Talking Dogs

A woman with a dog stops me to talk to me about her dog and about mine.
I don't mind that she coos over my dog and asks me her name and then speaks to my dog in a familiar way without having been first introduced to my free-running companion.
She tells me what her dog's name is and waits. So does her dog, who is on a lead with a little bell on it to remind him at every step that a human owns him.

I don't feel I can enthuse about a dog I have just met on the way to the river. Me and my dog are going for a swim. Well, she is, and I am going to stand there and try not to get wet when she shakes herself dry.

I don't say this to my dog's new best friend.

She may want to come with me and learn our secret way across the grass to the best place to swim.

We get away and I make a note to travel a different route for a year or so to avoid such an encounter being repeated.

People with dogs can be odd creatures if you meet them unexpectedly on the road, on a sunny morning.

Best avoided.
storytelling here