Everyone needs a camping dog, and here he is! Rocket.  A Cocker Spaniel. He's fast, has a soft, cuddly face, and a funny fringe on top that looks like it's been highlighted. He's a little delight but also causes chaos. As the name suggests, he's also 1000 miles an hour 🚀 
I'm sure the owner, Anna, wouldn't mind me saying so.  

He lives his best doggie life by bounding from field to field when he's let off the leash.  One of his favourite things is jumping through cornfields; you can see the top of his head bounding up and down for a split second before reappearing elsewhere. You do need eyes at the back of your head to spot him. Anna often shouts at him to come back if he strays too far; at first, he will pretend to ignore the calls. Then it looks like he will return to the owner and be a good boy, but he doesn't; he slows down and flies off again at full speed with an annoyed Anna.
 
If dogs could smile, he would always smile; his doggy mindset is "What possible adventures can I go on?" "what chaos can I cause today?" "what shoes could I pinch that I could run off with as soon as the owner backturned?" "And live your best doggie life." 

He Pinches everything and runs off! 

Rocket, the dog, has pinched one of my shoes on more than one occasion. I mistakenly took them off, as you do naturally when visiting someone's house.  Shoes are often gone in a split second, and if the back door for the garden is open, he will be gone in an instant with a game of shoe hide and seek! He will drop it off in the most challenging place possible, often a hiding place where the last place you would look. 

One morning, I woke up after staying at my cousin's house, a little jaded after a few beers from the night before for a summer festival in one of the pubs. The last thing I wanted to do was walk around the garden in flip-flops, trying to find one of my trainers. After about an hour, I eventually found it. 

Rocket had put it behind the summer house at the furthest point in the corner. The low-hanging branches and trees make it almost impossible to crawl around the back.  I had to crawl on my hands and knees and found it hidden in a freshly dug-out hole.  I cursed a lot as I had now been cut up from trees and branches, but at least I saw it. This dog knows exactly what he's doing and loves it! 

A Camping Buddy

Rocket is a camping regular when my cousin and I go away from place to place in our camping adventures or often with our group of friends, which we have made throughout the year through different camping groups.  He is highly loved, keeping everyone entertained.   The only time I saw Rocket a little quiet and sorry for himself was right up the top of Pen Y Fan.  He bounded up the hills for most of the day, charging around like the mad dog that he is and almost taking fellow walkers' legs out in the process. (He HAS taken my legs out on a different trip to the New Forrest. He ran into me from behind at full pelt as he wasn't looking where he was going, and I thought a pushbike had hit me.)
 
However, right at the top of Pen Y Fan, the good old British weather changed, bringing in all the seasons of snow, wind, and rain.  He stayed close to Anna, shaking like a leaf because he was too cold and maybe frightened.  He also looked like a drowned rat.  No worries, Anna had a lovely warm doggy coat to cover him up, and eventually, when he warmed up, he started bounding around the hills again.  He never ran out of energy.

Carnage Dog

We will now fast forward to the camping trip, and it will always be one of our favourite camping memories or Rocket.  Anna went away with friends in the New Forest on a Friday night with friends, bringing Rocket with her.  I was due to go away on Friday with her, but I'd double booked a comedy night, so I said I would join her on Saturday afternoon.  Little did I know the next less than 24 hours of my short stay would also be comedy. Comedy Gold even.
 
Saturday night, Anna's friends who were left (it was a large group the night before) were mostly hungover and quiet. Or they had cut all losses and decided to go home to their warm bed because they were also primarily tired and hungover. This had to be a heavy night.  So when I arrived on a Saturday night, the mood was pretty quiet.  All except Rocket was lying on Anna's bed but decided to jump off and run around.

Rocket decided to grab a dog toy, run to the opposite side of the field, and run inside a large tent where a family had been staying. However, they weren't there then, probably having their nice evening meal somewhere. He ran inside their tent with a toy, which, as you can imagine, was soaking wet from Doggy's saliva. I left it on someone's pillow like a prize and ran out. We laughed at what had happened, and I said, "I would be fuming if I came back to my tent for the night, ready for a nice sleep, got into my sleeping bag and lay my head on a soaking dog toy!" I don't know if the toy was ever found or just left, but we got told about it by one of the campsite kids who saw it happen! But anyway, no one wanted to investigate. 

The following day, I had a good restful sleep and decided to get up and sit in the sun with my morning cuppa, laying in the chair living the dream with my sunglasses on and drifting in and out of Sunday morning snooze at 8 am—the campsite dream. Rocket had been let out of the van by Anna, and after he was done his morning wee, she tied his dog lead to a significant dog stake, which looked like a giant metal corkscrew with a spikey end. Anna returned to her duvet, and I snoozed, but I could hear some kids playing in the background. 

The kids pulled the stake out of the ground to play with Rocket. But just as I woke up, I still sat with my cuppa. I could now see a terrified Rocket charging across the field with a giant metal stake chasing him. He ran to the same tent set up from the night before; this time, a large family out eating breakfast sat down underneath a Gazebo.

 I heard screaming and utter chaos as Rocket had taken out one of the Gazebo poles and tangled himself up around it. In turn, the Gazebo collapsed, and the family started running out. I was still sitting in half a daze and had to question myself: did what I just witnessed happen? My suspicions were confirmed when I saw Anna running across the field in her Pyjamas, screaming at the top of her lungs. Shouting ROCKET!!!!! And naturally, I thought this was brilliant. Absolute. Comedy gold. (I would have changed my tune if Rocket had speared a small child with a dog stake) but everyone was otherwise luckily safe. 

The family were foreign, and Anna had tried talking to them, being very apologetic. She was over at the tents for a while, and some long chats were happening. Eventually, Anna returned to where I was sitting, very flustered and worried. "She said maybe we should get out of here; Rocket could have killed someone!" And all I could think of what to say to her was: 

"Explain that to the police."