Who Let the Dogs Out?

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Sitting around at the end of the summer exchanging tales about recent trips and vacations the chances are, whether you are an animal lover or not, that some of the stories will involve dogs.

I can still vividly recall the sight of Yvonne, in America, sprinting uphill towards me on her fully packed bicycle persued by a couple of yapping dogs. I'd never seen her cycle so fast, maybe I've never seen anybody sprint uphill that fast. In Georgia she sacrificed our breakfast of freshly baked katchapuri in order to pacify a ragged pack of stray dogs that had surrounded us on the way from the bakery back to our motel. In Greece we were attacked by sheep dogs while other dogs lay lazily in the road, hardly blinking as we cycled past within inches of their noses or tails. In France I had to stop throwing a plastic pork chop (his favourite toy) for Teddy, a young black labrador, when his feet  became  bloodied and grazed due to him constantly skidding across the gravel drive to fetch it.

A Teddy lookalike in Slovania followed, or rather led, us up a mountain road and into a national park. A large notice stated that dogs must be kept on a lead. We rested at a hut at the end of the trail where it was firmly pointed out to us that our dog should not be running loose. The whole time I was trying to explain with my best Slovanian hand gestures that Teddy 2 was not my dog, he was resting his head lovingly on my lap! Having caused us enough embarrassment and almost incurring us a hefty fine, he abandoned us on the way down! In Bosnia things ended badly for a small dog,  who had joined me for morning coffie,  when he/she decided to defend us against two huge demonic dogs who were passing by. The dog was seriously injured and our tent badly damaged. Nobody knew who its owner was, battered, broken and no doubt feeling betrayed, eventually it limped painfully off in the direction it came from. Another Bosnian dog accompanied us as we cycled up a steep mountain track, he waited a little impatiantly at every hairpin bend, paying special attention to Yvonne, the weakest member of his newly found flock. The roles were reversed on the way down......there are plenty more but these are not the stories I want write about.....

... let me tell you about Maan.

Maan lives on a campsite in Romania. She is a big dog, maybe big enough to scare a non-dog lover but any fears will soon disappear as she rolls over to have her stomach stroked. Maan likes children, chocolate and chorizos. Maan doesn't like thunder storms or strange men wearing hats. 
She likes us but we have, for her, one draw-back: being part of the staff we don't feed her leftovers or snacks. 

Maan never actively begs for food. She tries to wear you down with hungry, pathetic eyes that are hard to resist.

Early in the season as the camprground becomes more populated she leaves us in favour of family groups with small children. Plenty of extra affection from the children and a lot more spillage at meal times. She will visit us first in the morning and pop back now and again for a quick tummy rub and a brief check to see if we've left anything tasty on the ground,  then she'll be off with her newfound friends. Some will be adopted so completely that we'll hardly see her for several days. She will join them for meals, for drinks in the bar, for ball games, for strolls around the village, walks to the shops or hikes up the mountain path. Walking up the mountain with camping guests is something she does with increasing frequency. Whether it's for the company, the excercise or the hope of sharing a picnic, it's hard to tell but it's this activity that almost brought about her downfall recently.

Most guests hike to a small lake half way up the mountain or  to the peak... and then they return.

Maan tagged along with one of the last guests of the season, a hiker who was not making a round trip. Having walked about twice as far as she normally would they reached a busy road over a mountain pass where her companion hitched a lift for the rest of his journey. Left alone she was, for some reason, unable or unwilling to find her way back. Did she loose the scent and her sense of direction or did she spontaneously decide to run off and join the circus? Did she want to extend her horizons or did she go in search of a canine legend, an Eldorado where there is a never ending supply of chocolate cookies? We'll never know but she went missing in this sparsely populated area. Her owners enlisted local farmers, herders, construction workers, friends and aquaintances to help in the search. There were sightings. After several days following tips and after fruitless searches in the remotest places they had almost given up hope when suddenly Maan appeared in the beam of their headlights as they crossed the very pass where her adventure had started. She climbed into the car and I quote “shivered, sighed and cried a little”.

The next few days were spent recovering.

With a long cold winter ahead of her Maan has plenty of time to reflect on her adventures, whatever they were.

Will she have learnt a lesson? Will she change her ways?

Probably not...