I notice that Aristotle avoided telling you about his behaviour last Friday! Aristotle gives the impression of being a big confident dog, but he’s a mummy’s boy and the biggest coward out there. When I say ‘mummy’ I’m referring to our Mistress who he thinks of as his mum and not Shadow who he sees more as a playmate. Anyway, he was out for a lovely walk with our Mistress on Friday. The sun was low in the sky and there were few clouds to spoil it. My Mistress was listening to the ending of the book she’s been listening to so was engrossed. Ari was trotting along on the extending lead quite happily. Suddenly and for no apparent reason, Ari started to race along the path parallel with the hedge his hackles raised and clearly very upset. My Mistress lurched forwards, fortunately regained her balance and managed to catch up and pull him to a stop. Her first thought was that he’d seen a rabbit, but he was too upset for that. She looked everywhere to see what huge animal must have scared him. Of course we don’t actually get large scary wild animals around here, but from his reaction she could only think it was something like that. Then she saw it; a black dog of Ari’s size and shape standing by the hedge. As Ari was walked forward so did the dog. Ari couldn’t take his eyes of it. He was still upset. My Mistress gently and firmly told him everything was ok and he should carry on – The dog was his shadow running just ahead of him and because of the angle of the sun was not stretched or distorted so to Ari it looked very real. He was a bit sheepish after he’d calmed down and stopped worrying, but he said he got quite a fright.
Alfie’s Diary – the Book is available at Amazon UK –https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00583ZGSA
You can find short stories to read at www.alfiedog.com