A LOVELY day so decided to drive out for an evening meal.

Just through Clanville going towards Vernham Dean, we saw in the distance ahead two ladies walking on wrong side of road with three dogs chasing about all over, having a great time.

A car coming from the opposite direction had to slow down whilst the ladies gathered up their dogs. We drove on very slowly as the dogs were still loose. It was a good job we did because as we drew level one of them ran straight out in front of us. Luckily my husband has excellent reflexes.

He did an emergency stop; the brakes squealed and the car slewed across the road towards the opposite hedge.

We felt certain we’d hit the dog. By some miracle we had missed it, but it was so nearly a different story. We could have collided with something and been injured; or the little dog could have been injured or killed. We were sure we’d hit it. When we discovered it was safe, we felt very cross that these ladies had put us in this position by letting their dogs run loose on a busy through road. We told the lady the dogs should have been on leads, under control.

She said she hadn’t heard our car. That’s irrelevant.

It was her responsibility to keep her animals under control and also if she’d been following the Highway Code and walked facing oncoming traffic she would have seen us coming anyway! She apologised but we said that’s not the point — we could have hurt / killed that dog.

We are dog lovers too — if the outcome had been different we would have been devastated. Several other cars were using the road that night — this is a busy through road. I hope no one did hit them.

So, remember all dog lovers — be responsible. Always walk on the side of the road facing oncoming traffic and keep your dogs on a lead where there’s traffic about!

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