I am a big fan of letting Betty choose to go where she wants on walks.  From our front door, she can choose about 12 different routes. This morning, my aim was to buy a paper (yes, I am one of the remaining hard copy readers), and I can pretty much buy a paper from three different shops so I let Betty choose the route.  She chose to go along Eversleigh Road which works well as the best stocked shop in the world is at the end.  I didn’t have any place to be in a hurry so she set the pace as well.  She loves a proper mooch in the morning to check out who has been along the road before her, who has dropped what litter and where the big ginger Tom that doesn’t give a stuff about Betty is sitting today.  The ginger tom lives on the sunny side of the road so we set off that side.  We must have been slightly later than usual as he wasn’t in his usual bed (window box filled with lavender, but with a massive, cat-shaped dug out in the middle).  She then decided that it was already too hot on that side, so changed sides of the road.  This tickles me as I love that she has worked this out.  It is said that dogs have the same intellect as toddlers.  I think that is doing dogs a great disservice.