Russet

Despite loving dogs (and honestly, there are days when I prefer them to most humans), it's not my habit to trust random dogs in parks, in the vicinity of the Boy Wonder. Because while clearly no dog should be allowed off the lead in a park unless it's completely trustworthy (or at all, one could well argue), some owners are so blind to their pets' foibles that they'd look you in the face and swear that their "fur baby" was a flawless amalgam of the spirits of Toto and Lassie, who would never hurt so much as a fly, all the while you were trying to prise its teeth out of your leg.

That said, this is a red setter, a breed that sits well towards the soft and soppy end of the spectrum of dog demeanour, and I'd seen it approach enough strangers over the preceding few minutes to be confident that it was amiable. So when I saw it careering towards B, my only two real concerns were:

1. Will it knock him over? And:

2. Will I get the shot?

In my defence, by this point I could see that it was looking past the small child in its path, and was presumably heading back towards the person tasked with throwing the ball it had just retrieved. If I'd seriously thought it was going to canon into him, I'd have gone into Grandma Mode, and intervened. No, seriously. Of course I would.

Anyway, I was right about the trajectory, and no contact was made, though it passed close enough to our Boy for R and me to both assess that its front end alone was as big as he was. And though he'd stood and watched it approach with great interest and concentration, B must also have been quite impressed by its size as it whizzed past him, because a few seconds after it went by he turned to R, lifted both arms high, and commanded, "UP!"