Moose
Friday evening and I met a friend for a meal in a dog friendly restaurant and my Papillon puppy Moose came along. At the restaurant my friend and I are happily catching up chatting and eating, Moose on my lap keeping his head down being a good boy, when the dog from the next table decided to join us, a cute Chihuahua, not on a lead. What followed was like a comedy sketch, the dog would not return to his owner, she called him over and over “Alf Alf Alf come here Alf,” broke off her attempts to catch him to chat to us, explaining what a lovely dog Alf is, asking about Moose and explaining to us that Alf was coming over because we had a dog with us, (so now it seems our fault her dog is at our table) we meanwhile are still trying to eat our meal and chat though now also trying to help her get the dog. Moose sitting on my lap watching calmly, at one point the woman was crawling under our table to retrieve her dog, the tables were in booth arrangement we couldn’t move the table or chairs as they were fixed, we did our best to push Alf toward her. Finally she got him and returned to her table! But we weren’t done, three more times Alf returned, at one point the woman asked if Moose was okay with other dogs, as I had kept him on my lap, yes I said he’s fine thank you! I chose to ignore the unstated question that Alf obviously wanted to meet Moose and she wondered why he couldn’t! At no point did the owner put her dog on a lead, he wasn’t even wearing a collar!!
I know that it was me that was actually behaving in an unusual way, my behaviour was not at all English, was it? The woman did not do anything a million other dog owners wouldn’t have done. In fact her behaviour is probably more acceptable to most people than mine! I know that my friends and clients are more likely to see things my way, but most dog owners wouldn’t. Most dog owners would think me unsociable and unfriendly like this lady thought I suspect!