Our Cyclone-on-Legs

We purchased our red Staffordshire bull terrier puppy in 2002. He was a bundle of energy and wrinkles with a heart as big as Queensland and his back legs ran faster than his front legs and would sometimes try to overtake them. Roger is a good little bloke who behaves beautifully at home with his family but goes into maniac mode if we get visitors or take him out of his home environment. There are legs to lick, people to jump up at and investigations to complete in as short a time as possible. Hence his "cyclone-on-legs" nickname. At home he is sensitive to emotions within the family. If the children were being lectured for misdeeds or a cantankerous computer being sworn at he would come sit at your feet with tail wagging furiously, ears down and those pleading eyes imploring you to forgive him on behalf of the children or computer.


Roger was a puppy that enjoyed chewing and he sampled the back door, the veranda, gumboots, pushbike peddles, and any unsuspecting soft toy was torn to pieces. When he was four months old we had a large excavation done in our back yard in readiness for a pool. There was a huge pile of rubble and dirt that the kids, and Roger, thought was a very exciting play area.

One morning my then eight year old son wandered out to make an inspection of the earth works with his small, metal framed glasses in hand (rather than on his face), as you do. When he returned there were no glasses and no memory of what happened to them. Having purchased them only recently and him due at school in 10 minutes we all searched frantically for them with no luck. I had no choice but to take my son to school with strict instructions to sit at the front of the class.

About an hour later I was hanging washing on the clothesline which was situated next to said pile of rubble when I felt a presence behind me. Our little bundle of wrinkles was walking calmly towards me, at this point I was unaware of anything in his mouth because he had yet to grow into his facial skin. He solemnly sat at my feet and carefully placed a set of small, metal framed, slobbery but undamaged glasses on the ground in front of me. He looked at me with those pleading eyes and sat quite still. I was stunned and then immediately thrilled. He was given much praise and attention for his brilliant action. "We have a genius" I thought, although my husband later declined the suggestion of flinging his glasses out in the paddock to see if he would retrieve them. Probably a wise decision. He has not done anything as incredible as that since but he gives us so much love and loyalty even with his his cyclonic behaviour. He talks to us in the way only staffies can. He hides in the car if our passenger door or the back of the station wagon is inadvertently left open in the hope of a ride. He moves furniture and pot plants with his big head rather than walk around them and has occasionally run headlong into the wall or a leg (ouch) while playing and not watching where he is going. He is a clown and a mate. He is Roger the Cyclone-on-Legs.