You must admit that it takes an absolute expert to tell if it’s rugby or rugby league. I mean in both games, they employ the technique of about ten men lying in a heap on top of the ball to stop anyone playing with it. In American football they use a much smaller ball, so they can throw it further, but this seems to develop extraordinary shoulder muscles. And their game is a bit dull in that they seem to take a coffee break every minute or two for a powhiri.

  Then there is Aussie Rules, during which Bo has to go out of the room to throw up. 

• →

  BO & COOP 10

  

  Now that his English is improving so much, Bo is able to read widely. He wisely does this under the house in his lair so nobody knows; and then he carefully smuggles the book back into the library under the cover of darkness.  In this way he borrowed the DaVinci notebook, with all its drawings, and was captivated by the man’s skill.
  Then, by a fluke, the next thing he read was a pamphlet from the Mouth and Foot painters.  They always send Grunt their mouth and foot paintings as Christmas cards - at a price of course. But it opened up a whole new world for Bo. Some of these painters use their feet because they have no hands. Some, lacking the use of both, actually paint with the brush in their mouth.
  ‘Why did they change their name from Foot and Mouth painters to Mouth and Foot painters?’ he asked me.
  Because of the disease,’ I replied, rudely awakened from a long sleep.
  ‘Painters get a disease?’
  ‘No, no, cattle do.’
  The lines on his forehead deepened.  A sure sign he was out of his depth.
  ‘Tell me truly, Coop,’ he said. ‘What the hell do cattle have to do with handicapped painters? Did the painters get the disease from painting cows?’
  ‘In an odd sort of way, you’re getting close.’ I said grumpily and went back to my interrupted sleep.
  Bo went away to ruminate.
  When I woke up ten hours later, he was still there. But he knew how to generate a good mood.
  ‘Would you like some froffy coffee?’
  This is an old joke we share from the way Grunt asks Nosh, at eleven in the morning. It would make me laugh - if I could laugh.  But I purred, and Bo knew he’d got through to me. I promptly mended the fence.
  ‘The disease in cattle was always called Foot and Mouth because that’s where the symptoms first appeared in pigs, sheep and cattle. The artist’s group found out much later that they had accidentally use a highly unpopular name, so they changed it.’
  ‘Thank you,’ he said politely. ‘But I really wanted to show you this.’
  It was a beautiful sketch of me.    
  ‘Bo,’ I said,’ that’s beautiful!’
  You may not be able to imagine a dog shuffling his feet in embarrassment, but that’s what

  
  Bo did. But deep down you could tell he was thrilled to bits.
  So was I

  His natural talent was a total surprise to us both. In his genes he has inherited a sensitive mouth, which allows him to control a pencil lying on his tongue and holding it between his teeth.
   And he never rubs out. He evidently tried to at first, but there was no way he could hold a rubber. He told me the nearest he came to success was when found a very old  pencil with a rubber attached to the blunt end.. But it took far too long spitting out his 4B and grabbing the rubber-ended pencil for a correction. As he put it, it created a lacuna in his free flow of self-expression and creativity. (He was learning to talk like an artist too). And anyway the sharp end pricked his tongue.
  So, as time went by he discovered a technique for coping with this disadvantage from Leonardo himself;  for  the master did his sketching so quickly that he seldom had time to rub stuff out. Bo acquired Leonardo’s skill in utilising the false lines to convey movement in the sketch. Clever.

  His talent  was an enormous advantage, because he was now able to embellish the daily diary with little pictures, thus confirming the opinion I read somewhere that a picture is worth a thousand words.
  It was this combination that led to my sounding out the newspaper on the feasibility of going public.  I mean, by 2010 I had at least forty pages of notes and around half that number of Bo’s sketches. But how to get them to the newspaper?
  Here, Bo solved it. I typed out the address on a big envelope and he and I managed to stuff all the paper work into it. We knew where the stamps were, and stuck five dollars on it to make sure it would get there.
  Bo then took it in his mouth at midnight, down to the mail box at the end of our street.
  So far so good.
  It was  a tense couple of weeks waiting with bated breathe for their reaction.

  Strangely, everything then fell into place quite easily.  You see, Bo was in the habit of collecting the mail every day anyway, so it was simple to detach the paper’s reply, addressed to Catte Enterprises Ltd,  32 Uarapa Rd, Taupo . Of course we hadn’t given our phone number.  That would have really put the catte among the pigeons.