A jogger gets a break but giant schnauzer draws Tank’s ire

Frank Touby —

It occurs to me how lucky we are to have Tank and how that’s equally true for Tank having us. He has blended right in as one of our pack (aka family in dog terms). The first strong sign was pointed out by Kevin Scrimshaw earlier today, Oct. 16. Tank, Daisy and I had come to the Sherbourne & The Esplanade park together and Paulette had lagged far behind.

As usual when he sees Kevin with his dogs, Tank runs over to first greet Kevin, then his basset hound pal Monty. He has a strong attachment to Kevin who had a long friendship with Danny Murphy, his beloved owner who died and left Tank an orphan.

The Tank Report

Then Paulette showed up at the edge of the park, quite a long way from us, and immediately Tank ran over to her. It was the first Kevin had seen that. “Look at that,” he said, “that’s really good. Tank is running over to Paulette. I’m glad to see that.”

Tank had been in a primarily male environment between Danny and Kevin, who were friends until Danny’s recent death which left Tank orphaned. So it showed the connections we have made as a fully canine/human dog pack, aka, family.

It was a relatively peaceful two days with Tank, who even ignored a jogger and just lurched once today when he couldn’t resist our neighbour’s well-behaved giant schnauzer and nearly dragged me off my feet in a surprise fang-displaying lunge.

During Desert Storm I was writing the book ‘Burning Sands’ about the oil well firefighting effort and spotted this killed Iraqi tank in the Kuwait desert.

Searching the word “tank” on my hard drive brought up that picture you see of a much younger me in the Kuwait desert posing by a radioactive Iraqi tank taken out with a depleted-uranium cannon round during Saddam Hussein’s invasion that resulted in 700 oil wells set on fire.

I was a trainee oilfield firefighter with Mike Miller’s Safety Boss oilfield blowout company of Calgary so I could participate in the action and write the book Burning Sands about the Canadian company’s world-beating record of quelling more wild, flaming oil wells than any company on earth. You can find the book here.

After coming back to Toronto, then doing a 6-month stint as deputy managing editor of Alberta Report newsmagazine, Paulette and I put together the first edition of the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Community Bulletin, which later grew into The Bulletin.

You’ll note that words painted on the tank in the photo are “I [heart] U Paulette.” I didn’t paint that on, but I did take advantage of it to have a buddy send this photo off to my Paulette in St. Lawrence Neighbourhood.

Don’t forget to drop by the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association (SLNA) cheering section at the Flatiron building this Sunday around noon to meet Tank (and Daisy and Paulette) during the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

It will be Tank’s main chance to become inured to joggers, whom he usually tries to tackle, along with skateboarders, roller-bladers and kids on scooters.

Come out and see his improvement before your eyes. (We really hope.)