Maremma guardianship - the first appearance in Mawson.

Mawson was a few months old and had been introduced to the small possums we were nursing. He often showed a bit of interest and care, but nothing much - he was just a pup.

Once a mature maremma male called Ercol was visiting. He was large for a maremma and a formidable fighter amongst them, but to humans - a gentle bloke and submissive. We didn't know what to expect regarding these extremes of his nature and any frictions that may develop with Mawson. I didn't know him at all well.

Anna showed him our possums and I was a bit worried about what he might do. Anyway, his response was good - gentle and interested. As his owner said - he dotes over anything little. Then Mawson went off!

He blasted accross the room snarling ferociously and shoved himself between "his" possums and big Ercol, snarling loudly and snapping around Ercol's neck. I expected a violent fight to erupt and he would then be killed. But Ercol didn't take any notice of Mawson. He just wasn't interested.

Mawson had been languishing on the bed for a while then he noticed a leech beside him, wavering about in that characteristic way. He stared for a few seconds then quickly got up and left.

I invited him back to the bed and he came back and stopped at the edge, looking all over the top for a while. Then he abruptly decided to leave and wouldn't come back.

His first possums to look after. When they are small we keep them in pouches and this time we had a few of them together in a cardboard box. He would always be checking on them. He would lower his head and snuffle around in the box, doing some housework and cleaning up the possies as required. Pretty soon he would stay still as a possum crawled up his snout, over his head. The possum wouldn't to this in a purposful climb. Instead they would fumble about and gradually work their way up. During all this Mawson would keep still and wait for the possum to get past his head so he could do something again. He would be patiently waiting for this moment when another possum would grab his snout and he would have to remain still while this one fumbled about.

He wasn't quite intending things to turn out this way and would back out of there at the first opportunity. But now he had a couple of possums stuck onto him and just had to put up with it.

After this sort of thing happening several times he decided to think twice about checking possums over. He is now a bit cautious. He keeps his snout a few centimetres out of range, looking for an oportunity to sniff and lick without getting "possumed".

Bettongs seem to like Mawson's company. Bettongs are a bit like a miniature wallaby. While he was young, he also seemed to enjoy it. He was often happily pottering about in the bush with a little bettong bouncing along behind. It looked really sweet.

A really funny action I saw was when we went for a walk with Mawson. Of course the bettong followed along. I think this was the time when Mawson was getting a bit sick of this little thing following him about everywhere. He soon lowered his head to sniff the little fellow considerately, but it didn't turn out to be such a caring action. After a second's sniff he contemptuously shoved the bettong over onto her back and walked off leaving the little animal still there with her feet up in the air and a look as if she was thinking "Well ... the manners of some people!"

Inside one night we were all asleep and our little bettong decides to get up and gad about. Mawson and she were sleeping in the lounge and the bettong came hopping purposfully into the bedroom. I was sleeping with one eye open and the bettong was quiet. A few seconds later Mawson comes in and bends his head down to check on the bettong. I proped myself up on one elbow, wondering why Mawson was concerned.

Mawson then looked up at me watching him, gave a dog style laugh and came over to push his head into my shoulder. It was just the pattern of behaviour that people follow when they realise someone is watching them do something which looked funny.

Both our maremmas tend to be be a bit rough about shoving their nose into a wallaby bag to check on them. The poor little baby gets shoved about and rolled around. They are quite passive and patient about it, but if they are out of their bags then they hop away after a couple of shoves from this huge snout. From then on there seems to be a bit of bother as the maremma walks around trying to check over this little wallaby who is trying keep away from this flam'n dog that wants to shove it around.

Sooner or later the maremmas apply a tactic to keep the wallaby stationary - a huge maremma paw decends onto the wallabies tail.