Dog's Conundrum

By John Thompson

Dog has a problem. His beautiful world is in crisis – again! Should he let events take their course, or should he interfere?

This book is an invitation to see planet Earth through the eyes of Dog and Mother Nature, from the era of the dinosaurs, though times of plenty, to our current and future crises. Who’s to blame? Is it us? Is it them?

This magical read takes us on an insightful journey where individual stories from around the world blend and unfold as Dog’s intimate understanding of the big picture grows. Despite the gremlins, can humans recognise what it is really that matters? Will the warmth and humour of the sprites be strong enough to help people rediscover the wisdom in their souls when faced with fear of losing everything they hold dear… or will Mother Nature not be prepared to wait any longer?

The best and worst of human nature is exposed here. Our assumptions are challenged as this book digs deep into ideas which will resonate with many.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398456051

John Thompson

John was born in Yorkshire, UK, in 1954 and is married with two grown up children. His father was in the RAF and some of his childhood was spent in Africa, Singapore, Germany and Malaysia which ignited his love of travel. He trained and worked as an illustrator but working in isolation did not suit his personality, so he became involved in art and design education, spending two years as a lecturer at Yarmouk University in Jordan followed by other educational posts in the UK. He is currently the artist in residence for the National Trust at Nymans Gardens where he has been since 2012. John continues to travel abroad with his family enjoying the different cultures, physical geography and natural history of the planet which has inspired him to write.

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About the Author

John was born in Yorkshire, UK, in 1954 and is married with two grown up children. His father was in the RAF and some of his childhood was spent in Africa, Singapore, Germany and Malaysia which ignited his love of travel. He trained and worked as an illustrator but working in isolation did not suit his personality, so he became involved in art and design education, spending two years as a lecturer at Yarmouk University in Jordan followed by other educational posts in the UK.

He is currently the artist in residence for the National Trust at Nymans Gardens where he has been since 2012.

John continues to travel abroad with his family enjoying the different cultures, physical geography and natural history of the planet which has inspired him to write.

Dedication

To my wife, Morag, and children, Meg and Arun, who inspired and encouraged me to go on this literary journey.

Copyright Information ©

John Thompson 2023

The right of John Thompson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398456020 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398456037 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398456051 (ePub e-book)

ISBN 9781398456044 (Audiobook)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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Canary Wharf

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E14 5AA

Prologue

The Covid 19 pandemic has been a time to review and reflect on the way we live our lives for ourselves and the planet.

It’s been a horrible time for many. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but we’ll have to adapt. To ensure it doesn’t happen again, we need to identify the causes, so we don’t repeat the mistakes. What and who has made us like we are? Overpopulation and materialism have played their parts with the resulting pollution and depletion of the planet through agriculture. Undoubtedly, government policy, greed and corruption are in part to blame yet we can all do our little bit by taking responsibility and appropriate action to slow the decline of the planet.

Of particular interest to me is what influences human behaviour. Undoubtedly the starting point is what we’re born into. Some are born into a challenging world and others are born into luxury. We know the early years are of huge importance and having loving carers backed up with an extended family is undoubtedly one of the best starts a child can have, but as we grow into adulthood what takes over from there? I believe there is something we don’t fully understand but we refer to as the ‘spirit world’ which has long been recognised by the various cultures and religions using different terminologies.

I wouldn’t describe myself as a religious person, but I have given it much thought over the years and can’t help being drawn to the ancient belief systems, in particular that of the Australian indigenous people who have the longest cultural history of any group on the planet and who throughout this 60,000 year period have never been a warrior people.

I hope this book of fact and fiction will help you review as you plan to adapt. It’s important to say what occurs in this story is not a prediction but an imagined scenario, albeit a possible one. I hope it leaves you feeling thoughtful and uplifted.

What makes you happy?

What makes you glad?

What makes you angry?

What makes you sad?

Ask yourself why

And what can you do

To put things right

For others and you.

Discover your passion

Your pathway to light

Come out of the darkness

And make your world bright.

Look after nature

Nurture it right

Then it will flourish

And give you delight.

A plant in a pot

A bird in the bush

Will make you slow down

Puts a brake on the rush.

Look up to the sky

Watch clouds roll by

You’ll not see them again

That’s why they cry.

Follow your path

Enjoy being a nerd

For original thought

Don’t follow the herd.

Be true to yourself

And the things that you love

All you find beautiful

The Hawk and the Dove.

In the Beginning

Dog’s body language mirrored his troubled mind. He was restless, sometimes sitting, sometimes pacing aimlessly around. A beautiful glowing collar adorned his neck, sparkling bright with the colours of the rainbow: red, orange yellow, green, blue, magenta and violet.

He was a fairly large animal; at a guess one might describe him as a Labrador and Saint Bernard cross. Piebald with a white underbelly and mottled coat of light and dark brown. Because of his heavy jowls he looked older than he was. His watery eyes often gave the illusion of sadness, but this was no illusion: he was sad and had been getting progressively more so for the past 200 years. In fact Dog was billions of years old. He was born into the world at the same time as the Earth, as a metaphysical being capable of conscious thought with a high degree of intelligence.

Whenever he had problems, he’d gaze up at the stars. He could manifest himself as any life form and would often find inspiration from the constellations. He’d recently changed from Cygnus to Canis Major because humanity was currently in need of a best friend.

During the early period of the Earth, approximately four and a half billion years ago, there was unique creativity throughout the universe and beyond, giving rise to a kinetic art movement on an enormous scale. The sun, moon, stars and planets came into being, all moving parts and constantly bombarded with meteorites and comets.

Its beauty has long been recognised and artists today continue to be inspired by what has never been surpassed. There are no words in any language able to describe this natural force of physics but suffice to say Dog was a fusion of what happened during the massive explosion.

The role of Dog had developed over time; he saw himself as the Earth’s guardian and spiritual guide and was delighted by the way it had evolved. He wasn’t aware of how he’d been formed but was conscious of a much higher form of intelligence in the universe than himself.

In the early days, the Earth was just a mass of molten lava totally without life. Even then, it had a violent magical beauty of its own. This was the start of Dog’s love affair with the planet. He was fascinated how it started to change and although he had no control over how it would continue, his intrigue was in expecting the unexpected. He knew the Earth was but a small part of a much bigger picture and as life developed, he also realised this is what made it unique.

Looking at the planet from a distance he saw a single living form. In much the same way as a human form is comprised of living cells and bacteria, it was the same with the Earth. Any upset in this delicate balance causes illness which was Dog’s concern. The planet was becoming sick and had been doing so for the past 200 years. Such things had happened in the past, but this was different and not sustainable.

For millions of years after the big bang, the surface of the Earth resembled a boiling, bubbling, frothing soup, a compound mix which would gradually grow and develop in layers.

As Dog watched it cool to a simmer, things started to happen. Solid masses appeared, surrounded by water and through a random process of chemicals coming together under the right conditions, single living cells came into being. This was a landscape of dark muted tones and colours with minimal detail; an aggressive place to the human eye, but a nursery of abundance for growing life in the form of tiny single cells hardly visible to the human eye.

Millions of years later he noticed larger forms of life. In much the same way that frog spawn develops, so it was with evolution on earth. The small living black dots in the water developed tails and an ability to swim so they could feed off algae and other plant material. Many years later they developed tiny legs and with this increased mobility they started living on the water’s edge.

Millions of years after that, their legs grew stronger and they began to forage further in land. Other life forms remained in the water and evolved differently. These were the early days of life diversifying. Many forms would make a promising start and then completely disappear as conditions on earth changed. Only those which could adapt survived.

Like a gardener on daily patrol, he would become excited by what started growing, only to be disappointed when it didn’t reach its full potential. He was learning things about himself, how to be patient, how to cope with failure, how to persevere and how to appreciate and enjoy what he considered successes.

He loved the mood of the landscape. Some days were peaceful when the air was warm and balmy, other days were violent and dramatic as storms and lashing rain pounded the earth and torrential rivers became destructive.

He noticed a pattern to the seasons and a recycling of living forms as dead animal and plant material was absorbed back into the earth creating food for new forms of life.

Up until the day of the dinosaurs there had been many highs and lows for Dog. He tried hard not to interfere with what was evolving but occasionally he couldn’t resist a bit of weeding and pruning. If he was honest with himself the best outcomes were undoubtedly those where he left it completely alone and let the random laws of nature take control. In these situations, the surprise and delight of what occurred was always more intense but he also took pleasure in creating a sense of order.

Dog and The Dinosaurs

It was on one of his daily patrols when he came across his first small dinosaur. The sky was bright blue, and banks of white clouds were slowly smooching overhead led by the gentle breeze; a perfect backdrop to a myriad of flying insects: thousands of midges performing a courtship dance, all flying in unison. Other larger insects like dragonflies with iridescent colours swiftly moved from left to right picking off the midges and devouring them in flight. The choreography didn’t stop there. The dance was now accompanied by music with the baritone buzzing of black and yellow hornets who caught the dragonflies on the wing and delivered a paralysing sting. Large black bees hummed loudly as they visited mauve and yellow flowers for nectar. The butterflies found them irritating. Their wings were fragile.

Then there was the monotonous high-pitched screaming of the cicadas, in contrast to the grasshoppers which made pleasing clicks and whirrs.

Life on earth during this period was prolific and one brush of the long grass would send insects flying and scurrying in all directions.

On one of his walks, Dog noticed the foliage sporadically twitching and as he parted the leaves for closer inspection, he was slightly taken aback by two large eyes staring unblinkingly at him. This creature showed no fear, and the reason was clear, it was a large caterpillar patterned with fake eyes on its rear end. Not built to move fast or able to defend itself with a toxic bite or sting, its only defence relied on the illusion to look threatening. Not until it changed into a butterfly would it be able to take quick evasive action. But this was not the creature that had disturbed the foliage. As he looked closer into the bush beyond the caterpillar, he flushed out three rabbit-sized creatures. Two sped off at great speed but the third lingered long enough to get a proper view. It was ‘lizard like’ but upright on its hind legs which were well muscled and large in comparison to its front legs.

It had a frill-like collar, bright red piercing eyes and its small scales were a random mosaic pattern of white, brown and black, creating such a clever camouflage that Dog found himself losing sight of it. Only when it took a few tentative steps could he define its shape again. Then it was gone, scampering through the undergrowth after its companions.

Shortly after that, whilst looking through some rotting leaves on a sunny bank, he discovered a nest of ten smooth pure white eggs about the size of walnuts. They were like porcelain. It was warm here in the sun and the biological breakdown of leaf matter also created its own heat. He checked them twice a day hoping they would hatch. Two long months passed and just as his interest started to wane, he noticed one of the eggs had developed a crack. To his amazement, on the following day the crack had grown into a small hole through which pointed the end of a tiny nose.

With great expectation he stayed close by and over the next forty-eight hours the other eggs began to hatch. Dog was fascinated at what came out from the first egg: a perfect miniature of the small dinosaur he had seen a few months earlier. A little part of the yolk sac was still attached to its stomach, but this soon dried off and within hours it was heading off into the safety of the undergrowth.

The planet had changed dramatically since those early days. Every living thing had its place in the food chain which, like a pyramid, had the biggest predator at the top and the smallest at the bottom. In general, the insects lived off the vegetation and the small reptiles lived off the insects. Larger creatures would feed on the reptiles and they in turn were preyed on by even larger predators. He tried to predict how it would continue to evolve, as he knew it would, but he didn’t expect what happened in later years.

Dinosaurs lived between 245 and 66 million years ago. Throughout this long period of time the Earth was an incredibly fertile environment. Dog was astonished how many variations evolved, some of enormous proportions. Every day for millions of years he would wander the Earth’s surface studying the life that roamed the planet and each time he discovered new species playing out their role in the food chain.

Some were violent and lived dramatic lives as they fought for territory or killed for meat. Other species were timid and shy. Their urge to procreate was conducted with unabashed energy, their constant battles for the right to mate meant only the strongest survived.

Some dinosaurs even cared for their young until they were experienced enough to be weaned. There was nothing complicated about how they ran their lives. They were conditioned from birth to eat, sleep, grow and procreate, as were the insects but their lives were short and after one mating and laying of eggs they would die. The larger creatures lived longer and mated annually in time with the seasons, often producing many young over a lifetime but of course only a few reached maturity as they provided food for the carnivores.

Dog never tired of surveying the planet and formed an attachment to the dinosaurs. At times he had to stop himself from interfering when circumstances led to their demise. He knew death played an important part in evolution, so when insects died in their millions, he felt not a flicker of emotion, but on one occasion when a huge lake that supported a herd of fifteen big dinosaurs living off the lush vegetation, there was a disaster that left him feeling low for days.

He’d been observing this herd for many years and knew their routine well. As the sun rose in the morning they’d bask in the warm sunshine until their bodies were warm after which they’d amble slowly down into the lake to feed, never squabbling, almost polite and courteous. Having filled their stomachs, they would move back onto land and rest in the dappled shade under nearby trees. The second feed was taken in the late afternoon after which they’d settle down for the rest of the day, digesting their meal until nightfall when they’d sleep. This was their territory and a pattern followed by many generations of their kind.

However, one year the rains were unusually late, and the lake started to shrink at an alarming rate leaving a broad rim of mud, making access to the lake difficult. Before long the heaviest and oldest beast found itself stuck up to its belly in the clinging mud and the more it struggled the deeper it sank in.

Over the coming days the whole herd found itself imprisoned, their sense of danger overridden by pangs of hunger. Without access to water and the unrelenting sun beating down on their broad backs, the dinosaurs became weaker and weaker. They were not built to withstand these harsh conditions. Whilst their bodies were big and seemingly indestructible, they were in fact as delicate as lace and without the ability to move from warm to cool they couldn’t control their body temperature and died an agonising death from dehydration under the hot sun. Their eventual demise was a welcome release.

Death was perfectly acceptable to Dog, but prolonged suffering was not.

Dog’s Depression

Millions of years passed and Dog felt in the best of spirits. His dinosaur world was at its peak, alive with billions of creatures great and small, living on the super fertile carpet of rich vegetation under a constantly changing ceiling of blue skies, clouds, rain and a nightly constellation of stars and moon so bright it caused deep shadows on the landscape below.

The moon was responsible for the music of the waves. Sometimes they gently caressed the beach with just a regular whisper and at other times they pounded the shoreline with a deafening roar. The abundance of creatures that lived in the seas were as prolific as those on land.

Sometimes Dog would sit on the beach under a full moon marvelling at the phosphorescence which decorated the shoreline like a necklace of pearls. Unbeknown to him his beautiful world was about to change.

Way, way, way up in the universe much further than the eye can see, things were settling down after the massive explosion which gave birth to the Earth and Dog. As Earth was forming its own identity through evolution so were the other planets. Some of these planets would go through many changes and never have life. Earth was currently leading the way.

When any large explosion takes place there is always a resulting shrapnel. One only has to look at the moon to see the effect it creates, leaving crater like scars on the surface. Much of the shrapnel had been flung far into outer space or burnt up as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere but larger pieces in the form of meteorites got through without much impact to life.

Over 65 million years ago, however, a freak asteroid estimated to be as much as fifty miles in diameter hit the earth with such speed that it did have a catastrophic effect. Life that had taken so long to evolve around the impact was wiped out immediately. Had it ended there it would have been of little consequence: the surrounding lifeforms would have moved in to re-colonise the barren crater, but it didn’t stop there because the fallout of this enormous impact was a huge cloud of smoke-like debris many times greater than what is produced by an atom bomb.

This massive cloud spread over the entire Earth and created a world of darkness which inhibited plant growth and prevented the vital warmth of the sun from reaching the dinosaurs so they could no longer function.

Only when the skies started to darken before the sun went down did Dog become anxious about the effect. It began with an eerie yellow glow that gradually turned to complete darkness. Now there were no stars or moon to comfort sleeping creatures.

This catastrophe was something he had no control over. Days passed and then it turned into a week followed by a month, and it was still total darkness.

He could hear noises of distressed creatures; few had night vision and could find little food. Plants could no longer photosynthesise. The dinosaurs were cold and lost their energy, they lumbered around in a drunken fashion as their bodies started to shut down completely.

The temperature dropped to freezing and after two months of these inhospitable conditions, creatures started dying in their thousands and then millions. The smell of death was in the air and with no recyclers to break down the carcasses they continued to putrefy where they had fallen.

Dog was desperate for the darkness to lift, the longer it went on, the duller his rainbow collar became. He continued to patrol the Earth and occasionally came across creatures which were more resistant but sadly they also succumbed through sickness as their immune systems broke down.

He went into a deep depression and at times his collar could only manage a flicker of light.

Such was Dog’s grief that he made a small little whimper, a cry for help, a cry for his loss, a cry for all that had perished and a cry for life to be restored. The sound came from deep within and was beyond his control. The whimpers came intermittently at first and it made him feel just a little better, a release for his grief.

Over the course of many days the whimpers came in regular waves getting louder, stronger, and more forceful until they extended to a longer quiet howl, still regular, starting on a deep note and ending high. The longer and louder he howled the more his inhibitions dropped away until finally he released the most beautiful sound of such volume that it vibrated and echoed off the mountains.

This was his swansong and as he howled and howled, he started to release his energy around the planet, like sparks from a bonfire drifting high across the planet. After many days he grew weak and felt exhausted then without warning his flame went out.

Dog had died, his energy expended, and his heart broken.

There was nothing left of him, nothing that is except for a faint ray of light on a dark horizon; a glimmer of hope.

Like a glass shattering at a resonant frequency the pitch and volume of the howling sparked a chain of events in the Earth’s atmosphere that produced an imbalance in the strata and a strong upward current of air rose miles into the sky, taking with it the thick clouds of dust that had covered the Earth.

It was not like a violent storm, more like the thoughtful action of gently removing a blanket from a sleeping child. It took a week before the first rays of sunlight found their way through. Earth was not the beautiful place it had been. It was more like a war zone.

It was up to nature to clear up the mess. All the larger forms of life had perished but a tiny percentage of the smaller creatures had gone into a state of torpor in much the same way a tortoise goes into hibernation. Most of the insects had died but some of their eggs had survived as had some vegetation, albeit in poor shape, yellow from lack of sunlight. There was also an abundance of seeds lying dormant in the soil waiting for the right conditions for germination.

A musky stale smell lingered all around the planet but the coming of the sun and a resumption of normal weather conditions changed all that. It was like opening the windows of the world and letting in the fresh air.

What a pitiful place the planet was, littered with carcasses of creatures great and small but the plants were about to hide the carnage. Almost as though it was a vision too painful to behold, they set to work feeding from the sun and the decaying bodies.

The variety of plants during this time on Earth was enormous. The vines, creepers and some of the grasses were the fastest to grow, as much as fifty centimetres a day, and within a week the naked ribs of a rotting creature were turned into a useful framework for a variegated ivy with the promise of large orange and yellow flowers, a fitting grave for a creature who had lived and lost. And so this beautiful quilt of many colours was respectfully laid over the planet to cover up the horrors of what had occurred and the process of converting the recent negative energy into a more productive and fertile environment began.

The next layer in this pyramid of life also came alive to feast. It didn’t take long in warm sunshine for the eggs of meat-eating fly larvae to hatch in their billions and find their way to the table, breaking down the disintegrating carcasses. Continual bouts of rain kept the feast moist and edible, the warm sun increased their metabolism, speeding up the life cycle.

The next wave of insects appeared soon after the flies. These were the butterflies, beetles, dragonflies, grasshoppers, and spiders. Their life cycle took slightly longer, and they didn’t appear in any great number until weeks had passed.

The eggs of small reptiles and dinosaurs didn’t survive the yearlong freeze on Earth. They weren’t built to withstand such conditions. The larger creatures had all perished but some of the smaller lizards and frog like forms had been able to shut down their bodies and see it through. There were not many, but enough to start the new colonies that now feasted on flies and other small invertebrates amongst the decaying leaf litter.

There were other survivors in the large freshwater lakes and seas, more so than on land. Many small forms of life, now emaciated, began to fatten up and restore their energy. Algae started to grow in vast quantities making massive beds of green nurseries for shellfish and the water larvae of insects which had successfully lain dormant for so long. They responded immediately with the favourable change in conditions and started to multiply in huge numbers.

There was a vital urgency about the regeneration of lifeforms, as if it had been waiting, straining at the leash and once released it exploded into a lust for living and procreation. Now that there were empty spaces caused by the extinction of many creatures, this was an opportunity for new species to evolve.

However, there was one large creature, a dinosaur, that had survived. It was easily overlooked because it tended to stay hidden in water when not out basking in the sun, camouflaged in a sandy coat of thick armour plate. Its lair was deep in the muddy ground by a lake where it had lain for all this time. The cold was its nemesis, but now, even deep underground, it detected a slight rise in temperature which recharged its batteries sufficiently for it to open one dragon like eye.

It stayed like this for three days and then it twitched as its body temperature rose and blood started to move around its veins. This creature, a relative of the crocodile, was desperate to leave what had now become a prison. The key to its life was to get outside into direct sunlight and bask. With a massive effort it pushed forward and gradually the light at the end of the tunnel came into view and that was all the impetus it required.

An hour later and exhausted by its efforts it was lying in a relaxed posture under a hot sun. The plates on its body absorbed the heat and its life juices began to flow freely. It closed its eyes as if in bliss but also to protect itself from three bright blue butterflies trying to drink the moisture from its tear ducts. It contained a mix of minerals that they craved and their persistence was generally rewarded.

The giant four metre beast was not alone on the bank by the lake, others of its kind had survived and were basking nearby, but their problems had only just begun for these were strictly meat eaters and their food source had all but vanished. They had depleted their fat reserves and desperate measures would have to be taken.

As weeks passed, they cruised the lake and the biggest beasts, driven by hunger, started to