‘Kayaking dog’ causes confusion in Highland village

RESIDENTS of a Highland village were stunned to look out of their windows and see a kayaking dog in the middle of a sea loch.

Rosy the retriever looked a bit hangdog as she drfited in the kayak. Picture: Contributed

Rosy the golden Labrador was sighted adrift on Loch Broom, Wester Ross, which eventually leads out to the Atlantic ocean.

A local, ironically a kayaking instructor, took photos from his window of the amazing sight and uploaded them to Facebook.

He told friends the dog “had stolen” the kayak from his neighbours.

The six-year-old pet spent half an hour on the water and was eventually returned to shore by a rescue party in a rowing boat.

Investigations eventually pointed to that perennial parental problem - bored teenagers on their summer holiday.

Rosy had been playing with her owner’s sons, Michael, 18, and Sean Obsorne, 15, at the water’s edge near the harbour in Ullapool.

At some point Rosy ended up in the kayak and being carried out to sea as the boys watched helplessly.

Will Goodall Copestake, a 24 year old outdoor instructor, posted on Facebook as the incident unfolded: “In more interesting news...my neighbour’s dog just stole his kayak and now seems to be thinking ‘this was a bad choice’....”

He later said: “The kids were mucking around and the dog just jumped in and floated out.

“It could probably have done with using a paddle.”

Owner Lisa Osborne, 56, said: “It was a beautiful day. One of the best this year.

“She was out with my sons, they were kayaking. There’s a curve to the beach, so she was heading out past the pier.

“She was out for about half an hour, sitting there solidly. She’s a very relaxed dog, she has great faith in her humans.

“They just assumed the canoe would come back in, but she just kept going.”

Michael said: “It was about 5pm, we had just come down to the beach for a bit of a play.

“We didn’t expect her to go so far, so we launched the other boat we had.

“She seemed quite relieved to be rescued - she didn’t climb into the boat straight away but she did when I told her to.

“She just sort of clambered out. I think she had been quite happy sitting there.”

He added: “She’s normally quite a lazy Labrador. She just lies about in the sun and she’s quite fond of her food.”