Dearest wife came back with a spare dog this morning. Found it collarless in the park and put a pic of it up on one of the local community websites. Then took it to the vet to get its chip read. A big, charming, floppy young thing that has totally bewitched our eldest. I think there might be a second dog on the cards now, though April, our border collie, likely has other thoughts. Everytime the new dog sits there wagging its tail and looking all lovely, she growls (I love her so much
) Anyway, someone has just come by to pick it up. A happy ending.
But this comes on the back of a sorrier tale. There's a guy at the end of the street. He is the kindest most genuine article you'll meet. He does dogwalking to keep himself going. The other week the owner of one of the dogs he regularly walks asked him if he'd take on an extra one, just for the day. The dog belonged to a friend of theirs and they were babysitting it. Our dogwalker agrees to this. But, as he gets to the local park to unload the dogs from his little van, the dog, presumably freaked by the other dogs and strange circumstances, ran for it and disappeared into the ravine. Our dogwalker friend spent the following few days with a big bunch of volunteers combing the place for it and he was getting increasingly upset. The dog survived the coldest night of the year just fine but, sadly, it eventually secumbed to the traffic and died at the vets. So, our neighbour, beside himself, has now quit his dogwalking gig. People are pretty worried about him and how he's taking it, which isn't well ....
