Be careful when you’re throwing sticks to a dog

WALKING the dog is good for just about everything. It improves fitness, it clears the mind, it inflates the lungs, it helps the heart and it strengthens the muscles.

I have never, ever, ever finished a dog walk less vitalised than when I started.

The biggest benefit occurs on the days when you feel sluggish, lethargic and just can’t be bothered.

One dog walk later and you feel refreshed, energised and raring to go. Maybe it’s the fresh air. Perhaps it is simply the joy of watching your canine friend exploring every blade of grass.

Whatever the cause, it is very good for you.

But, sometimes, it’s not so great for them.

I watched two fellow dog walkers the other day.

One, perhaps mindful that he might get his shoes wet, stood on a tarmac path and used a ball thrower to launch a tennis ball way into the distance.

His elderly collie raced after it, skidding to a stop as the ball bounced, arching her body to leap in the air and catch it.

She quickly returned it to him, obsessed with the game, waiting eagerly for the ball to be launched into outer space once more.

She never took her eyes off it as he curled his arm and sent it flying, prompting her to begin the chase again.

Being of that nature, she would have continued until she dropped, but even now you could see the strain on her old joints and the look in her eye.

It is all way too easy to overdo it when faced with such compulsive, unadulterated enthusiasm.

As I shook my head and walked on, it got worse.

A young Labrador Retriever (the hint is in the name) was playing joyfully, while most of his family busied themselves with their phones.

Dad, however, seemed to have had enough of that and was having a ball himself, throwing a stick for the dog, who tracked after it, picked it and returned it satisfyingly to his feet, whereupon it all started over.

The trouble with sticks is, they have an alarming tendency to lodge in soft ground, so that the incoming keen retriever opens its mouth and impales itself on the stick.

Classically, the stick penetrates down the side of the tongue or into the tonsillar crypt at the back of the throat.

Both injuries require general anaesthesia to remove particulate material and flush and close the wounds. Even then, subsequent abscess development is not uncommon.

Walkers beware. Please.