I woke and heard a dog howling across the farms out the back of Waharoa and, somewhere further off, so far away I could hardly hear it, another dog howled back.
“They’re barking at the moon,” my mother said next morning, but Uncle Trev had a different story when he dropped in for a cup of tea on his way home from the Wednesday stock sale at Matamata.
“They’re not barking at the moon,” he said. “Don’t go telling your mother now, but they’re trained howling dogs. Mine. I trained them myself years ago.”
I looked at Uncle Trev and he looked back at me. “Years ago,” he repeated, “I got sick of paying the post office for toll calls. It took ages to get through, then half the time you didn’t get the person you wanted, and when you did you couldn’t hear them for the noise on the line.
“I don’t suppose you’re old enough to remember,” he said, “but people had much smaller ears before the telephone. They’ve only grown into these big flaps on the sides of our heads since we started squashing them with the telephone receiver.” I heard Mum give a sniff from the bench where she was making a cup of tea. “Have a look in the album at the old family photographs, if you don’t believe me,” said Uncle Trev. “You can’t even see ears on your grandmother.
“Besides,” he said, “that old Mrs Eaves on the telephone exchange at the post office, she was always listening in. I could hear her breathing whenever I was talking to somebody. Sometimes, she’d even join in the conversation.
“I was lying awake one night, thinking about it,” Uncle Trev went on, “and the dogs were barking across all the farms between my place and Waharoa, and I thought, ‘Those dogs are talking to each other!’”
He stared at me. “That’s when I got my idea!” he said.
I stared back at him. Mum put a cup of tea and a plate with a few slices of cake on the table. “Isn’t it time you were in bed?” she told me.
Uncle Trev waited till she’d gone back to the bench. “A howling dog service,” he said, “that was my idea! I remembered how we used dogs to carry messages in the trenches in the Great War, and how my mate Squeaker Tuner always said we should teach the dogs to talk.
“Well, it took me a few years, but I got hold of some expensive huntaway bitches and bred pups from them for their voices. They had to be able to bark high and clear so the messages would carry, and they had to be able to remember a long message, that was the other thing. I started selling my dogs cheap,” said Uncle Trev, “and they were good working dogs too, so in no time I had them planted on farms from one end of the country to the other.
“From Waharoa on a clear night, a good howling dog can make himself heard in Matamata. From Matamata they howl the message up the Hinuera Valley, round through Cambridge to Hamilton, and up to Auckland. The reply comes back through Morrinsville and Walton to Waharoa before the first dog’s finished rattling his chain. Of course,” he said, “if the wind’s from the north, they howl the message round the other way.
“You listen,” said Uncle Trev, “and you’ll hear them howling off messages in all directions, specially on a clear night. Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin — our howling dogs cover New Zealand.”
“What about Cook Strait?” I asked.
“No trouble!” said Uncle Trev. “Sound travels good-oh across water. I’m even thinking of putting a dog on top of Mount Cook to howl messages to Australia.”
“It’s long past your bedtime,” Mum said to me. “As for you,” she said to Uncle Trev, “if you’ve finished your tea, isn’t it time you were getting home to your farm? You’ve got cows to milk in the morning.”
When he called in next week, I asked him how the dog was doing on top of Mount Cook.
“You wouldn’t believe the trouble I’m having,” said Uncle Trev. “It’s so cold in the snow, the first dog I put up there got chilblains and wouldn’t bark, so I’m crossing my best huntaway with a beardie collie to get a longer-coated dog. It’s going to take a year or two to get a good pup though, and even then it’s still got to be trained.”
“How much do you charge for your howling dog services?” I asked him the next time he called in.
“It’s cheaper than toll calls,” said Uncle Trev. “You see, the dogs earn their tucker working in the daytime, and it costs me nothing to get them howling messages. There’s nothing a dog likes more than to have a good old howl at night, specially if there’s a moon.
“Actually, I’ve had a bit of trouble with the post office. They were really scared when they found my howling dog service had taken most of their business. They sent their Post-Master General in his uniform with red stripes down the trousers and a shiny brass helmet. I asked him if he was a fireman, but he got off his horse and begged me with tears in his eyes to stop the howling dog service. He said the post office was going broke.”
Mum was banging some pots around on the bench. I didn’t want her to hear Uncle Trev’s story or she’d send him home. “What happened?” I asked.
“I felt a bit sorry for him,” said Uncle Trev, “so I said I’d close down my howling dog service if the post office cut the cost of its toll calls in half. The Post-Master General couldn’t thank me enough. He wanted to give me a free telephone, but I told him I didn’t want big lugs instead of ears. I said I’d just go on using the howling dog service for myself and a few friends. I couldn’t stop the dogs talking to each other, of course. They still howl dog messages all over New Zealand.
“The Post-Master General thanked me and put on his shiny brass helmet, jumped on his horse, and rode back to Wellington.”
“Are you going to sit there talking nonsense all night?” said my mother. “Isn’t it time you were getting home to the farm?” she asked Uncle Trev. “As for you,” she said to me, “you’re supposed to be ill in bed, not sitting up listening to a lot of silly stories.”
I said goodnight and heard Uncle Trev’s old lorry rattle away. It was warm under the blankets. I lifted the blind. Outside, it was frosty, and there was a moon. Somewhere down Ward Street, a dog howled. I listened, and out towards Uncle Trev’s farm under the hills at the back of Waharoa, another dog replied.
‘Uncle Trev and the Howling Dog Service’ was first published by Random House New Zealand in 30 New Zealand Stories for Children in October 2000.