The Dog Rescuers

No, not Paul O’Grady, nor Alan Davies, who do a great job, but the dogs themselves!

Here is a charming story in the Daily Mail this morning about a Goldendoodle who rescued a drowning fawn. You can read the story here.

This reminds of the time that Benjie, the first lurcher we had, rescued a seagull which was stranded on Aust Beach by the River Severn in South Gloucestershire.

We had had a great storm the night before, it was early October when the storms often sweep in from the Bristol Channel, and the following morning I went down to the warth by the River Severn, with Benjie, our first lurcher.

Walking along the beach, sensing the white spume and grey sea spray, I watched Benjie investigating, in that peculiar manner of the canine, the base of the famous and dangerous cliffs seamed with different geological periods of burnet clay, granite rock and white crystalline quartz sandwiches. Benjie was snuffling amongst the falling trickle of stones in the background and the nearby fresh water streaming toward the sea feathering tiny tributaries in the sand, when suddenly he took my hand very softly in his mouth. This was a favourite form of communication  of his and meant “Look at this” or “Pay attention”.

Gently, and near silently, he guided me over to some of the fallen rocks so close to the cliff they were technically in the no-go and unsafe zone, and pointed his nose just underneath three tumbled stones. He raised his head to look me straight in the eye and then tossed his nose again in the same direction.

I bent over to investigate: a baby seagull was nestling under the rocks, quietly and almost motionless. Clearly the youngster had been caught up in the furore of the wind and river. When I arrived home I found my parents upstairs painting a bathroom. I told them that I had an injured seagull downstairs. My father’s response was less than enthusiastic and he swore that he was not paying for a flipping seagull to go the vet, to which I immediately retorted “He’s not flipping or flapping or flying or anything at the moment.”

The long and the short of the story is that the little seagull made an excellent recovery having consumed all the sardines the local Tesco had to offer. There was no fee from the vet and we can yet again ask of our dogs and rescue dogs, in particular, who is the rescued and who is the rescuer?

This passage is an excerpt from my last book, The Dog With The Wind In Her Hair. An updated and expanded new edition will be released in the autumn of 2021 on Amazon and will be called Rural Writings and Dog Tails.

P.S. According to the comments from the USA today, the fawn has been reunited with its mother!