Guide dog's revenge!

Guide dog's revenge!

 Everyone has always said that Q, my trusty guide dog has a phenomenal memory. It is true…. Once he's been somewhere even if there are several years before a second visit, he'll suddenly recognise the area and with a wag of his tail, clearly excited at recognising a place again, will pull just a bit harder on the harness and take me straight to the place we went to the first time whether I want to or not!
One of Q's many other talents is that from the very start of our relationship, he has always taken me around puddles rather than through them. I don't think he was trained to do this especially but clearly doesn't like getting his feet wet any more than I. being a bit of a shoe lover I have always especially loved him for this.

It was one particular day last week when these two talents of his came together in what I can only describe as an evil partnership. it was mid July so of course it was raining. Not too heavily when we first got off the train. Just a bit of a drizzle but the pavements were wet and it had been raining on and off most of the day. It was ok. I had on my long raincoat and we only had about twenty minutes walk to our destination. As we stopped at the pelican crossing we were one of the first there and so stood patiently for the lights to change. Suddenly a car came speeding along in the nearside lane and the next thing I knew was that Q seemed to leap backwards about three feet or so. There had been a large puddle of standing water from a blocked drain just in front of us and the car had created a sort of mini tidal wave of water which had hit q full in the face and literally soaked him from head to tail. He stood there shaking himself and looking so surprised that everyone around laughed. I was laughing a little too as I sympathized with him: "Poor Q" I chuckled and stroked his sodden head. He looked up at me, big brown eyes sadly appealing, tail down but we had to go on. "never mind" I said, "we can't get any wetter at least".
We walked on both feeling fed up and out of sorts as the rain continued to fall, slowly getting heavier and heavier.
Soon enough we were approaching our destination, a friend's house in a quiet residential street. Q stopped at the kerb of the side road before her house, as he is supposed to do. Hearing that no cars were coming I gave the familiar command: "Forward". He did . the next thing I knew I was wading, calf deep in cold water. A drain had blocked and a huge puddle of water had gathered around the other kerb. It was not just a puddle, it was a lake. My shoes instantly filled with water, my trousers dragged and wrapped themselves around my legs. It was only a couple or three steps wide but q had taken us right through the middle, deepest part of it.
To my credit I had to smile. "you little so and so" I muttered. You did that quite on purpose didn't you?" and I swear he winked at me as he turned back to enjoy the sodden results of his revenge.
Could he have walked around it safely? Absolutely! I inspected it later when we left. It would have been no problem at all. He walked around it perfectly on our return. Call me paranoid if you like but I am firmly of the opinion that his little doggy mind, having endured the indignity of being laughed at after his sudden soaking, was just waiting for an opportunity to get his own back.
Who said animals don't have a sense of humour?