Your eye may have been caught by the model in our homepage slide show, not the beautiful Jacklyn, but the four legged model, Norman.
Norman came to us as a foster pup in May 2020. The animal rescue group, Best Friend Rescue, had contacted me to see if I would take a young puppy who had been born out west and was blind.
The plan was we would look after Norman for six weeks, until he was old enough to be adopted.
This tiny black pup, called Julian at the time, was delivered to our gate by a man who had bought a girl from the same litter, a girl who had the gift of sight. I asked him a few questions about the puppy, but he really couldn't tell me much.
A dog called Julian cannot live in a house, not even for six weeks, with a woman named Julie, so the first thing we did was change his name to Norman.
Norman could be 100 different dogs if we cared to have him DNA tested. We believe he is mainly a Bull Arab.
Bull Arabs, commonly called 'pigging dogs' are just that. They are suited up in leather chestplates, leather collars with studs and even tracking devices and off they go with their gun totin' masters, into the night to kill wild pigs.
Norman Desmond McConnell is not cut out for that lifestyle.
In May of 2020, we were around five months into the fresh hell that Covid had released upon the entire world. We were in lockdown, and that little dog was like a ray of sunshine.
By the time he was ready for adoption we couldn't let him go. Norman is special, 'special' in many ways. What he lacks in maths ability he more than makes up for in his understanding of humans. Norman has an abundance of emotional intelligence, he'd make a great therapist, being a good listener and all.
As it turns out, Norman can see perfectly. He even watches Muster Dogs on the ABC. He's even working on his language skills. At 4.20pm everyday it would appear he says 'park'.
