Rain, Hedge Traps & The Great Canine Escape

Rain, Hedge Traps & the Great Canine Escape

This morning is the kind of morning where the sky looks like it’s auditioning for a role in a disaster movie, and the wind has a personal vendetta against your hair.

I start with coffee, of course. Strong, essential, life-preserving coffee. Without it, I’m basically a zombie with organisational skills. With it, I’m a slightly less zombie-like professional dog wrangler.

The plan today is simple: walk the dogs, survive the weather, and avoid disaster.

The cast:

• Alice – my black mongrel, still full of leftover Christmas energy and zero respect for boundaries.

• Nicolas –crazy cavalier, panicking at every puddle, leaf, or suspicious blade of grass.

• Shiva – calm, calculating German Shepherd, walking with the poise of someone who knows she is the only adult in the group.

• A client dog – overexcited, under-trained, and convinced that gravity is optional.

We set off. Immediately, the rain begins to fall sideways. Alice finds a puddle and leaps in with Olympic enthusiasm. Nicolas barks at it like it personally insulted him. Shiva calmly steers us all toward somewhere vaguely dry, which is tricky because, as always, there isn’t anywhere vaguely dry.  We reach the hedge at the bottom of the field. Alice spots something. Something important. Something completely invisible to the rest of us. She charges.  And suddenly the morning turns into a full-scale escape simulation.

An overexcited, overweight dog manages to wedge themselves halfway into a thick hedge. Alice immediately decides that this is a wrestling match. Nicolas protests quietly but firmly. Shiva looks at me like “I’ve done everything I can”.

The client dog then decides the hedge is an escape route. Nicky joins in, apparently agreeing that rules are suggestions. Alice is already halfway through her own interpretive dance performance involving mud, leaves, and what may have been a small branch or two.  Shiva sighs audibly, as if the wind has personally insulted her intelligence.

Somewhere in the chaos, I realise a small furry projectile is missing. The client dogs has somehow slipped a collar. Gabe and Ben, who have volunteered to help today, are chasing leads like it’s a sport. I’m juggling coffee in one hand and a tangle of leads in the other, muttering under my breath about how this is definitely why people do not become professional dog walkers.

Eventually, with a mixture of gentle coaxing, mild bribery, and sheer brute strength, all dogs are retrieved, dripping, muddy, and slightly traumatised. I am wet, cold, and wondering why I did not invest in a wetsuit years ago. Ben is laughing hysterically. Gabe is proud of his heroic lead retrieval. And Alice… Alice is already planning the next puddle adventure.

Back home, I make a final note in my diary:

Saturday 13th January 2024

Rain: 1.

Me: 0.

Dogs: technically contained.

Hedge: victorious.

Coffee: heroically deployed.

Human dignity: last seen somewhere near the bottom of the field.

Tomorrow I shall return to do it all again because apparently this is my life now.