Canal Dog

I met him when I was walking along the towpath. I talked to him and he let me. It was a regular route for me and I saw him several times over the course of the Summer. He seemed well fed and would accompany me for a few hundred metres - staying near the bridge where I always found him. I got into the habit of taking food for him. He accepted it gracefully rather than greedily. I wondered whether he lived on one of the boats moored along that stretch but he showed no particular affinity towards any of them and none of the people on the boats seemed to know any more about him than I did.

Towards the end of the Summer, I was away for a week and, when I came back, I walked to the canal with some biscuits but he was nowhere to be seen. And I haven’t seen him since. But I check passing boats in case he sailed away and has returned.