I was weeding by the compost bins when a flash of movement caught my eye. I looked up in time to see a brownish streak, of which my mind registered nothing more than that it was brown, followed in hot pursuit by a small terrier. My mind instantly categorised the brown streak as a cat, and I began to worry about the safety of Our Ginger, given that he does sometimes go up the side of the wood, while thinking that given the direction the two had appeared from, it was probably the neighbours' cat. Our Ginger does not go very far up the meadow, so the terrier would have been well into our property before they met. The dog having flushed out the neighbours' cat in the lane and followed it all the way down seemed more likely.
I got up from my knees, and set off in search of the terrier, the quarry, and any reassuring sight of our cats as not being involved. I caught a brief glimpse of the dog, as it grinned at me amiably and disappeared under the workshop, but no cats at all, neither ours nor anybody else's. I went to tell the Systems Administrator, who was mowing the lawn, that we had a strange and predatory dog on the premises, and not to let the chickens out until it was rounded up.
After a while the terrier came out from under the workshop, and flopped down at my feet, looking friendly. It was mostly wire haired Jack Russell, elderly and slightly overweight, though as I had seen with an impressive turn of speed when aroused. It had a red collar, but no tag, telephone number, or name of either the dog or (more pertinently) the owner. I hung on to the collar while the SA found a piece of rope, and we took it to the front door and gave it a drink of water. The terrier seemed entirely happy to be kidnapped, and so it seemed that until we could find whoever had lost it, we were in temporary custody of a dog on a piece of rope.
The SA took the terrier down to the public footpath by the farmyard, to see if any dog walkers were missing a dog, while I walked up the meadow to the apiary to see if I could hear anybody calling. They were ploughing in the field next to us, which made it difficult to tell whether anyone was shouting or whistling or not. The SA returned, still with the dog, saying that there was no-one about on the footpath at all. The SA recognises many of the local dogs from their walks, but didn't recall meeting this one before.
After that we were not sure who to call. The RSPCA? But nowadays they seem mainly concerned with prosecutions for animal cruelty. The police? I rang the non-urgent police number, but was told that the police no longer had any responsibility for reports of lost dogs, and that I needed to call the Dog Warden. It took several goes with the council to track down the dog warden, at which point the SA appeared to say that somebody was calling at the far end of the wood. The end of the wood is so congested with fallen trees, brambles and blackthorn that their chances of making their way through to pursue or reclaim their dog were pretty much nil, and after much shouting we agreed to take the dog to the entrance of the next farm up the road beyond the lettuce farm, so the SA got to go for a walk to the end of the lane and round the corner leading a dog on a piece of rope.
Presently the SA returned, saying that the dog lived in one of the cottages on the corner, and was being walked by somebody who wasn't her owner when she broke her lead and set off in hot pursuit of next door's cat. She was a rescue dog, who could never be let off the lead because she would instantly disappear, with the added quality of being happy to make friends and move in with anybody. The next door's cat reappeared while this was being explained, looking none the worse for its experience. I'd have thought, though, that if you had a dog you knew was liable to bolt off at the sight of a cat or a rabbit, it would be sensible to put your name and phone number on its collar. At least we'll know where to take her if she calls round again.
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