The evening Chris and her husband came to dinner the guest list was chosen by Bill. She had often spoken of his recent entrance to the world of painting. We had been over to their place several times. His pictures adorned their walls, his primary theme the sometimes stark realism of life.
When we first extended the dinner invite Bill asked if we would help him photo shoot his next painting. The focus, sometimes people treat their pets better than their children.
I took no offense to the request. Our daughter Sylvia, who was just under 2, was a joyful and inquisitive child. He asked if, before we sat down to eat, he could take a picture of Sylvia on the floor by a dog dish, perhaps with something resembling kibble in it, and Santos, our very devious Weimaraner, sitting at the table.
For us, the latter was not an unusual image. Santos had shown on many occasions and in many different ways, his desire to sit with us at the table and certainly to enjoy the food we were serving. We had, however, never given consideration to a child sitting next to a dog’s dish.
When they arrived we had prepared as best as possible. The dinner roast had been marinating all day, aromas of it now roasting in the oven made your mouth water. The dog dish was in an unusual spot by the dining table. Bill had his cameras ready. Sylvia was thrilled to be on the floor with toys surrounding her and her treats in a dish, which just happened to be a dog’s dish.
Before putting our dinner on the serving trays we called Santos to the house. What was rare was that he did not immediately respond. Several more calls and whistles ensued and he responded finally, reluctantly, to the last request, head hanging low. Now, this was very much out of the ordinary. Santos was known to always be close at hand when dinner prep was happening. He once ate a roast that was sitting at the back of the stove when I had to dash out unexpectedly to chase a cow back into the field.
But, there was a photo shoot to be done and not a lot of time to ponder. Sylvia was happily engaged with her toys and treats; we had a chair ready for Santos, something he would normally have loved to jump into. When he got into the house, despite his usual desire to be one of us, he stayed back from the chair. We coached and cajoled, and then did that some more. Finally Glen helped Santos up and we all sat down at our seats with Bill ready to take the photos. And then the explanation for Santo’s reluctance came shooting out in full force.
He spit a very well marinated goffer head out onto the centre of the table. This must have been stewing in the manure pile for quite a while. Santos was known to be a goffer dog. He spent many hours chasing and sometimes catching these creatures that created havoc with our fields. And it is not surprising he would bury his discoveries. Needless to say we were all astounded to see it lying on the table before us.
There was much hustle and bustle as we got the goffer head back outside, Santos back to his regular outdoor haunts and the five of us sitting down to a much more refined offering. Bill, somehow, had managed to capture what he wanted on film.
We saw the painting about a year later. The backdrop was not quite what we had expected. Rather than show the log walls of our house he painted it to look like a modern condo unit. Rather than the goffer head on the table he had Santos sitting with us and a much more refined dinner spread. Bill came back a few more times to take pictures of aspects of our farming life but never again suggested such an unusual theme.