Dinah and the dog

One warm, sunny summer day, a little girl called Dinah was walking along the street when she noticed a dog, a big golden Labrador, walking behind her.

Dinah didn’t think about it at first because she had seen lots of dogs before and this one didn’t seem particularly suspicious or unusual.

But then she turned the corner at the end of the street and entered another street and, peering over her shoulder, she noticed that the dog was still following her.

“How strange”, she thought.

But then Dinah had the idea that, perhaps, if she ran, she might lose the dog and so she ran as fast as she could along the street.

But, as she was running, looking back, she saw that the dog was running after her.

“Oh, now I know it really is following me”, she said, worriedly.

Just then, however, Dinah saw a big tree.

“Maybe”, she thought, “If I hide behind that tree, then the dog won’t know where I am and will stop following me”.

And so she ducked behind the tree and she waited and waited for a long time, however, when she peered out from behind the trunk of the tree again the dog was still there.

“There’s nothing else for it”, she thought, finally, “I’ve got to confront it”.

And so, coming out from behind the tree, she asked the dog why it was following her.

“Following you?”, replied the dog, “I’m not following you. You’ve got your foot caught in my lead”.

Dinah looked down and she saw that it was true, the end of her foot really was caught in the handle of the dogs lead.

“Oh, I’m so sorry”, said Dinah, embarrassed.

“That’s alright”, said the dog, panting, “Although I am very hot and tired from all that running after you”.

And so Dina bought the dog an ice cream cone, a vanilla one with raspberry syrup and a chocolate flake. She thought it was the least she could do and the dog, happily, ate it all up.

Then, waving good bye with its paw, the dog went back home to its kennel but after that day, Dinah and the dog had  many more long walks together and became the very best of friends.