You know there’s only one thing I don’t like about dogs - well, there are probably a few things - but one that really gets up my nose is - dogs bark.

This might sound funny coming from someone who has two dogs, but one of the many things that struck me when I first came out here was how many dogs there are. Indeed, having only two dogs may put me in the minority, but a lot of the dogs round here have a job - mine are on welfare.

My dogs aren’t used to living in the suburbs - yeah, they moved from the bush, closer to the city - to suburban Charleville. They don’t seem to like having to stay in their yard anymore - maybe because their yard is now considerably smaller than the five acres of their youth.

They seem to have settled in fine though - and they get walked and play ball and have that ‘quality’ time that all dogs need, apparently, but one little trick they’ve started to pick up on is barking, just briefly which is more than enough, in the early hours of the morning. I don’t know what stirs them - maybe it’s a possum, an early morning jogger, another dog - that doesn’t really matter, because they’re not alone.

They don’t do it every morning - they seem to take it in turns with other dogs around town, like there’s a neighbourhood dog watch. Sometimes it’ll be the dog or dogs next door or the dog or dogs around the corner or the dog or dogs around the other corner, or the dog or dogs further away - I haven’t worked out a pattern as yet.

Ok, bear with me for a bit, but I’m beginning to wonder if the dogs aren’t actually communicating with each other and have devised this devious plot of early morning barking to tell us something. And after reading a story about dogs being sent to Charleville in a recently published book by Don Talbot, the sixth in a series titled “Toowoomba: More Strange and Unusual Tales”, I think I might know the answer.

The story goes that in the early 1970s, before Toowoomba had a dog catcher, a group of railwaymen had their own idea of how to deal with dogs who were a nuisance.

If they spotted a stray dog on the way to work, they would offer it a biscuit and a free ride to the train station. Once at the booking office, the dog would be given a label bearing a name and also the fictitious name of the owner before ‘Defer’ was loaded onto the Westlander train bound for a ‘Mr I. M. Yorsknow’ in Charleville. Sometimes, after being given food and water, several dogs would accompany each other on the long journey west.

The word, sorry, bark was out - “There’s free food and water if you get on the train.” But as with most deals where you’re offered something for nothing - there was a catch (so to speak).

Once in Charleville, so the story goes, it was the stationmaster’s task of caring for the dogs until someone turned up to claim them. When the stationmaster complained about the number of uncollected dogs being cared for at the Charleville station, the next batch of dogs from Toowoomba was sent back to an unsuspecting stationmaster in Roma.

No, I’m not suggesting we should round up all our dogs, including mine, and ship them off to Roma. Toowoomba now has five animal management officers - let’s ship ‘em back there.

“Marko! Sheba! Want to come for a little drive?”

Check it out, it’s a good read - “Toowoomba: More Strange and Unusual Tales” by Don Talbot - try your local newsagent or ask about it at your local Library. Meanwhile, if you’ve got a better idea for ridding our mornings of ‘dog bark’, let me know, I’m open to all options, but hey, if we all chip in - “how much is that carriage on the train tracks?”

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