william - 'the grey ghost'
william , "the grey ghost"
our original ghost guard dog
& company mascot
William came into my life when I was contemplating starting a new exercise programme. I saw an ad asking for help walking him during the day in the window of a pet store in my local shopping mall. I figured doing something useful out in the sunshine with canine company made a whole lot more sense than paying to get on a treadmill and going nowhere in front of a TV!
However, it turned out that there was a whole lot more going on with William, than was being let on in the shop window ad...
Let me explain.
William's owner had worked from home for the first 18 months of his life. She had recently taken on a job working in an office. Which left William home alone with a truly spectacular case of separation anxiety.
William had become the doggy reincarnation of Harry Houdini, the world's greatest escape artist of all time.
There was not a door, window, gate, or fence that could keep William at home alone. He would regularly escape and travel extraordinary distances. His mother's mobile telephone started blowing up from calls from boutique North Shore butcher shops two and three suburbs away from home, with an irate butcher asking her to come and collect her dog, who was doing an entirely too good a job at getting behind the shop counter...
After the 7th or 8th time his mother had to leave her new job to come rescue him (and pay for the finest Wagyu, tenderloin, or fillet mignon that William had managed to pinch), her new employer issued her an ultimatum: get this sorted out, or we will have to "let you go." Hence the ad.
However, this was not the end of it. William was also the doggy version of a teenage delinquent. He was getting into fights, treating commands such as "come when called" as negotiable suggestions when not ignoring them entirely, bowling children and old people like ninepins at a bowling alley in the local off-leash area, and generally getting a growing, justified reputation for bad behaviour. He had not been declared a dangerous dog yet; however, the growing litany of complaints was creating real pressure for him to be euthanised.
William was not an inherently bad dog. He was a high-energy, high-drive, highly intelligent, highly strung, highly wilful dog who was acting out for predictable reasons. It quickly became obvious that without a major intervention, William's projected fate of a drastically shortened life was becoming increasingly likely. This intervention meant a "Doggy Death/Boot Camp" level of intense, consistent, strict obedience training and copious amounts of exercise. Due to his separation anxiety, he also needed to be with someone else when his mother wasn't able to be with him.
That meant that if I was going to be the one who made sure this wayward fur child kept breathing, I needed to create a lifestyle that allowed William to constantly be with me during the day in a way that was realistic and viable. Sydney History Tours and Sydney Ghost Tours were created and started operations in late 2007-early 2008. Quite literally the stereotype of a business startup- a man and a dog, with some big ideas, in a garage.
William's mother and I then took William to obedience training twice a week at the Manly Warringah Kennel Club. I would pick him up in the morning, keep him with me during the day, exercising him twice a day and reinforcing his training all the time, and return him to his mother at night, in what often felt like a joint custody / co-parenting partnership that successfully lasted for a large part of William's life.
While it took a lot of time, love, patience, and effort, eventually William became a fun, loving, mostly obedient, and manageable linchpin in our lives who would accompany me pretty much everywhere. He would accompany me on the history tours during the day, and on Ghost Tours at night, where his grey colouring made life a bit challenging, as he would essentially disappear in the dark. Hence " The Grey Ghost". His incredibly keen sense of smell, hearing and ability to see in low light conditions as well as a cat, meant that he would free range in the cemetery and bark up a storm if he found something or someone that I needed to know about in the dark.
It wouldn't matter how many times I asked people to put their mobile phones on vibrate or silent before starting a ghost tour. Too often, we would get through 2/3rds of the Haunted Sydney Ghost Tour, where 30-odd people would be standing around a tomb in the middle of the cemetery with torches at night. I would just be getting to the 'bomb' moment of the story when some idiot's mobile telephone would go off. I normally wouldn't have to say a word - the rest of the group would look daggers at this person, who would walk off into the night in the cemetery to take the call.
About 3-4 minutes later, we would hear a bloodcurdling scream come out of the night... William the Weimaraner, under the cloak of darkness, had just been putting his cold, wet nose in places where most people expect dinner, dancing, and flowers before going anywhere near them!
While some time has passed since William "Crossed over the Rainbow Bridge,", his absence still feels like the loss of a dearly loved child. He lives on in our hearts, where he is deeply loved, remembered daily, and very keenly missed.
However, it turned out that there was a whole lot more going on with William, than was being let on in the shop window ad...
Let me explain.
William's owner had worked from home for the first 18 months of his life. She had recently taken on a job working in an office. Which left William home alone with a truly spectacular case of separation anxiety.
William had become the doggy reincarnation of Harry Houdini, the world's greatest escape artist of all time.
There was not a door, window, gate, or fence that could keep William at home alone. He would regularly escape and travel extraordinary distances. His mother's mobile telephone started blowing up from calls from boutique North Shore butcher shops two and three suburbs away from home, with an irate butcher asking her to come and collect her dog, who was doing an entirely too good a job at getting behind the shop counter...
After the 7th or 8th time his mother had to leave her new job to come rescue him (and pay for the finest Wagyu, tenderloin, or fillet mignon that William had managed to pinch), her new employer issued her an ultimatum: get this sorted out, or we will have to "let you go." Hence the ad.
However, this was not the end of it. William was also the doggy version of a teenage delinquent. He was getting into fights, treating commands such as "come when called" as negotiable suggestions when not ignoring them entirely, bowling children and old people like ninepins at a bowling alley in the local off-leash area, and generally getting a growing, justified reputation for bad behaviour. He had not been declared a dangerous dog yet; however, the growing litany of complaints was creating real pressure for him to be euthanised.
William was not an inherently bad dog. He was a high-energy, high-drive, highly intelligent, highly strung, highly wilful dog who was acting out for predictable reasons. It quickly became obvious that without a major intervention, William's projected fate of a drastically shortened life was becoming increasingly likely. This intervention meant a "Doggy Death/Boot Camp" level of intense, consistent, strict obedience training and copious amounts of exercise. Due to his separation anxiety, he also needed to be with someone else when his mother wasn't able to be with him.
That meant that if I was going to be the one who made sure this wayward fur child kept breathing, I needed to create a lifestyle that allowed William to constantly be with me during the day in a way that was realistic and viable. Sydney History Tours and Sydney Ghost Tours were created and started operations in late 2007-early 2008. Quite literally the stereotype of a business startup- a man and a dog, with some big ideas, in a garage.
William's mother and I then took William to obedience training twice a week at the Manly Warringah Kennel Club. I would pick him up in the morning, keep him with me during the day, exercising him twice a day and reinforcing his training all the time, and return him to his mother at night, in what often felt like a joint custody / co-parenting partnership that successfully lasted for a large part of William's life.
While it took a lot of time, love, patience, and effort, eventually William became a fun, loving, mostly obedient, and manageable linchpin in our lives who would accompany me pretty much everywhere. He would accompany me on the history tours during the day, and on Ghost Tours at night, where his grey colouring made life a bit challenging, as he would essentially disappear in the dark. Hence " The Grey Ghost". His incredibly keen sense of smell, hearing and ability to see in low light conditions as well as a cat, meant that he would free range in the cemetery and bark up a storm if he found something or someone that I needed to know about in the dark.
It wouldn't matter how many times I asked people to put their mobile phones on vibrate or silent before starting a ghost tour. Too often, we would get through 2/3rds of the Haunted Sydney Ghost Tour, where 30-odd people would be standing around a tomb in the middle of the cemetery with torches at night. I would just be getting to the 'bomb' moment of the story when some idiot's mobile telephone would go off. I normally wouldn't have to say a word - the rest of the group would look daggers at this person, who would walk off into the night in the cemetery to take the call.
About 3-4 minutes later, we would hear a bloodcurdling scream come out of the night... William the Weimaraner, under the cloak of darkness, had just been putting his cold, wet nose in places where most people expect dinner, dancing, and flowers before going anywhere near them!
While some time has passed since William "Crossed over the Rainbow Bridge,", his absence still feels like the loss of a dearly loved child. He lives on in our hearts, where he is deeply loved, remembered daily, and very keenly missed.