Every year the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair promotes the circus-on-four-feet known as the Superdogs. Trained within an inch of their lives, these pups run, jump and do tricks to the delight of kids young and old.
But they’re nowhere near as “super” as the real super dog pictured above: Sophie Tucker. (Yes, that’s her name, apparently, honouring a vaudeville entertainer.)
This pooch may not jump through hoops or run rings around other dogs in an arena: as far as I know, she only has one trick — but it’s a doozy. This Sophie’s trick is that she can turn into Robinson Crusoe.
On a boat trip with her owners off the Australian coast, Sophie was knocked overboard by choppy water. “Devastated,” her family searched for an hour, but couldn’t locate her. Tearfully, they gave her up for lost.
Sophie … went into survival mode. She swam five nautical miles to St. Bees Island, where her wild instincts kicked in — she spent the following months surviving on a diet of wild goats and gaining infamy among the island’s few human residents.
When rangers captured the dog, and the couple learned that a wild cattle dog had been captured, they took a long-shot chance and called. Travelling to the island, the dog, although described as “vicious” after months of living on her own, recognized her former family immediately and is back to being a house-dog.
Now that’s a good-news story.
Grant Hamilton
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Colin Corneau