WHAT is it about dogs which is so disarming? Walking in the Angel and Greyhound Meadow, in Mesopotamia or a quiet part of Shotover or Cutteslowe, I enjoy taking my time, stopping here and there to watch a bird, or examine a leaf or flower.

It drives my children to distraction, but the dog doesn’t mind at all.

Sometimes I catch sight of a roe hind, fox red, its head up, watching me, and dropping again to graze.

I enjoy ambling at my own pace, while my springer spaniel races ahead. Each to their own. That’s the beauty of a companionable dog walk.

But what’s this? Another walker. A man, no less. After a child I know was flashed at, and pursued at a running pace, it’s instant alert. I look out for other people. Is he up to no good?

Yet if the man’s walking a dog, I tend towards trust. I can relax again. He has a reason to be here. He’s got a dog – even a slavering, muzzled beast, so long as he’s at the end of a lead. There’s good in everyone. He loves his dog.

My brother-in-law, who’s no dog lover, says that on retirement, when he wants to enjoy walking in the spectacular Yorkshire countryside near his home, he’s seriously considering the pet strategy. I suppose he could substitute a ferret – or a cat. Some walk well on the lead, particularly Siamese.

“People view you with suspicion if you’re a single man out alone in a park. Yet if you have a dog… you try it. You’ll see.”

And I find he’s right. Yet dogs do reflect something of their owners. My husband says I’m growing like my dog – especially with the wild hair.

Meeting a young mother with her toddler son today in Wolfson Water Meadows, we admired one another’s dogs.

‘Yes, springers,’ she said. ‘Natural anti-depressants.’ As a child, I spent many summers riding in Dalbeattie Forest, overlooking the Solway Firth. I carried my sandwich and flask in an old hessian gas mask bag which I slung over my shoulder. I attached a headcollar loosely over the bridle so that in the quietest, most dappled part of the forest, I could leap off, take off my horse’s saddle and upend it, remove the bridle and wipe the frothy bit – sometimes in a stream – and then tether my mount to a tree on a long rope, to crop the grass at will.

I would lie with my back against a stump, watching the clouds, eating my sandwich. I listened to the birdsong, and breathed in the scent of the warm pines. It was bliss: the quiet companionship of the horse, being outdoors, the sense of mutual trust.

Riding home, I would stop by glades of wild raspberries. It was a race to see who could eat the most. My horse usually won, demolishing thorns, branch and leaves as well as the juiciest, sweetest fruit.

Walking with my dog in the Oxfordshire parks or countryside is one of the pleasures of life. Riding – well, that’s sublime.

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