Our deep summer days are patterned with high humidity levels, heat ranging from the tolerable to the extremes of high, but unfailingly, thank heavens, rain events regularly on tap now, we also receive sufficient wind to impress us with at the very least, the illusion of relief. All the more so when we're in shaded areas.

As we invariably are, in the ravine with its broad tree-masted, leaf-heavy canopy overhead. Yesterday during our ravine ramble we came across a couple we've known well for the last few years, with their three very obedient sibling-litter of three border collies, whom our two little poodles rush over to see whenever we happen to meet-and-greet. They were with an unfamiliar older woman and two children, a boy of about eight and a girl a few years younger, obviously siblings.

The children made much of our little dogs, pleased to be licked by them, their excited pop-up antics of great amusement to the children. Border collies are, understandably, as intelligent working dogs, far more restrained in their social temperament. The woman with the children was upset at an encounter she'd had just a few minutes earlier with a woman she described as young and irresponsible.

That woman was walking three 'large' dogs, she said, roaming free and looking somewhat threatening, so she called out to the other woman to ask her to gather in her dogs because of the children in her own care. The young woman simply ignored her, while it was the older woman with the children who gathered them close, feeling exposed and vulnerable and responsible for the welfare of the children, and hoping the dogs wouldn't gallop over.

Our friends said they'd seen the group on a number of previous occasions, and the young woman never acknowledges the presence of others; neither people nor dogs. If spoken to she will not respond. And, they said, it is Doberman Pinschers she walks, so they themselves tend to give them wide berth hoping like the woman with the children that the Dobermans won't approach their own. They'd had a bad experience with one of their Border collies just two weeks ago when it was attacked by a pair of Chows being walked in the ravine. That, the third of their Border collies, is still recovering, its wounds healing.

Jackie, bottom left, excited at seeing his friends, the Border collies

As it happened, after we parted, sensitive to the possibility we might run into the young woman with her questionable pack of dogs, we were cautious, ensuring that Jackie and Jillie remained fairly close to us, but we always ensure that they don't venture too far from us, and they're always in close eyesight. We didn't come across the four, and for the most part we've been fairly fortunate that we haven't ourselves run into any really aggressive and threatening dogs in situations that we weren't able to handle, but it is surprising how many people are oblivious to their obligations to others around them to make certain people don't feel threatened by their canine companions.

Otherwise, it was a beautiful, sunny day, with a great breeze, just beginning to become really hot and humid.