not a distress signal, but a warning

Having only passed swiftly by on bicycle and once or twice on foot at night when completely losing my bearings when attempting to escape Leith but avoid Easter Road I had what fortunately appears to be a slightly wrong impression of Leith Links. Far from being the violence-ridden micro-motorbike-disrupted dogshite-field I had perceived it to be it's seemingly a reasonably peaceful Meadows-sized expanse of grassy pleasantness with pleasant amounts of big old trees. There are more dogs at more times of day than on the Meadows and also bigger and more vicious dogs more often not on a lead but more paths to escape them on. Items such as this are mildly concerning, though. Initially it looked as if it might have been shot with a shotgun, though might equally have been chewed to buggery by some sort of especially large and vicious dog, or even a particularly large and vicious ned. I was mildly pleased to note that despite my disinclination to go near any of the passing dogs I found myself interposing myself between any passing unchained (or otherwise insufficiently-controlled) dogs and the wingpiglet's conveyance, propelled proprietorially by its grandparents. Whilst allowing him to pick up any of our weird fears and foibles through observation and mimickry the fear of dogs is entirely rational and something I rather hope he picks up for his own benefit.