Out In The Garden And Out Of Control

Dogs aren’t supremely common where I was living at the time of this story. Most properties were more or less built into vertical cliffs, so having a fenced-in space for a dog was difficult at best.

It’s not a law outside of required areas, but it’s generally accepted that when you walk your dog, you keep it on a leash. The only times I saw someone with a dog not doing this is because the dog was so old that “racing into the road” was less likely than “being able to make it through the walk”

Enter a neighbor and their Keeshond (basically, a labrador-sized ball of fluff and speed) and his love of chasing cats. My cat hated the road but would always follow me up the steps to it when I left for work, and often sat on the stairs waiting for me.

Turned out this dog did not have a leash and loved to chase cats. We found this out when my flatmate heard awful barking and the cat screeching before lunging into the safety of my room. His owner casually stood at the top of the stairs (almost three stories up from our house, five from the garden the dog was now in) calling for him to come back. It took about half an hour to round up the wayward dog.

That’s it, lesson learned, right?

NO!

This started to happen every week until my cat learned the beast’s routine and hid. While as far as I can tell the fluff-beast will not run out into the road, but if you go walking at the same time as him, you WILL be part of his territory now.