Man's Best Friend - Or in This Case: Woman's

When we lived at Shebbear we bred Irish Red Setters. Our first was Dana. She was a real character - very protective of both my husband and myself. Later she had a litter of seven puppies one of which we kept and named her Kathy. She was quite docile, and followed her mother everywhere. Amongst Dana's little foibles was the fact that she would not go through a small gap - we had to open the door or gate really wide before she would go through.

I used to take them into a farmer's field -(with his full permission) for exercise. One day I took them half Half a mile down our lane and into one field - crossed to another field through two gates and into a recently ploughed field, when I managed to slip, and fell with my right foot under me! I heard the bone crack as I landed. I yelled for help, but I was too far away for anyone to hear me, and my husband was at work so no one would come looking for me.

I started crawling on all fours. I managed to open two gates and the dogs followed me but as I kept crawling across the last field they realized something was wrong. Dana took off!!! As I had shut the road gate I expected her to stop but she just pushed her way through a very small gap alongside the gatepost. To my amusement Kathy did not follow her mother but kept running in front of me then coming back and licking my face just as if she was encouraging me to keep on going. I reached the last gate and managed to get it open and re closed. I started crawling up the lane.

Dana had run to our house but couldn't get in because the gate was closed. Our neighbour saw the dog and realized something was wrong. She let Dana into the house and sent her son in the car down the lane. He met me half-way down the lane with Kathy. I was very relieved to crawl into the car where I was promptly driven to hospital. It was discovered it was a broken ankle and had to stay in hospital over night. I never cease to be amazed at the way our two dogs behaved that afternoon. Dana lived to nearly 11 years old and Kathy had two litters of puppies. We kept two of Kathy's last litter - Dumble and Susie, Dana kept them all in their place.