Dougal the dog sometimes gives the impression of being friendly but a bit thick. Throw a biscuit to Sampras and she can pluck it out of the air from just about any direction. Throw a biscuit to Dougal and he opens his mouth in the hope that it will just land in there. Since I am as bad at throwing as he is at catching it usually just bounces off his head.
Give Dougal a rat to chase though, and he is a different dog. Catching rats requires a very impressive level of paw to eye co-ordination and tooth to eye co-ordination, but Dougal manages it regularly.
Sometime in the last twenty four hours another rat was foolish enough to enter our yard where it met its doom. I found its stiffening corpse this evening lying in the grass. It was not the biggest he has ever caught, but I was impressed nonetheless.
I feel it is only right to acknowledge Dougal's efforts with a picture, so here he is again.
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A happy-ending dog story from here in Kilkis - some time back a woman who lives in Athens but who is from this area came visiting relatives, with her dog Ozi. She had to go into hospital at one point so she left Ozi in the care of a neighbour in the village near here where she has a house. Said neighbour then proceeds to dump her dog on the outskirts of Kilkis. When the woman comes out of hospital the dog is not to be found, and she leaves distraught for Athens, obliged to return to work. She gets in contact with us (Kilkis Animal Friendly Society) and we start looking for Ozi, using a photo she has sent us. Adverts with the photo are placed in the local papers, but result in nothing more than a few "I have seen this dog somewhere recently" calls... Weeks later we found him, emaciated, frightened and filthy, with a group of other strays which frequent a particular area of town, but by now he has become unapproachable. The woman returns to Kilkis and manages to approach Ozi, and they are reunited.
It warms the cockles of your heart to learn of the reunion of dog and owner, but what sort of person abandons someone else's dog to such a fate, especially in Greece, where animal mistreatment is legion? If I were that woman, I would now be pursuing that neighbour through the courts...