I have just come back from taking Archie for his morning walk.
While walking along it occurred to me that dogs “browse” through the park in much the same way as a human might “browse” through a library. Archie’s nose bounds along close to the ground with his legs following on behind. That is, of course, until he finds an interesting “book” which his nose devours, “ cover to cover” , before moving on.
At one point, Archie spotted a tiny terrier a way off who was avidly reading a “tome”. Off charged Archie towards the terrier. The terrier was completely absorbed in his “reading” and totally unaware of the great Golden Retriever bearing down on him. The distance was fast closing as the terrier read the final page and moved away happily to find the next “book”.
Helpless to do anything about the impending collision, I started to run towards Archie when the most remarkable thing happened. Archie’s nose passed over the “book” the terrier had been reading and screeched to an immediate stop. Comically, the message didn’t reach his legs as fast with the result that his back legs continued to chase after the terrier and found themselves in the curious position of being front legs! Archie had pirouetted 180 degrees in a doggy sommersault that would have made Tom Daley proud.
But Archie was totally unconcerned; the terrier was already a distant memory as he happily wolfed down Chapter One!"