It has taken three weeks to sit down and write this post. Django bolted. Gone into the darkening evening and out of sight. Where I stand, the road forks in three directions and I have long since lost sight of him. Leica is stumbling as we go, our attempts to follow  this far have been too much for her, she is unsteady and clearly in distress. I have to leave him out here and head back to the car which is maybe a mile or more away.  As we turn away KiKi is scenting the air and I want to believe that she senses which way he has gone, but the road she is straining towards leads out into open country and is unlit. I flag down as many passing cars as I can and ask that people look out for him, I try to call the local radio station but get no answer, as my phone battery drains I put a message on a local Facebook ‘Pets Lost & Found’ page and call around some other people for help, but everybody I can think of is out of town. In the dark, we turn back without him. Since he first came to stay we were always cautious that, Like KiKi before him, he has no real sense of his wider surroundings beyond the routine of the locations we choose. We tend to keep him close by, or as close by as you might reasonably hope for with a two year old Dalmatian. We have remained cautious in terms of when we allow him to run off leash. He has shown himself to be unsettled in traffic so as yet we have put aside our need to familiarise him with how to negotiate roads and vehicles.  To date his recall has been remarkably good albeit with the use of many, many biscuit treats. When it fails however, it usually fails in a big way. A lesson we first learned when, aided and abetted by KiKi his partner in mischief, he crawled under a fence and decided to try his luck at rounding up donkeys. Tonight though, it was his enthusiasm for play which brought us here. A straying dog in the trees attracted Django’s interest and, as the dog moved off, he followed. At first he was no more than ten feet, then twenty feet away but getting him back on his lead proved impossible. Once again, Django’s over-excited behaviour with a strange dog prompted KiKi to try to chase the dog away and left me unable to grab him while keeping her from getting too close. Each time the dog moved further away, Django looked back towards me, sometimes even coming closer as if he understood that I really did want him back on his leash, before returning to his new playmate. The gate which marks the boundary between the river and the park is usually closed and I’m pretty certain that under normal circumstances it would slow his progress long enough for me to get him back under control, but the gate has been tied back by some canoeists making their way down to the river. The straying dog runs through the gate and he follows suit. Now he’s in the open parkland and there are no more gates between him and the road some 200 yards away. I try to follow, but each attempt to catch him sees him further away. Leica is falling behind and I can’t leave her here even if I imagine myself quick enough to outpace Django. Eventually the straying dog decides that Django’s boisterous interaction is too much and races off up the rise out of sight towards the park gates and the road beyond. For a moment Django hesitates, looking at me, then he’s gone, out of the open gates onto the road and into the passing traffic. I know now I won’t be able to catch him while I have the other dogs in tow, but while I can still see him, I’m determined to follow as best I can hoping he turns back when he becomes bored with his new companion. The stray and Django run on, cars barely slowing to avoid them, far less stopping to offer any help as I call frantically and blow the whistle he normally responds to. I can barely see him at this distance, but I think I see the other dog dart off into a garden while Django stops suddenly, baffled by the realisation that he is alone and has no idea where he is, and then he bolts again.
Making our way back to the car my heart sinks as it occurs to me that should he turn back when he realises he can no longer hear or see us, even if he tracks our scent back to the park where this all started, by car I must follow a different route leaving me uncertain as to whether he is ahead of us or behind. I make my way back to the point where the roads diverge. I leave the car at the intersection where I last sighted him and search the nearby gardens, head down each of the three roads in turn, further each time, listening for any sound that may give away his whereabouts. A few dogs bark here and there and I find myself hoping that Django has discovered a new playmate and that I will soon find him happy and unaware of the anxiety he has caused. The barks all die away. Darkness. I have nothing left, I set off on foot along the road that KiKi had wanted to follow earlier. A car approaches and the driver calls out to ask if I’m looking for a dog. I explain the situation and he turns his car around, I follow him out into the countryside. Two miles along the narrow road he pulls up and sets his car headlights on full beam. Django sits trembling on the doorstep of a house by the side of the road.