Coronavirus streets at canine trot - LVIII

Beware of dog

Deciding on an early start rather than taking a nap after work, I launched into my walking exercise with the aim of catching up on my daily average, if not for the week, at least for the month. My balaclava face mask worn like a neckerchief to be pulled up when approaching crowds, for the pandemic is not over by a long stretch.

The dusk was closing in quickly, that at 5:00 PM, it was as good as dark and so I needed to reconsider how my route would go. As I came off the second crossing of River Irwell, I took a turn that left me with the foreboding of an unfettered dog barking at the sense of any movement around its territory, but it appeared the dog was already out on walks with its owner that was chatting to their neighbour as passed by, the dog literally ignoring me, I was quite surprised.

Beware of person

Back on my typical route, one pedestrian path had been closed off for road maintenance which left me in an awkward dalliance with danger and car oblivious of other road users. I survived to make it onto Peel Park where I found that quite a few dog owners had attached lights to their dogs so they could be sighted in the dark.

Another two encounters with dogs well-behaved almost had me wondering whether the dogs had been pacified and mollified with substances, only to almost walk into another dog that the owner did not care to control. Meanwhile, the cover of darkness allowed for a dog to foul the undergrowth without having to clean up after their dog.

Beware of plumes

When I came out to the students’ halls of residence, I was accosted for a lighter which would be rather strange as I would have never really expected someone exercising to be a smoker, the lady who asked had me thinking, I stopped flicking a lighter long before you were born. I stopped smoking in 1988.

Back on the macadamised path between River Irwell and Peel Park, I had a second encounter with that control that appeared to be out of control whilst on the leash and now much better behaved when allowed to roam free, you can only wonder whether the temperament is on the owner or the dog.

Beware of fools

My last canine encounter was at New Islington, two dogs with two owners, the leads left loose that they covered the whole pathway such that anyone wanting to go by needed the owners to tug the leads or call the dogs.

Why that is so necessary when it was obvious, they were in a busy area, escapes me, but you have to agree that dogs either imitate the good behaviour of their owners or the owners simply copy the wildness of their potentially housetrained and domesticated dogs, the potential left unexploited from my observation.

It was a good workout and for all the dogs I saw, none barked or growled, it was just a case of the control or absence of the same.