“I become aware of shouts from a field to the west of me”
In her weekly column, Maddie Grigg shares tales from her life in rural Dorset . . .
MR GRIGG and I are out and about in the glorious Dorset countryside with Arty the dog, enjoying the open air. There’s no sheep around, so she’s off the lead. She’s having the time of her life.
“This is just such a lovely part of the world,” I say, evidently to myself, as Mr Grigg is lagging behind. Admiring the scenery, no doubt.
I walk along the edge of a large pond where a raft of ducks is paddling around in the middle. Arty spots them and descends down the bank into the water, with a big splash.
She’s up and down, up and down, ploughing a V-shaped furrow on the surface. She’s got webbed feet, this Korthals Griffon of mine, and swims like a mermaid.
As she gets closer to the ducks, the birds flap their wings and fly off. They land a few yards away but in the other direction. Arty turns her tail, which acts like a rudder, and does doggy paddle to reach them again.
This happens over and over. Arty is beginning to tire, so I call her. Then I hear Mr Grigg calling her from the other side of the pond.
I don’t see her after that, so I assume all is well as I focus my camera on a rather nice group of trees with rolling fields in the foreground and a clear blue sky above.
Landscape photography is one of my hobbies. I’m not particularly good at it, but I like to try to capture what makes Dorset so special.
I become aware of shouts from what I think is a field to the west of me. It must be something to do with how the fields are channelling the echo, as I soon realise the sound is coming from the east.
The words are difficult to make out, but they’re not getting any quieter.
After about a minute, I clearly hear the word “Help!”
Then it dawns on me that it’s Mr Grigg and he’s in trouble.
I double back on myself and jog along the bank of the pond. Up ahead, I can see someone administering what appears to be a hip flask to my husband and there’s a woolly carpet right next to him. It’s my dog.
I burst into a run. Mr Grigg is sitting on the bank, looking put out and red-faced. But I can see he is revitalised as he sips on a wee dram. He is fine, but my poor Arty is panting and is in distress.
Kneeling down next to her, I stroke her and say soothing words of encouragement.
“You’re all right, girl,” I say. “You’ll be all right.”
It takes a while, but her breathing slowly becomes more measured and as it should be.
“What happened?” I say to Mr Grigg, who is now on his second wee dram, thanks to a kind stranger who just happened to be passing.
“Well,” the stranger says, not allowing Mr Grigg to get a word in edgeways (which is quite a feat, I can tell you). “I was walking through the fields when I heard shouting. I rushed to the pond to find this man struggling out of the water with the dog in his arms.”
It transpires that Arty, in her tired state, ended up stranded in reeds then became trapped by weed wrapped around her legs. My husband – my brave husband – went in to save her and ended up shattered on the bank.
It could all have ended so differently and I thank goodness for small mercies.
Arty, now fully revived, turns to her master and gives him a lick of thanks all over his face. I don’t exactly repeat her actions, but I can’t thank him enough. I’d be lost without the pair of them. n