A Dog Sitters Tale

Last year whilst staying at the Abbey Wood site we were approached by a German lady who asked a favour. She noticed that we had a dog and asked if it would be possible for us to keep an eye on her dog the following day. She was planning to take her daughters into London and leave the dog in the van and asked if we could listen out. We were experiencing a heatwave with temperatures expected to be in the 30s.

We were planning a relaxing day by the van next day and being dog lovers we offered to let the dog sit with us and we would take it for a walk and give it water. The dog was a scruffy looking dog about the size of a terrier which the lady had rescued from Spain.

Next morning we went to the ladies van to collect the dog. As my wife gingerly opened the caravan door, I tried to grab the dog by its collar, however it bolted passed me. I grabbed its leg but couldn’t hold on. It bounded off along the site roadways to the site exit and headed off in the direction of London.  My wife gave chase whilst I went to get my bike. A passing builder saw my wife chasing the dog and gave her a lift in his van but it ran off through a park.

My wife came back for the car and we spent the next two hours searching all of the streets in a two mile radius. 

About 3 hours later I went back to the van and phoned my wife. She was in a police station, close to tears. She said that a lady and her daughter had come across the dog in a park about 4 miles from site. She managed to catch the dog and remove the tag from its collar which had some writing in German. As she put the dog down it bolted.

Just as we were speaking a scruffy looking dog approached and laid down under the van opposite. I managed to get a couple of kids passing to attach a lead to it. Shortly after, the lady who had found the dog in the park appeared and said she was relieved to see it because a couple of shady looking characters had been trying to catch it.

Later that afternoon the German Lady returned and said “thank you so much for looking after him, has he been good”?