At this point, my cavalier legged it 100m past the police, past the youths, over to the youths' car, then inside it.
A policeman returned the dog to me.
Another thing I've noticed about my cavalier. If I put herself and my cocker outside for a few hours,
Two thoughts: Very advisable to always have puppies on a lead. The alternative scenario here could have been, puppy legs it 100 meters and car comes in and runs over pup. Cavaliers generally have no road sense (nor does any dog with any level of reliability, but cavaliers are particularly bad as part of their breed description is to be fearless, and they truly do not have any sense that a car would kill them). Puppies as well can bolt and that's it, you won't see them again.
Second is -- I hate to keep stressing this, but it is so important -- a few hours alone in a garden is really not suitable, ever, for a cavalier (that is why she keeps looking back at the house -- and wondering why she is outside). t's fine to put them out maybe to have a run around or with door open while you are there so she can come in and out, but no puppy should be out for several hours like this and especially not a cavalier. This is also particularly risky with two puppies left like this for a few reasons. Setting aside the issues of the rash of stolen dogs across Ireland in the past year, this is leaving two puppies to form bonds that are closer than they will ever form with you. That can lead to some very difficult behaviour problems as they grow to adulthood. I'd really recommend reading through these suggested approaches to raising two puppies together, and reconsider leaving them out in a garden for such long stretches. Cavaliers simply are not outside dogs -- every one of the behaviour-problem cavaliers I've had come into rescue were dogs left outside for most of the day by well intentioned people who didn;t understad this about this breed in particular. Tara helped me in homing these dogs after she assessed them, but they had guarding and aggression issues amongst other things and had to be specially homed to people who could work with them, to homes without children to be safe.
http://www.cavaliertalk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1956
Having two requires a considerable extra effort of care to train each separately and not give them huge amounts of time together, or especially, alone together for long stretches as puppies, when they really need to clearly have their primary bond go to their owners, not to each other.
Tara and Lisa have a good example of the problems that come with two puppies raised together in their training classes (where I have seen the difficulties they are trying to work through with these dogs). They are so closely bonded that training them has been a challenge; they constantly look to each other rather than at their owner/handlers; they cannot be separated for any reason, even out of sight of each other, or they have severe separation anxiety; they only pay attention when it suits them. The work needs to be done in the first year to make sure this doesn't happen.