A Couple More Dog Stories

Partway up to the top of Cam Long Down this morning, Marty and I stopped to catch our breath and look at the view of the valley behind us down below. When I looked down, there was a black lab puppy (teenager) looking up at the two of us, wagging his tail so hard his whole body moved, obviously proud of what he was carrying in his mouth. What he was carrying was a rabbit about half his size that he’d just caught. And he was one proud puppy. His owner was following him down the hill, and told him to sit so I could take this picture. After I got the picture, the lab dropped the rabbit in front of us and tore off through the underbrush looking for some more adventure. After we talked dogs with his owner a while, Marty and I started uphill. The lab was nowhere to be seen, but his owner started down the hill and said that sooner or later he’d catch up.

When Marty and I got to the top of the field several minutes later we turned to watch  what would happen down below. The lab’s owner was several hundred yards away from where we last saw the dog, and a long way downhill. It was hilarious to see what was now a little black speck appear from the underbrush at the corner of the field and race down the hill, giving wide berth to every cow along the way, until he caught up with his guy just as he was going through the stile.

I took the second picture as we were walking into Dursley. We passed a lgate where some folks were getting ready for a lawn bowling game (bowling match?). We stopped to look, and from the far side of the field a dog started running toward us. At first I thought he was coming to chase us off, but when he got up to us, we could see he had his ball in his mouth and he was was up for a game himself. He dropped the ball at our feet and watched it while he waited for his game to start. We played ball with him for a few minutes, then figured we’d get tired before he did, so we moved on.