Millie retrieves a pair of socks.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
You usually can’t tell which way a dog’s sporting loyalty sways, but in Millie the Bichon Maltese’s case, you only have to hear her bark along to the Hawthorn theme song to quash any doubt.
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She’s a Hawks fan through and through.
Besides AFL, she loves spending time with friends, going on road trips and taking long walks along the beach.
While it might sound like a clichéd bio on a dating app, Millie isn’t looking for love; she has plenty of that already.
Her owners, Shepparton’s Wendy and Graham McKenzie, welcomed the energetic little character into their home 10 years ago.
Wendy said they had owned a similar dog previously, who had sadly died “too young”.
Your socks, sir.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
“I knew a dog breeder who told me his dog was pregnant and (showing sympathy) told me I could have the pick of the litter,” she said.
Wendy picked well.
The clever toy dog is far from being ornamental.
Every morning, Millie brings Graham his socks.
While other dogs might be tempted to give them a little chew en route from retrieval to delivery, Millie goes about her job diligently.
Wendy McKenzie singing the Hawks theme song, while Millie the Bichon Maltese barks along.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
“She’s like a child. She’s very smart, she understands everything,” Wendy said.
When she’s home alone, Millie likes to stand guard by the front window, waiting for Wendy and Graham to return, or surveying what’s going on in the street.
It’s also her post from where she enviously keeps track of other dogs out walking, including her much-larger bestie, Banjo.
Wendy said Banjo’s owner can’t even bring him past the McKenzies’ home anymore unless they have half an hour spare to try to prise the pair from each other’s company.
When Millie is not sitting by the front window keeping guard, she likes to sit in laps, or on the very top of the armchairs at the McKenzies’ home.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
Millie, who’s fuelled by her favourite food, fresh chicken necks, and dried kangaroo and lamb, which Graham says “gives her a bit of bounce”, isn’t deprived of her own walks by any means, regularly getting the opportunity to galavant along the river near the family’s home, often immersing herself in the water for a wee swim.
Remaining youthful at her ripe age of 70 “in dog years”, she still loves swimming at the beach, diving straight into the waves like she used to in the family’s old pool.
The fun-loving pooch gets along with most other dogs, so is easily transportable, riding the bumps with a grin, to markets and the like, too keen to socialise with hordes of humans to be concerned with forming furry foes.
If there is one species she doesn’t like, however, it’s the Guinea fowls at the farm she regularly visits.
Three peas in a pod, Graham, Wendy and Millie McKenzie cosy up on the couch.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
Once spooked, twice shy, she won’t forgive them easily for chasing her in the past, sometimes refusing to get out of the car altogether.
“She’s probably also a bit traumatised by the bindi eyes there, too,” Wendy said.
When she returns home again, home again from the market, jiggedy-jig, she transforms into the lap dog she looks like, perching herself on Wendy’s or Graham’s knees, or atop the backrest of any armchair in the house.
And when it’s bedtime, she scales her very own stairway to “dog heaven”, aka her owners’ bed, but not first without a “flick on the bum to encourage her up”, according to Wendy.
One for all and all for one is the way the three mad Hawthorn supporters play.
