Our Sacrificial Snake Dog

We are the very proud owners of a very handsome Jack Russell (almost sure he's 100% Jack Russell, but in a country town you can never be 100% guaranteed). When we were first getting him we asked daughter number 1 what she would like to call him. Being 2 and 1/2 at the time she resorted to the only dog related thing she could think of and she proudly said to us 'NGO, I want to call him NGO'. Now for the life of us we could not initially work out what she was talking about, when finally, while listening to the Playschool CD it clicked 'There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his Name-o B I N G O'. Daughter number 1 could only remember a few words in the only song about a dog she knew.

We did try to call him Bingo for a while, but Muddy Hubby persisted with NGO, as did daughter number 1, and it has just stuck ever since and it really kind of suits the handsome little guy

NGO hard at work shifting sheep

The other name NGO goes by is 'Our Sacrificial Snake Dog' which is the whole reason we got him in the first place. One warm summer day I was walking past the front door with the girls and I heard a noise just outside the door, I turned and saw a nice big brown snake slithering across our front step to go under the house. Needless to say I did what any real girl would do, I slammed the door shut and rang Muddy Hubby, who was not much help at all as he calmly said 'yeah , I saw some snake tracks around, there are a few about'. I immediately started looking into snake deterrents, most of which Muddy Hubby would roll his eyes at, like those sonic posts you put in the ground, but when I suggested a sacrificial snake dog, he slowly came round to the idea. Because really, wouldn't you rather sacrifice a dog to a snake than your children?

Now NGO has become a beloved member of our family and this spring in particular he has already proved his worth, baling up two snakes and one echidna. It's going to be a long hot summer out here for us and due to the lovely mouse plague we had earlier in the year snake numbers are in abundance, so I'm thinking our investment in NGO is the best we ever made. He loves our little family as much as we love him, he is VERY patient with our exuberant girls and very protective, he is the best little sacrificial snake dog a Muddy Family could have!

Daughter Number 2 talking to NGO about the benefits of Mulberries