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Y'know I've had dogs pretty much my whole life. Barring a short spell as a kid and another spell in my 20s I've been around dogs.
In that time, and across several dogs I have experienced so many close shaves. The times one of them has got out and got into the road or seen a rabbit on the walk and vanished into the distance after it.
One time, as we were coming back from the woods, as the path brought us out onto the lane, Pilau saw a landrover and he was off. In an instant he was off, chasing and trying to herd it. By pure luck, that car was already slowed because they were looking for a particular house that they were visiting. But it clipped him and he was very fortunate not to be seriously injured.
Or the time he ran off after a rabbit and went over a cliff edge. Again, very lucky to survive without serious and immediate injury.
Carrot has gone flying into the road on several occasions: lke when I opened the door to take a parcel deliveryand he ran sytraight out, pastt he guy and through the open gate into the lane. Mere seconds after I got him back in a boy racer in a souped up hatchback zoomed past the gate at about twice the speed limit.
They were close shaves. Every single one of them was, in theory, entirely preventable. But nobody is 100%. Nobody. Not even the best and most experienced dog owners (like my mum for instance) are 100%. Just not possible.
If that incident with Carrot in the lane had gone badly wrong, and I'd had to come in here and make that post: what would you say to me? You'd tell me it wasn't my fault, and that I hadn't let him down. And you'd be right. No matter how much the guilt settled onto me, you'd be right.
Autumn was your girl. And she would be appalled to see you suffer so.
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