Mr Dog and the Seal Deal. Ben Fogle

dark round eyes, and whiskers that went in all directions.

      ‘Goodness,’ Mr Dog woofed quietly, ‘that’s a real seal if ever I saw one – which I haven’t until this moment!’

      The seal looked up at the gull. ‘No news of Ditzy, I suppose?’

      The gull shook his head. ‘No one’s seen Ditzy around here. Not for a long time.’

      Ditzy? Mr Dog twitched an ear. Who’s Ditzy, I wonder?

      ‘I really hope someone finds her,’ said the seal glumly. Then its head plopped back beneath the water, the gull flew away and John Tregeen was holding out another crunchy snack.

      Taking no chances this time, Mr Dog scampered over on his hind legs and snaffled the treat straight from the skipper’s hand. ‘People often tell me I take the biscuit,’ Mr Dog panted happily, sitting back down. ‘And they’re right!’

      John slowed the engine to a throaty put-put-put as the boat neared the jetty. Sadiq jumped aboard to secure the craft while the other man began to unload crates of fish. John and his friends would take the haul to market now, so restaurants could stock up for the evening with fresh cod and flounder. With a bark of farewell, Mr Dog jumped on to the jetty and left them to it, weaving his way through holidaymakers heading for the beach.

      ‘It’s a splendid afternoon for cleaning up the sand,’ he declared, ‘and since the “Mister” in my name is almost certainly short for “Never missed a chance to help”, I’d better join in!’

      As he trotted along, Mr Dog noticed the statue of a large one-eyed seal that stood – or lay – on a rock across the harbour. Mr Dog had heard that this celebrated character had lived for years on a nearby island and had regularly entered the harbour to entertain the tourists. Seals seemed to be well loved around these parts. But who or what was the mysterious Ditzy – and where had Ditzy gone?

      Just then, Mr Dog caught sight of a gannet plunging from the sky like a javelin into the harbour; perhaps it had spotted a fish that had been thrown back in the water from one of the boats? There was a younger gannet, her wings not yet as pure white as her mother’s, pecking and paddling in the creamy shallow wash where the tide met the beach. Mr Dog frowned to see the rubbish in the water there, not yet collected.

      Suddenly, Mr Dog saw the young gannet shake her head wildly and hop about in distress. He could see that there was something caught in her beak – something she couldn’t shift.

      Mr Dog gasped. The gannet had swallowed part of a plastic bag – and now it was stuck in her throat!

       Chapter Two

       TO THE RESCUE!

      ‘Hold on, young bird!’ called Mr Dog.

      The gannet was too busy choking to fly away as Mr Dog ran up. Carefully, he gripped the wisp of white plastic with the tips of his teeth and tugged it out from the gannet’s beak. Phew! The bird could breathe again!

      ‘Puh!’ Mr Dog spat the bit of bag out on to the wet sand. ‘How unpleasant.’

      The adult gannet appeared with a warning cry, hissing and waving her wings to scare Mr Dog away from her child.

      ‘No need for alarm!’ Mr Dog protested. ‘I was helping your little one.’

      The young gannet nodded quickly. ‘It’s true!’

      Mr Dog held down the bit of bag with a paw. ‘This perishing plastic is a proper peril, isn’t it?’

      The mother gannet sighed. ‘There’s so much of it. And when the river flooded a while back it seemed to get much worse.’

      ‘Oh?’ Mr Dog raised a shaggy eyebrow. ‘Why’s that?’

      ‘Search me,’ said the gannet.

      ‘I thought that bit of bag was a fish,’ said the young bird sadly. ‘I got mixed up.’

      ‘Easily done,’ Mr Dog assured her. ‘Now, I’m going to help these young humans clean up the place so it can’t happen again.’

      The mother gannet looked at him. ‘You are a kind dog. I wish I could help you in return.’

      ‘Hmm, perhaps you can,’ said Mr Dog. ‘Do you know anything about someone called Ditzy?’

      ‘Ditzy!’ the young gannet piped up. ‘She’s a seal!’

      ‘A very friendly and popular seal,’ the mother gannet agreed. ‘She used to show off in the harbour every day … then one day, a couple of months ago, she disappeared.’

      ‘And no one has spotted her since?’ mused Mr Dog.

      The mother gannet jabbed her beak back towards the estuary where a river spilled into the harbour. ‘Well, last week, some seabirds I know said they’d seen a small dark seal swimming inland, up the river. But that doesn’t sound like Ditzy. Ditzy was big and grey with darker spots on her face and neck.’

      ‘It was probably just a dog they saw,’ the young gannet said.

      ‘Just a dog?’ Mr Dog pretended to look scandalised.

      ‘Everyone here misses Ditzy,’ the mother went on, ‘including us birds. A lot of tourists came here just to see her, and we would enjoy the food they left behind.’

      ‘I would love to find her,’ said Mr Dog. ‘I do enjoy a mystery, you know. Why, the “Mister” part of my name is short for “mystery”!’

      ‘Is it really?’ asked the young gannet.

      ‘Maybe.’ Mr Dog’s jaws widened in a doggy grin. ‘That’s a mystery too.’ He looked across the beach as two girls with buckets headed their way. ‘It seems we have company – clean-up company! I must help them tidy this beach before there are any more accidents.’

      ‘Well, thank you again, Mr Dog!’ said the mother gannet and, with a screech and a stretch of wings, the gannet and her youngster took off into the sky.

      Mr Dog picked up the strip of white plastic with his teeth, padded across the golden sand to the children and placed it carefully into the older girl’s bucket.

      ‘Clever boy!’ the girl said, grinning. ‘You’re Mr Tregeen’s new dog, aren’t you?’

      You’re almost right, thought Mr Dog with a woof. Mr Tregeen’s my new person!

      ‘Do you think he’s a hunting dog?’ the girl’s friend wondered. ‘If he is, maybe he could find Ditzy.’

      ‘I wish someone would.’ The girl shrugged sadly, and they walked away to pick up some more rubbish. ‘The harbour simply isn’t the same without Ditzy splashing about …’

      More locals missing Ditzy, thought Mr Dog, watching them go. That girl called me clever, which is quite true … But am I clever enough to solve the mystery of the missing seal? He paddedver to a plastic coffee-cup lid and picked it up in his teeth. I suppose there’s only one way to find out. Once this clean-up is out of the way, it’s time for an adventure!

      That summer evening, as the blue sky drifted into grey, Mr Dog lay in the ramshackle old kennel in John Tregeen’s garden. He’d worked hard on the beach, enjoyed a delicious meal