In the morning, the old hermit left the familiar comfort and safety of the back woods and made the long and dangerous 20-minute journey into the village to purchase supplies. His two faithful companions enthusiastically joined him, as they live for adventure (and carriage rides). Despite the fact that he had meticulously researched what he needed beforehand – an arduous task, even impossible, until he found the magic browser that would work correctly with the company’s poorly thought-out website – and thus knew which aisles to search in as indicated by webpage, it still seemed to take forever to find the goods he was seeking. In point of fact, he only found borax and sugar. The third item, corn starch, could not be found in the aisle indicated by the dark corporate technology. Ah, well. The home-made ant bait would have to make do without it.
All in all, more time was spent shopping in-store than he preferred, but nonetheless he made it back outside to his sport utility carriage and two patiently waiting companions. However, as he was leaving the big box store’s parking lot, the old man spied something curious, if not uncommon in retail parking lots of rural towns. To be redundant, the hermit’s curiousity was piqued. A younger man stood in the bed of a pickup truck, with a handsome young dog standing on the toolbox behind the cab. Sunlight lit the pair with a brilliant, pretty near spiritual aura. One could almost hear the fanfare of an ancient horn section. A wire dog crate sat in the bed next to the tailgate, which was down. The old man had seen this sort of display before. Although there was no sign written on a piece of cardboard with black magic marker, it was clear that this dog was available, and the younger man was eager to make a deal.
The old man did a u-turn. Well, it was actually more of a wide lazy circle in the parking lot that brought the SUC up alongside the pickup. “Watcha got there?”, he asked, and the young man proceeded to explain in great detail how this dog was a stray who showed up at his house about ten days prior, and how he’d looked for her owners but came up empty. The younger man was earnest and had obviously made a good faith effort to get the little lost doggo home. Unable to find the owners, he and his family would have liked to have kept her, but his older dogs didn’t like her at all, demonstrating their dislike daily, complete with mean bullying. (Dogs can be jealous like that). To keep her safe from them, she’d been kept in an old goat pen. That is to say, the goat pen was old. We really don’t know if old goats were ever kept in the pen or not, and we wouldn’t want to unintentionally mislead anyone. Anyway, the little girl doggo was free to a good home, so arrangements were made to take her home and kennel her separately from the old hermit’s other dogs, at least temporarily until everyone is properly introduced and she can be fully integrated into the pack family unit.
The old hermit let me in to see her. The little girl was shy at first, but it wasn’t long before she warmed up to me and began to play with abandon, demonstrating a tremendous amount of energy and exuberance. She still has most, if not all, of her puppy teeth. She wouldn’t let me look inside her mouth, but I certainly felt them whenever her mouth found one of my hands. So, given that dogs begin to lose their puppy teeth at around 3-4 months old, she could be anywhere up to 6 months of age. Her foster dad said that she still had puppy breath when she first showed up at their house, which made him think she was only two months old. She’s a big dog for only two months but it’s possible, in which case she may grow up to be a very big dog indeed. As far as breeding goes, she definitely has much pit bull in her with her classic gray coat, but the shape of her head suggests some mixed breed influence may be going on. Not that it matters at all: we have had fantastic experiences with full-breed and mixed-breed pits. (Their negative image in the public eye is undeserved.) One more thing about her… she has gorgeous hazel eyes with a deep green component that knocks me out.
We’re excited to have a new young life join us, practically out of the blue. Now she needs a name and maybe you can come up with one for her. The only guideline is that we like giving our dogs proper names, so no suggestions along the lines of Doggie McDogface, please. Proper names that we’ve given our female dogs in the past (and therefore cannot be used again) are; Sadie, Chelsea, Misty, Crystal, Maggie, Millie, Brandie, Holly, Gracie, Reba, Bonnie, Betsy, and Greta. Oh, one other caveat: the hermit’s wife has final say in all things related to dog-naming.
Name that dog!
