Alby Brooks lives on a dairy farm with his best friend Brandy the German shorthaired pointer.
It’s just a 10-minute drive north of Barooga, but if you’re catching the school bus, which Alby inevitably is, it takes nearly an hour to get home.
“When I get back from school I go and pat her and say hi and then let her inside and we watch TV on the couch,” Alby said.
Alby, who recently turned 11 and has the chocolate cake in the fridge to prove it, is in Year 5 at Barooga Public School. His parents, Cath and Jason Brooks, were initially very supportive of Alby getting his own dog.
He promised to look after it, train it and play with it, and to date, Alby is holding up his end of the bargain. The only problem is, Brandy is enthusiastically chewing her way through the Brooks family’s belongings.
“Don’t worry about the fact she’s chewed Alby’s scooter handles, his motorbike helmet and the entire trampoline net, she’s also chewed every nice thing I’ve ever owned, including my new work boots,” Jason said.
Cath found a dog trainer to help Alby learn how to train his best mate, teaching her to sit, shake and drop.
However, when Country News visited Brandy, she was quick to demonstrate just how far you can watch your dog run away across the wide open spaces of Lalalty.
“I don’t think she’s trained yet, might need a bit more work,” Alby said, wise beyond his years.
But Brandy is Alby’s best mate, despite the destruction and the need to flee.
“She sleeps like a weirdo, on her back with her paws in the air,” he laughed.
Alby enjoys taking his Honda 150cc motorbike for a ride to help his Dad move cows or just for the fun of it. Brandy will often join him for the adventure but will swiftly change course if she picks up on the scent of a feral cat.
“She always comes home, so that’s good,” Alby said.
As Alby keeps an eye on the skyline, watching his beloved Brandy run further and further west passed a herd of grazing Friesian dairy cows, he admits he wants to be a dairy farmer in years to come.
“When I grow up, I’ll have three kelpies, that’ll be enough to get the job done,” he said.
“I want to move the cows and see the cows a lot. Do you know some people have never even seen a cow before?” Alby said.
Brandy, while not a killer per se, has got a track record of smacking mice with her paws and barking at rats.
At the recent 11th birthday party, it was Brandy that alerted the party goers to a rat on the shed roof. The crowd went wild for a good old fashioned rat hunt and Alby could not have been prouder of his dog.
Words and pictures: Carly Marriott