Audrey drops to her haunches, eyes piercing across the park, frisbee in her mouth.
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She looks straight out of a cartoon — a breed that feels made up, like a mix between the stars of Fantastic Mr Fox and Lady and the Tramp.
She’s tempting, begging, for owner Rosa Ritchie to chase her across the expanse of Victory Park, but Rosa has a trick up her sleeve.
A second, identical frisbee emerges from Rosa’s bag and is tossed into the May sunlight in front of Audrey’s eyes.
Her mind spins with the eternal struggle: how do I catch that frisbee when I already have this frisbee?
After an eternity hanging at its zenith, the frisbee begins to fall from the sky and its twin drops from Audrey’s mouth as the unfamiliar shape of a shih tzu-cross-kelpie streams after the frisbee in the air, leaving the original behind.
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Audrey the kelpie-cross-shih tzu at Victory Park in Shepparton. Photo by Rechelle ZammitImage 2 of 8
Rosa Ritchie and Audrey. Photo by Rechelle ZammitImage 3 of 8
Audrey the kelpie-cross-shih tzu, frisbee in mouth, at Victory Park in Shepparton. Photo by Rechelle ZammitImage 4 of 8
Audrey the Kelpie-cross-shih tzu at Victory Park in Shepparton. Photo by Rechelle ZammitImage 5 of 8
Audrey the Kelpie-cross-shih tzu, frisbee in mouth, at Victory Park in Shepparton. Photo by Rechelle ZammitImage 6 of 8
Rosa Ritchie and Audrey in a brief moment of peace between chasing frisbees at Victory Park. Photo by Rechelle ZammitImage 7 of 8
Rosa Ritchie and Audrey in a brief moment of peace between chasing frisbees at Victory Park. Photo by Rechelle ZammitImage 8 of 8
Sunlight delight for Audrey. Photo by Rechelle ZammitShe looks like a tiny wolfhound, or a not-quite-right schnauzer, or the distorted shadow of a husky.
“She looks like a generic, cute dog but almost seems fictional because she doesn’t look like a breed that anyone recognises,” Rosa said, watching Audrey pick up the second frisbee while looking forlornly at the first.
“No-one has ever guessed her mix first try.”
Audrey was a lockdown acquisition for Rosa, with her then-partner and now-husband, Rigel, living in Melbourne at the time.
She spent months scouring online for a pooch who wasn’t going to cost an arm and a leg and wasn’t from a puppy farm.
“I’d had some interactions with people who were kind of dishonest and I was getting really disheartened — this was during COVID when a lot of people wanted a dog,” she said.
“One night I just like hit ‘search’ again, refreshing with the search terms that I’d tried 1000 times, and this listing appeared for puppies in Blighty from this woman named Barb.
“Being a journalist, I did some background on her and I found her in the local paper and she was a netball coach and a mum and seemed like a genuine person who just wanted some money to cover the vet bills.”
Barb told Rosa that Audrey’s litter was an accident, from an older kelpie mum named Xena, who she assumed was too old for puppies, and a shih tzu father who hadn’t been desexed.
“Love finds a way,” Rosa said, laughing, as Audrey ran from one frisbee to another trying to figure out which she wanted more.
Rosa, who’s a former News and current ABC reporter, said she and fellow former News reporter Lachie Durling drove to Blighty to pick her up, and he suggested the name Audrey, which stuck.
She said she was constantly shocked at the “depth” of Audrey’s personality and her ability to convey what she’s thinking at any given time.
“She has a complex personality and sometimes I expect her to start doing simple arithmetic or speaking English,” she said.
“She’s got a very penetrating gaze.
“She is cheeky, she can exhibit Gremlin behaviour, but she’s very sweet and mostly does the right thing.”
At the end of 2022, the Oxford English dictionary named ‘Goblin mode’ the word of the year, which referred to “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations”.
Audrey has pioneered her own mode, affectionately known by former housemates and friends as “Gremlin mode”, which is hard to describe.
She snarls and snaps and wriggles, and her eyes widen beyond what seems possible, but never with malice.
“It’s just like this mischievous glee,” Rosa said.
“Rigel sent me a meme about how raccoons would make the perfect pet if they weren’t possessed by ‘the devil’s mischief’, now we refer to that Gremlin mode as the devil's mischief where something just ... takes over.”
She said despite Audrey’s occasional occult possession from realms beyond our own, Rosa wouldn’t change a thing about her “huge character”.
“She’s just so funny,” Rosa said.
“I know everyone says their dog is the best dog but it’s true, she’s a true companion.”
Rosa stares across the park at Audrey, who’s sprinting from frisbee to frisbee and dropping to her haunches.
Counting them over and over, Audrey whispers sweet nothings to each of them, trying to convince them to throw themselves for her.
“Getting Audrey was the best decision I’ve ever made,” Rosa said, smiling in the May afternoon sun.
Journalist