My son Hugh has come to live with me. His mother has had enough. He was getting away with blue murder; but I seem to have a bit more control of his 17 years and 6′4″ height.

I’ve had to lay down some rules. No smoking inside the house. No mates sleeping over. “How about chicks?” came the quick reply!

He has brought his dingo puppy along as well. They are great chewers of every kind of furniture, so the rule is that he is an outside dog. Dingos only arrived in Australia 10,000 years ago. The howl like wolves and, I believe, are related to wolves. I once treated a bloke who had a peaceful dingo for 10 years, before it turned and ripped the blokes right forearm apart.

A couple of years ago a 9 year old boy was attacked and killed by dingos on Frazer Island, just off the coast from where I grew up in Maryborough. When I was a kid they would run away if you so much as looked at them; but a tourist boom developed and the tourists began to feed the dingos – who, naturally, became unafraid and began to attack the tourists!

You get that..