Lost & Found

Gus Silber Shares a Tale of a Little Dog Who Lost Its Way, but Got a Free Walk to Make Up for It

- Gus Silber

It was a nice, mild, sunny day in Joburg – it almost always is – so we decided to take Pinky for a walk at Emmarentia Dam. As it turned out, a lot of dogs had the same idea. There were hounds bounding around all over the place, waggily greeting each other, dashing after tennis balls, splashing on the water’s edge.

As we ambled by the lillied dapples, where ducks floated, quacking, a ball of wool hurtled past us, in the shape of a dog. I watched it whir into the distance, with all four paws in the air, and then, a minute or so later, it whirred past again, in the opposite direction.

It stopped, turning its head from side to side, little pink tongue lolling in a wiry mass of curls. It looked to me, by breed, to be a small scruffy dog, distantly related, perhaps, to the poodles that once roamed the wild steppes of Siberia. But Amanda had other ideas.