Homecoming

“So. A huntaway, is he?” asks the man waiting outside the fish and chip shop. We’re in Opononi, and it turns out to be a bit of luck that the snapper comes in on Wednesdays. Badger looks up at the man from under his foppish, girly, löwchen fringe. “Give me five minutes with you in my shearing shed, and you’d come out looking decent.”

“He knows he’s a sissy,” I say. I’m sucking up, really. I could get defensive — we love our dog — but Badger doesn’t have a clue, so it’d be a battle wasted. Badger, who’s used to being fussed over, especially by teenage girls saying “Oh, I want one like this, just like this, oh please, Mum, please”, looks up expectantly. Derision is a new, unrecognisable response.

“A Jafa dog, are ya?” asks our new friend and we’re not sure if we’re making things worse by confessing that no, he’s a Wellington dog. There’s just a hint of he wouldn’t be seen dead in Auckland in our reply and our friend softens and says well that’s better. But just a bit.

All four of us are stereotypes. One