Moored up below Pigeon Lock on the Oxford Canal, and leaving the Captain sitting quietly on the sheltered gas locker up the back, I was quietly drinking a coffee up the front when the boat started lurching around and there was yelling and shouting and squawking…

Rushed up the back to find a strange woman and a black Labrador on the deck. She was holding aloft a struggling large-ish scruffy terrier of some kind, which seemed to have Biggles securely in its jaws. She proceeded to throw both of them in the canal, then do her best – along with some other women – to get in my way while trying to rescue her dog: the pilings ensured no-one was climbing out under their own steam.

It’s not often I’m speechless…

Biggles frantically cat-paddled to the pilings then along them down behind a boat moored behind us, which could easily have crushed him had it moved, and I eventually managed to fish him out with some difficulty: the expression “drowned rat” springs to mind.

When I “politely” asked the women why her dog wasn’t on a lead if it was prone to charging onto occupied boats and attacking innocent cats that go out of their way not to provoke other animals, she said [1] it wasn’t her dog, she was walking it for someone else, [2] there are very few cats on the canal (when we had only remarked the other day how many we’d seen on boats) and [3] she hadn’t got a lead anyway.

It’s not often I’m speechless twice in as many minutes.

Bet neither of them were carrying dog-poop bags either…

Hosed down in the shower and dried off a bit, there doesn’t seem to be any serious damage but a close watch is called for, methinks. Can cats get Weil’s Disease?

So far, he’s just stayed asleep all day, even ignoring the heavy thunderstorms at lunchtime.