Before long Jim and Alby were at the intersection of Main and Breeden Streets. As usual, Jim took his time to get his bearings and familiarise himself with where he was. Alby stood patiently by Jim’s side, awaiting his instructions.

After a few moments, Jim gave Alby the forward command to cross the road. He was just about to do so, when he spied the cat following along behind.

Didn’t that cat know when to quit? It was driving Alby crazy. He was busy working and certainly in no mood for silly games.

He tried to stay focused and did his best to ignore the cat. The intersection could get busy very quickly, and Alby had to keep his wits about him.

But the cat was distracting him, and worse still, it was doing it on purpose – that much was clear.

It hovered a few metres behind, then zipped up in front for a bit, always close enough for Alby to be aware of its presence.

Jim and Alby were not even halfway across the intersection when a car screeched around the corner and hurtled towards them. It was going too fast to stop.

Jim gasped. He tried not to panic as the roar of the car surrounded him, but he didn’t know what to do.

Alby sensed Jim’s unease immediately. He had been taught to stop if a car approached after he had already started to cross the road, so he did. The harness enabled Jim to sense the dog’s movements and follow his lead, so he stopped too – putting all his faith in Alby.

Alby suddenly thought of the cat. Then he saw it just behind him on the road – directly in the path of the speeding car.

Alby watched in horror. There was nothing he could do. The car didn’t even slow down. It sped right past them and roared off up the road. And then all was quiet again.

Jim’s heart was thumping in his chest and his breath came in short, sharp bursts.

‘That was too close for comfort,’ he said to Alby. Then he knelt down beside him and stroked him gently on the head. ‘Great work boy.’

Jim and Alby stopped on the footpath, where they waited for several minutes. The incident with the car had really rattled Jim and put a big dent in his confidence. His guide dog instructor would have called it a ‘setback’. And the first setback was always the worst.

When he felt ready again, Jim instructed Alby to move forward to the shop. They had already lost a bit of time, and if they delayed any more, the traffic would start to get heavy. Jim didn’t fancy having to tackle rush-hour traffic on the way home, especially when his confidence was low.

Jim felt Alby hesitate, and ran his hand down Alby’s back.

‘What’s wrong boy?’ he asked softly. ‘It’s okay. The car’s gone. We’ll be fine now.’

But Alby wasn’t worried about that. He looked behind him to where he had last seen the cat. A feeling of dread began to well up in the pit of his stomach. The cat was gone.

Alby looked around, half expecting it to jump out from somewhere just to annoy him. But it didn’t. There was no sign of that cat anywhere.