THERE IS AN ART TO BEGGING

Woof woof Everybody. Dad is out in the bush with a group and I am being looked after by Nel and Jamie and their little boys, J.J. and Matty in Hermannsburg. I stay outside on the verandah and can see everything that is going on. There are always lots of tourists arriving and I can bark at them. I bark at the local people too who come and fill up their water at the tap near the church because they say it is holy water. That's the water Dad uses as well because he says he needs all the help he can get.

Plus there is a tiny little black baby that Nel is looking after called Delicia. All the little Aboriginal children are named after American rap dancers where they used to have names like Gustav and Eskeikiel after the German missionaries. Delicia is so small and little I don't even look at her in case she breaks. The poor little thing didn't have any food and her mum and dad were drinking booze and forgot to feed her. Nel and Jamie make sure she is fed now and she even had lots of shots with vitamins. She is a very black little girl but treats Nel and Jamie, who are white, like her mum and dad. You see things like this all the time out here. Sadness and then goodness. They stick out like dogs balls [it's ok if dogs say it] because the sad things are so sad that the good things are so good.

I don't really like being away from Dad but I always know he will pick me up when he comes in to get Aunty Mavis and her family to take them to meet his walkers. We all get in the car and I bark and everyone says - shut up Tommie - but I can't because I am so excited. I know there will be new people to meet at camp and they will all love me.

I am always in with a good chance that they will feed me when Dad is not looking if I look sad enough. That's the trick. I am really good at it. Another trick is to never give up. Just sit and sit staring at their food looking sad. Not too sad mind you. And don't drool or you just look pathetic. Only just recently I have perfected letting one ear drop. They love that. Then there the tilted head if you get a really hard case who needs softening up.

There are some people who are easy and some who will break eventually. They are more fun in a way because there is a bit of a challenge.

Anyway. Dad picked me up and we went out to Ipolera. I did my begging thing and it was very successful. I slept by the fire with my friend Cisco and crawled up to him in the very early morning. We are very good friends. I have known him for a long time now. Maybe five years or so.

Really I know lots of people and now I have lots of dogs who talk to me on here as well. I am lucky.

Woof Woof Tommie