Runner! Runner!

Yesterday morning we followed our little routine; a 2-mile lap around most of the village, a lap around the garden to collect any overnight dog poo, throw the ever-present tennis ball a couple of times for Robyn and then into the house for breakfast. Except there was Robyn, tennis ball held securely in her teeth, looking like she had all of the gorm, but Chewie was nowhere to be seen. Yes, it’s a large garden, but it’s not large enough to lose a spaniel.

I found a hole in a fence panel behind the greenhouse. The hole led to the neighbour’s garden but, unlike us, they have no back fence between their garden and the fields behind our houses. I leaned over our back fence and whistled and shouted and whistled and shouted. In the distance a brown blur caught my eye so I dashed upstairs to the bathroom (because the large bedroom on the back of the house is inhabited by a teenage girl and only swamp things can live in there) and I could just make him out two fields over, running alongside the hedge, about where I’ve marked this photo:

I ran downstairs and shouted and whistled and achieved nothing apart from raising my blood-pressure and probably annoying the neighbours. I dashed back to the bathroom and could see him heading up the hill towards the farm about where I’ve marked:

I figured there was only one thing for it and headed back downstairs and into the car. I drove to the first farm track and motored about half a mile up it to the base of the hill where… I could see the countryside but no brown spaniel. I looked backwards and there he was, in the far distance, heading back towards the house. I drove home, walked in through the door and he greeted me like he was a) very pleased to see me and b) very pleased with himself. He was soaked right through and shaking (probably with a combination of excitement and exertion).

I’ve worked out that he had covered an easy four to five miles, running at full speed. He spent much of the rest of the day asleep, but he was up for the afternoon walk (also about two-miles around the village). But when we went out for the evening walk, he could hardly drag himself off the settee. He was knackered.

Anyway, I’ve fixed the hole so his days of escape are over (for now, at least). I couldn’t scold him because he came home. He’s dippy enough to think he was being told off for coming home, and that’s not the message I wanted to give him.

But he is a little bugger.