the power of pets
Picking up my kit, I turned round to see a pair of soulful eyes looking beseechingly at me.
I bent down to stroke the head of my Boxer, Megabyte, and walked towards the door.
But as I went to leave, I saw that her sad eyes were still following me. “I know you want to come with me,” I said. “But you can’t.”
Soon I was striding towards a mountain. Two-and-a-half hours later I stood at the peak, checked my paragliding kit and launched myself into the air.
Soaring like a bird, the wind buffeted my cheeks as I looked far below to the tiny houses in the village beneath.
One of them was my house, nestling in the valley at the bottom of the Alps.
At the age of 30, spurred on by my love of hang-gliding and paragliding, I’d left Surrey in 1986 to move to south-east France to live in Haute-Savoie with my family.
My daughter and son had been born in England, and I gave birth to another girl in France. My dad When Corinne Dhenin, 68, decided to involve her dog in her aerial hobby, her neighbours thought she was barking mad had been air marshall in the Royal Air Force – flying was in my blood – and my mum was French.
Guiding myself expertly, I landed just outside my garden.
As soon as I walked through the door, I was greeted enthusiastically by Megabyte.
I thought it was such a shame that she couldn’t experience the same exhilaration I felt as I soared above the valley.
But one day when I was paragliding, I spotted another glider holding something in a harness. A Dalmatian!
And on another trip, I saw a Yorkshire terrier sailing through the air strapped to its paragliding owner.
It made me think…
I ran the idea past a friend of mine, but she laughed.
“Don’t be silly. You can’t take a dog paragliding.”
But, undaunted, I went to a harness manufacturer and explained what I wanted.
“Is that possible?” I asked, telling him that two-year-old Megabyte was a heavy dog.
He nodded.
And weeks later, Megabyte looked at me quizzically as I strapped her carefully in with me, attaching her sideways at chest level to my body.
I’d chosen a 20-metre hill as an initial test run with her.
Stroking her head softly, I began to run towards the edge of hill – not easy with a 4st dog strapped to me!
Feeling the familiar pull of the wing above me, I continued to stroke her head and spoke soothingly as we lifted up into the air and over the edge.
I was worried about how she’d react, but she didn’t flinch. She seemed completely unfazed by it all, only moving her head occasionally to take in the sights.
