Some adventures involving Eli

The approaching dog is one of those goofy, tongue-out, tail-rotating, ramble-in-the-creek and pee-on-the-stick lab crosses.
He is accompanied by a young woman who, as they approach, calls out reassuringly, “It’s OK: he’s friendly!”
By now I’ve got Eli sitting on the side of the trail, and I’m stroking his throat. “Good boy, Eli. It’s OK; just relax,” and then, “sit!” as the lab gambols closer.
“He’ll probably nip if your dog comes too close,” I say to her, just before Eli snarls and tries to jump up to do just that. But I have hold of him. He’s not going anywhere.
The woman calls the lab to her, as I explain, “He gets paranoid when he’s on the leash, but I can’t let him off because he’d probably take off.”
“Sorry,” she says.
“No harm done. Sit, Eli.” He does.
Then they’re past, and Eli, following his nose, leads me up the trail, cool as if the confrontation had never happened.

We meet several other dogs before the end of our walk but a couple are leashed and none of them approach. Eli doesn’t so much as raise a hair.

Then, when we’re nearly back at the car, we overtake a man walking two large black and brown spaniels. They’re running back and forth across the road. One of them spots us; Eli goes into his stalking crouch as we catch up to them. When I let him off the leash, he takes of like a rocket, shooting past them and off the trail into the bush, the spaniels in hot pursuit. They flash back and forth across the road, looping through the undergrowth each time. There’s no way the spaniels can keep up.
“Is he a puppy?” the man asks.
“No, he’s at least five,” I say. “He just loves running.”
A little later we’re well past , and I put Eli back on the leash so he can lead me to where the car is parked.

Eli has an impeccable sense of where the good stuff lies.
In December he and I were up near the Island Highway when he went for a ramble in the woods and then just disappeared. I walked all the way back to the car, then most of the way back to where I’d last seen him, then drove to his house and mine, and finally spotted him, about an hour later, ambling along Dogwood near where I’d been parked. He smelled of dead stuff, and consequently got hosed when I returned him home.
So it wasn’t as much of a surprise as it could have been when, about a month later, he once again disappeared in the same general area. This time he was gone for a somewhat shorter time, but it was still over an hour of much calling and searching (I’d just decided to let him find his own way home) before he came streaking down the trail to where the car was parked. This time he hadn’t rolled in it, at least.

So these days he walks on the leash.