[imagesource:simonstownmuseumcollection]

On Saturday, scores of people and their doggies celebrated one of Simon’s Town’s most famous residents, Just Nuisance.

The Great Dane, who died 80 years ago this week, was the first dog in the world to receive an official Royal Navy rank. To celebrate and honour the life of this extraordinary hound, humans and canines flock to the naval suburb to eat cake, go on walkies and listen to a pipe band. Last year, about 80 dogs turned up for the event.

Just Nuisance, as the dog was to become known, was born on the 1st of April in 1937 in Rondebosch, a suburb in the south peninsula of Cape Town. As a pup, he was sold to owner Benjamin Chaney, who moved to Simon’s Town to run the United Services Institute (USI). Many Royal Navy sailors frequented the USI as they headed the Simon’s Town Naval Base at the time. While Just Nuisance was growing into a massive adult, he kept all the sailors company as they commuted, only to become a legend for his human-like temperament and companionship.

Cathy Salter, the curator of the Simon’s Town Museum, told Al Jazeera that she is thrilled that the dog’s legacy of lifting human spirits lives on:

“There was an awful war going on [World War II] and most of the sailors passing through Simon’s Town were very young,” she says. “For them, it was quite a big deal that this dog wanted to hang out with them.”

“Many years ago, we were sent a photograph of Just Nuisance by a man who’d been taken POW by the Japanese,” Salter told Al Jazeera. “He wasn’t allowed any personal possessions, but he managed to smuggle that photo in and keep it with him throughout. It just shows how important Just Nuisance was to them.”

“The dog took an instant liking to the sailors,” says Salter. “But only the low-ranking ones. He’d have nothing to do with officers,” whom he identified by their uniforms.

The Simon’s Town Museum has a bunch of photos of ‘Able Seaman Just Nuisance’ posing with his sailor comrades:

While numerous sailors tried to adopt him, according to his biographer, Terrence Sisson, “Nuisance was his own master.”

At 67kg (148 pounds) Just Nuisance was “massive,” even for a Great Dane, and “almost human in concept and intelligence”, writes Sisson, an ex-sailor who knew the dog personally. After doing his business, for example, Just Nuisance would thrust out a paw to demand a “handshake” from the nearest human.

Sisson notes that Just Nuisance was given his name sometime in 1938 after being “enticed aboard” the HMS Neptune:

He got into the habit of “sunning himself, lying full length”, in one of the busiest parts of the ship. The “exasperated crew” had to pick their way around this tangle of legs and tail, “and although they were all fond of the dog, their language directed at him was certainly not suitable for the ears of females and young children”. Just Nuisance was a sanitised version of these insults.

The reason Just Nuisance was the only animal to be enlisted in the Royal Navy was thanks to a vendetta between the dog and the officials of the South African Railways. Apparently, Just Nuisance got into the habit of riding the train to Cape Town with his sailor friends who, in Sisson’s words, “did not bother to buy him a ticket”, which peeved the officials to no end.

At first, the sailors tried hiding the “Hercules of Dogdom”, as Sisson coined him, under the seats but this did not work. Then they started opening carriage windows to allow Nuisance to jump on board the moving train after the conductor had done his rounds. Finally, it reached a point where the railway company informed the dog’s rightful owner that Nuisance would be put down if he continued to ride the trains.

Nobody was going to allow that and after the sailors protested so vehemently, the Royal Navy’s commander-in-chief for the South Atlantic region personally decreed that “the dog Nuisance was to be officially enlisted as a member of His Majesty King George VI’s Royal Navy”.

He was not enlisted as an ordinary Seaman but rather given the rank of Able Seaman. His trade was given as ‘bonecrusher’ and his religious denomination as ‘scrounger’. Once enlisted, the British Admiralty “paid for a season ticket that allowed the dog to ride to Johannesburg if he so wished”, writes Sisson.

The sailors probably thought of him as too human because all the beer they gave him caused him to damage his hind legs while under the influence. Sisson writes that he was admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital in Simon’s Town and “given a bed ticket and medical chart, just like a human patient”. Eventually, Just Nuisance was euthanised on his seventh birthday, April 1, 1944, and he was buried with full naval honours at Klaver Camp near Simon’s Town.

On April 6 at Long Beach, Simon’s Town, folks came to celebrate the life and times of Just Nuisance. An R50 entrance fee per pooch goes to two local animal welfare charities, Tears and the SPCA. Then everyone and their dog walk about 1.1km, led by a Scottish pipe band, ending off at the statue of Just Nuisance carved by local sculptor Jean Doyle in Jubilee Square, overlooking the harbour, where birthday cake is provided on a first-come, first-served basis.

Volunteer event organiser Esther Le Roux says that people should come because “It’s such a feel-good event and there really isn’t an agenda,” adding “Nobody’s in it for themselves.”

If you missed the walk, the Simon’s Town Museum has a very thorough section on Just Nuisance, alongside displays about Simon’s Town’s community history, including the town’s forced removals during apartheid.

It’s also possible to visit Just Nuisance’s grave by car or on foot – just turn left into the Naval Signal School at the top of Red Hill Road. The trail starts at the top of Barnard Street, but be warned: there are more than 300 steps, with views to make up for it.

[source:aljazeera]