There’s a video on YouTube of a hunter named Tom Varney. Standing in a field, dressed in camouflage, he lets out a high-pitched howl: “waaaaa wooooooo.” To camera he says: “This is when the adrenalin gets going, I tell ya.” A pack of wild dogs in the distance look up and start bounding towards the sound. He sights, pulls the trigger and with one shot kills the closest one. The dog’s legs give way and it falls sideways, splat, like a cartoon death scene in the long, green grass.
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That was a good day for Tom Varney the dog hunter.
The comments beneath the video are strongly worded. “You deserve a medal sir!” says one. Othes are angry: “Hope one of those dogs rapes you in the ass and you die of aids go shoot yourself fuck face.” Some wish the same fate on Tom: “i wish i could shoot u and ur family.” A few are disturbing: “if anyone else has videos involving pups getting shot lemme know. i’m interested. best part of that vid was that the kills were pups lol.”
In Australia, the term wild dog refers to feral domestic dogs, dingoes and their hybrids. Dingoes traditionally held top spot on the food chain but after 200 years of mixing bloodlines with domestic breeds, it’s almost impossible to find a pure one on the mainland. What we have roaming the countryside these days is far more ferocious, something experts like to call superdogs.
“These aren’t fluffy pets we’re talking about, these are savage killing machines” says Brent Finlay. He’s the chair of QDOG, the Queensland Dog Offensive Group, which provides direction of wild dog management to government and the livestock industry. “These are dogs that are greater than 30 kilos. They are a big powerful animal. What they do is just rip and tear. It is horrific the damage that you see.”
It’s estimated that wild dogs cost Australian agriculture 67 million dollars annually. Their impact on a social level, as well as their effect on native animals, is harder to quantify. It most states, including Queensland, wild dogs are declared pests and it is the responsibility of landowners and councils to control them. Councils use a strategic approach of three methods: trapping, baiting and shooting. Then there are hunters like Tom Varney, who, in the name of community service, take pest control into their own hands.
Some say shooting is an effective means of small-scale control; others say it makes it harder for government pest controllers to do their job. What intrigued me was why anyone would want to do it and how someone like Tom could do it with so much passion.
Before he became the Dog Man, Tom Varney led a troubled life. He was a violent alcoholic who heard voices ordering him to attack the police. In the early 1960s, the hulking former bodybuilder blew up several police cars and was incarcerated at Melbourne’s Pentridge Prison. He was certified insane and transferred to Aradale, the notorious lunatic asylum at Ararat, to be held indefinitely at the Governor’s pleasure.
Barbara, his wife since 1961, never gave up on him. Her devotion was rewarded when Tom found God, and against all odds, was eventually released. They moved to a small town called Esk in the Brisbane Valley where Tom threw himself back into hunting. But this time, instead of the police, he turned his focus on wild dogs.
Tom is famous for his ability to mimic the howls of a canine so well that any dog in the vicinity will trot up to investigate. No one can do it as well as him, nor can they get his number of kills. In his first four years, he says he shot over 600. Locals started calling him the Dog Man and, thanks to a series of hunting DVDs he sells online, his reputation spread. To up and coming hunters he’s an inspiration and a legend.
Tom Varney as a young man.
With a population of 1,166, Esk is a town most notable for being on the way to somewhere else. On its main street there are a few antique stores, two pubs, and a bakery where all seven varieties of pie are beef. Every morning at five and every night at six, thousands of bats fly from the cliffs that shadow the town.
I arrive on a rainy day and head straight to the Varneys. Inside their low-set brick house in the centre of Esk, it’s a family museum. Faces of children and grandchildren smile out from every inch of wall. A bright couch cushion is embroidered with the phrase: “A family is a gift that lasts forever.”
Tom’s currently recovering from treatment that removed an aggressive melanoma from his head. It’s healing but gets itchy, and while I’m there he rubs ointment onto his skull. The rest of the time he wears a beige cap. Apart from the mouldy green prison tattoos that cover his arms he looks an ordinary 72-year-old man.
After watching his DVDs, I expected Tom to be a hayseed with a houseful of guns but I’m surprised by how emotional he is. When I ask if his hunting days are over, he tears up: “I was out everyday for about 15 years. It was my life. I wouldn’t like to say they’re over; I would like to get back out into the field.”
Quietly, he says, “I do find it harder now. I don’t think I could shoot anything myself anymore. One time I would shoot anything just for practice, but I haven’t for some time. I’ve got a question mark within myself—whether I’ll ever shoot anything again. I would have no pleasure shooting anything, not at all.”
“My heart has changed, because I see everything has a purpose. Anything that thinks, today, I have trouble thinking that I could destroy it. Two days before rain, ants are running everywhere building a nest. Why? Because they think. Everything’s got a mind—pretty hard to kill something like that.”
I ask if he understands better these days why some people are so opposed to what he does. “Well that’s only until they have their little pet that they love so much torn to pieces by a wild dog. These animals are not good animals to have around. A normal person would have to have that understanding.”
I understand his point but it doesn’t make me any less apprehensive about the fact that I’m going dog hunting this afternoon. Tom’s not well enough to take me but he’s arranged for a man called Matt Davis to do so. Matt’s an emerging hunter; someone Tom now refers farmers to if they need a shooter. “He’s come here; we’ve talked for hours. I’ve seen some photos of Matt in the local paper—he’s beginning to be known. He will be called, probably, The Dog Man.”
He says that Matt uses a lot of newfangled equipment and I ask what he thinks of that. “If I can say this gently,” says Tom, “sometimes that makes you feel like you’re a hunter.”
Before the hunt, I take a look around town. At the local market I talk to a young girl stroking a chicken about the problem her family has had with wild dogs. “They got to our chooks, chased the horses, and tried to attack our dogs. People around us, all their dogs were getting killed by the wild dogs. It’s horrible.”
I stop at the Masonic group’s sausage sizzle stand. One man tells me about the impact of superdogs on his property. Waving a pair of tongs he says, “We actually had a lamb that was totally eaten from the inside out. They just left the skin. Varney’s probably got it pretty right with hunting and shooting them. You know, it’s hard to live with a bullet in you.”
Another man simply tells me, “If you see a wild dog, shoot it.”
That afternoon I meet Matt and his hunting partner Errol at a property on the outskirts of Esk. The first thing I see is Matt’s camouflage car. Both men are in their mid-forties and Errol is wearing a blue Spock T-shirt while Matt’s in camo gear and spectacles. They’ve set up camp next to a rotting house, punctured with weeds and draped in snakeskins.
Tom is Matt’s inspiration for dog hunting. “I got into the sport, you could call it, four years ago when a friend loaned me a copy of Tom’s video Calling Wild Dogs. I watched it and thought ‘wow that’s quite unique.’”
I ask if it’s true that he’s the new Dog Man in town. “That’s right,” he says. “I’m starting to get a bit of a reputation. Farmers come to me and say ‘I’ve got a problem’ and I get out there and give it a go.” With this reputation in mind, I ask if he gets paid for his efforts. “No, I have other avenues I generate a little bit of income from.” He explains that he uses dog skulls in taxidermy pieces he sells online. I ask who his customers are and Errol jumps in: “There are some medieval societies and guilds that get into skins from wild animals. I suspect they would probably be the types of people who would look for that sort of thing.”
Matt and the author chilling in their “cool-aflage.”
Matt shows me his equipment: electronic rangefinders, whistles and camouflage clothing. “Coolaflage they like to call it in the real world.” He shows me his rifle which is worth about $6,000. “Night vision scope” he says. “This wasn’t around back in Tom’s day.”
I ask if he’s a good shot. He pauses before answering: “The gun would shoot better than I could. I have a problem with my eye; I’ve got a stigma.” He explains how he has to use his peripheral vision to put the crosshairs on the target, which sounds complicated. “It is,” he says. “It would be easier to learn to shoot left-handed.”
At dawn Matt makes coffee and hands me a camouflage jacket and cap. I’m nervous about the hunt but know that to comprehend what the dog hunters do, I need to witness it. He whispers: “We’ve got the wind coming from behind us and taking our smell up into the tree line where the dogs are. It’s not a good thing; it’s a bad thing.” He sprays me eucalyptus to disguise my human scent and we head towards an old tree at the top of a hill.
At the peak he says, “To our right, where the lantana is, we have a weak spot. We won’t know if there are dogs there until they break and they’ll be on us really quick.” What do we do if that happens? “We adjust,” he laughs anxiously. “It’s going to be a little bit of panic stations when that goes on. This is part of the thrill: the hike up, getting in position and now anticipation of where they’re going to come from.”
In head to toe camouflage he crouches in the base of a tree and lets out a howl. It’s different to Tom’s: a long “woooooo-oh” with an upturned note at the end.
“They know we’re here now,” says Matt. We wait, and 30 minutes later I can tell I’m not the only one getting restless. “Tom would spend day after day sitting here if he was here,” Matt whispers. “I’m not that patient. To me it’s like fishing—if there’s no fish, move to the next pond.”
We break cover and, as we’re walking down the hill, I see a small orange shape on the other side of the river. It’s a dog. I frantically get Matt and Errol’s attention. They don’t believe me at first but once Matt looks through his viewfinder, with his peripheral vision, they realise I’m right. I’m ecstatic: I’ve spotted a dog. The thrill of the hunt hits me and I throw my fist into the sky. Suddenly it’s chaos as they work out what to do. Matt decides to head through the trees to get closer as he’s too far away to take a shot. Once he’s gone I realise what I’ve done. If that dog is killed it’s my fault. I feel sick and find myself whispering “run doggy, run.”
Errol and I wait for the sound of a shot but it never comes. Eventually Matt returns, saying that he couldn’t get close enough without crossing the river. We can’t see the dog anymore. “Well there you go,” says Errol, “they do exist.”
Matt is nonplussed. “It’s not about the kill, it’s about the hunt.”
They look at me. I feel so conflicted that all I can do is light a cigarette. At this point I don’t give a damn if the dog smells our scent.
We spend hours hiding behind trees on various properties. We see paw prints—“they’re fresh,” says Matt—and it helps our waning morale. Watching Matt and Errol blunder about, trying to be stealth, I lie down and play with blades of grass.
Apart from the one I saw, we don’t find a dog today.
The next morning Matt takes me to the place where we spotted the dog. He says that if there was one dog here, there’s probably more. As we walk along the partially dry riverbed he shows me his dog-detecting wristwatch, which he says works on moon cycles. Above the time, there are two lit-up paws. “The more paws that come up the more likely it’s going to be a good hunt.”
I ask how many paws appeared yesterday. “None” he says.
Our second day of hunting is much like the day before. Matt howls and we wait and whisper. He tells me that yesterday was his birthday and shows me a knife his wife Lisa bought him. I ask what she thinks about hunting. He says she doesn’t like him shooting dogs and particularly dislikes the kill photos. A hunter’s wife, he says, is always a widow.
We don’t find a dog.
That afternoon I talk to a farmer called Paul Cooper, who owns the property by the river. “The dogs are nothing but a nuisance to be honest. Usually a proper wild dog kills to eat, whereas dogs that are half domestic and half wild do it for fun.”
It’s said that rather than killing for food, hybrid wild dogs attack livestock, such as this sheep, simply for fun.
I ask him how to tell if they’re doing it for food or for fun. “Well, see, they’ll kill the animal by choking it down by the neck and ripping its guts out. Then they’ll move on to the next one. They’ll kill many in a night. On several occasions I’ve come across cows that have been down in the paddock and, due to being slow having a calf, they get paralysis and can’t stand on their back legs. Wild dogs will come in and eat the rear end out of the cow while they’re alive. And then you’re left with no option but to shoot the animal.”
After two full days of hunting with Matt I’m starting to feel a little unhinged. I’m here to see what a dog hunter does but so far, except for the dog I spotted, we haven’t seen any. It’s starting to feel like a Bigfoot situation, like we’re on the hunt for a mythical animal. I’ve turned from feeling apprehensive to thinking “where’s the fucking superdog?”
Tom phones that night, and when I tell him we haven’t found a dog, he encourages me to try a making a few dog calls myself. I practice on the main street as the bats fly overhead. Before he hangs up he wishes me “happy howling.”
That night, I drive out of town and, on top of a hill, I howl. After some time, very faintly, I hear something howl back.
I’m not the only one going crazy. That night, my photographer draws a picture of a superdog and sleeps with it under her pillow.
Desperate to summon a superdog, my photographer drew this picture and slept with it under her pillow.
It’s our third day of hunting and Matt’s brought along a dog skull he’s mounted onto a wooden board and painted bronze. “I do a pewter finish as well,” he says. He also shows me a salted dingo scalp, a section of skin from nose to tail, about three inches wide. The council offers hunters a $25 bounty for each scalp they bring in but Matt doesn’t bother because it isn’t worth the effort. “At the moment I’ve got about 15 skins in the freezer. I don’t know what I’m gong to do with them.”
Matt’s watch says it’s a one-paw day. After hours of hiding behind a log I ask how he can stand doing this day after day. He shrugs. “It gets you out of the house.”
He’ll get over it though, he says. I ask what he means. “Tom’s over shooting dogs. He’s over shooting anything actually. I used to breed snakes and I got over killing the rats and the mice to feed the snakes after a while too.”
How long do you think you’ve got left? “I don’t know. Depends on how many more dogs I have to despatch I suppose. I think eventually it will get to that point where I’ll be like ‘I can’t do this anymore’.”
“I was in the State Emergency Service when I lived in Brisbane. A group got sent to deal with an outbreak of Newcastle Disease. They spent days just walking around breaking the necks of chickens. Hundreds of thousands of chickens,” he pauses. “They can’t eat chicken anymore. Like, they had to go through counselling. And you’d think: from killing chickens? But when you start killing enough of them, it gets to you.”
He continues: “I have empathy; I own dogs. I don’t want to see them in pain and sometimes it’s not a clean kill and it’s not pretty. I enjoy the hunt but I don’t enjoy the kill. But I’ll do it because the farmers need it.”
We don’t find a dog.
I hand over my camouflage and ask what’s next for him. “Well I’ll do the same old, same old,” he says. “Back out here, sitting out in the bush, waiting for something to happen.”
I smile at Matt and let out a final “WA-WOOOOO.”
Happy howling.
Watch Hannah’s interview with Tom Varney right here on VICE.com
