BUYING A HOUSE IN FRANCE - BUY FRENCH PROPERTY - TALES FROM FRANCE 8

Above: Three views of the Loire, France.

THE MISSING FRENCH LABRADOR

There's no doubt that Madame is the central pillar of the community in our road, she gardens the verge opposite the houses and is always bustling about on some good deed or another for one of the neighbours.
On one of our stays in the house in France we met her one evening coming up the hill accompanied as always by her ubiquitous poodle but also by the Labrador bitch from one of the houses diagonally opposite us. She explained that the owners were away which was why she was walking their dog. One evening, later in the week, as she was a bit shaken having had a fall, we volunteered to take the Labrador for a walk for her, and duly collected the lead and went through the side gate to fetch it.

About half way round the walk, much to my embarrassment, the dog suddenly decided to hump my leg. This was somewhat surprising as it was female: clearly it was having some sort of doggy, sexual identity crisis.
Coming back up the hill at the end of the walk, we were rather taken aback when a young lady and and a youth shot out of the front door of what we had thought to be the empty house, and demanded to know what we were doing with their dog. My French quite deserted me in the heat of the moment and, to compound my embarrassment, as I was stammering away and trying to put the dog back behind the gate, it chose that moment to mount another amorous attack on my leg. Finally I managed to prise it off and we were able to explain.
The girl, the daughter of the owners of the house, had arrived back from college that day with her boyfriend for their summer holidays. Unaware of any arrangements for walking the dog, and finding her missing when they'd come out to feed her, they had been naturally surprised when two total strangers had ambled up the hill in possession of her.
Thankfully, once we had explained, they were fine. I don't think my French would have been up to proving to the Gendarmerie that we were not a pair of dog knappers.