I was taking the dog out for our usual walk this morning and as soon as we entered the park I noticed another dog up ahead. I said to Red (yeah, I talk to my dog...regularly) "I wonder who that is" just because it wasn't a dog I recognised from the mornings. As we got closer I started to get a bit wary of the fact that there wasn't anyone around. The dog started to come towards us, I thought it was going to come up to see Red, but gave us a clear berth and walker round past us and stopped further behind. I was getting a bit worried and waited a couple minutes to see if anyone was coming along the path, but no one came. I tried to get the dog to come over by offering treats but it turned and headed away, I was quite worried as that was the direction back to the main road, but the dog turned and went down the path that leads to the factory/the other end of the park. I had went after it but by the time I reached the bottom of the path I couldn't see the dog ahead so assumed it had went to the other end of the park. I decided to continue our usual walk through the park, but if I saw the dog again then I would know something wasn't right.
As I was coming to the other end of the park I could see the dog again at this end sitting out on its own, I bumped into one of the other morning regulars and asked if he'd seen anyone with the dog. He hadn't so we headed over in its direction. The thing was crying but was a bit wary of coming near us and went the opposite direction past us, another regular came by at that point and he'd seen the dog before too having already done a lap of the park. We decided we needed to phone the SPCA or someone so as one of them phoned I managed to get the dog to come over with my treats, when it came we saw it had a tag on its collar with the number of the owner on it so we phoned them.
Turns out they'd lost the dog while on their walk, and that this wasn't the first time this had happened. Instead of looking for the dog or waiting for it where they lost sight of it they just went home and that had apparently been half an hour ago. When a woman came to collect the dog she mentioned that it just wanders off but they won't put it on the lead and that she doesn't really have time for all of this, she doesn't mind walking the dog if she can fit "15 minutes" into her apparently "busy schedule" throughout the day. It was her husband who had been walking it too, but clearly he's more bothered with other things too, like riding a unicycle (the only time I've seen him in the park he was riding a unicycle with the dog walking alongside him). As she took the dog away she "jokingly" asked if one of us would take her off her hands, but it was quite clear she was serious.
Suffice to say the 3 of us were pretty disgusted afterwards and all agreed that some people just shouldn't have a dog, they're not just things that are there when you can be bothered with them.
And to think up until a couple of months ago I wasn't a dog person at all!
