Going Walkabout

For unknown reasons, Otty and Leda have started wandering straight down the driveway and taking a little stroll to the village. It's kind of strange only because their usual route to run away involves going up back to scavenge for delicious rotting deer carcasses. But now they seem to want to mingle freely with the civilized people. Maybe they want to get coffee and a cookie at the market instead of tainted meat?

ANYWAY.

They have done this twice in the last few days. The first time, I didn't even know they were gone until an acquaintance of the MiL's pulled up in front of the house and let the two dogs out of her car. She had found them nearly at the market and, knowing whose dogs they were because she actually bought Leda's brother from the MiL, she loaded them in her car and brought them home.

Yesterday we got a call from a lady in the village to tell us the dogs were frolicking on her front lawn. The MiL went to retrieve them.

It's a little embarrassing to get calls like this (or visits from people delivering your dogs), but I have to say that one of the benefits of a small community where everyone knows everyone is that everyone also knows the collies. So they're never really lost, just temporarily misplaced until a neighbor calls to report their whereabouts.

It takes a village to keep track of errant collies.