I never minded dogs. When I left Mrs Lindsay’s sewing factory, I limped away, biting my lip at the pain in my thigh. Mrs Lindsay had shoved the needle in deep, so I was scared to extract it in case it bled faster than I could control. It was a dog who discovered me whimpering under a hedge, beside a farm road, with my thin dress little protection against the spring wind.
The dog’s nose was cold on my leg as it sniffled at me. I looked into its deep brown eyes and knew I was in no danger. I was never afraid of animals. They were honest creatures, except foxes, which killed for fun, and cats that played with their prey. Dogs either liked you, or didn’t, and did not pretend otherwise. Kept dogs followed the character of their humans, so a decent human had a decent dog.
This dog was a cross
