Day 66 It’s a Dog’s Life

When we started out this morning I had already noticed a dog darting across the road, enjoying exploring. And as we started walking he followed us. We kept expecting him to turn around at some point, but he didn’t.

We were on a busy road but clearly he had respect for the cars. As we made a turn we noticed a couple of workers and asked if they had any idea who the dog belongs to? They did not.

The turn had us going up a steep ascent. The dog ran circles around us as we climbed. Again we kept expecting him to head back home. He did not. We noticed on his bright green collar there was a number. But as much as he wanted to walk with us he wouldn’t let us close.

When we got to the top of the hill we called the owner of the place where we stayed last night and asked if she knew. Nope. So Noël said if anyone comes in looking for a dog he is with us.

On the downside of the hill we were coming toward a house and a little jack Russel terrier came towards us. Our new canine companion stopped in front of us and did not move. Noël was able to get the phone number off his collar. The owner was so happy to hear from us. We were 2,5 kms away so he said that he would be there in 5 minutes.

Two other pilgrims passed us and all of the sudden the dog took off. Noël ran after them and the dog asking them to not go farther. The dog headed towards a busy road, but then we noticed he jumped into a van, the van of his owner. Whew. That was a very exciting start to the day.

The rest of the day was filled with ascents and descents and no open cafes. We met a couple who are walking from Le Puy to Conques and had a nice conversation. There was a dry and covered picnic table along the way so we had a little snack.

One other thing…with less than 5 kms to go we were making our way up a very steep incline when a four wheeler came down. We moved out of the way. Not a lot of room to get out of the way. We continued only to hear him coming back up and there was nowhere to move. And he got stuck for a minute which allowed us to scurry up the hill much faster then we wanted to go. Oh well.