Happy Birthday…

To the USA, and…

 

Brownie, who is three years old.  I don’t know his actual birthday – he was adopted from the local humane society. It all started one October when there was so much trash in our yard it was time for a trip to the dump. The humane society is next to the dump and my husband made the suggestion to visit the animals and of course I want to take every one home. My dear Blackie had died some months earlier and for the first time in thirty-five years I didn’t have a dog (or three) so there was certainly room in our home for four more paws. Well at the humane society there was a littler of puppies – they had been dumped by the river with nothing to eat but grass and twigs – and one special puppy came home with me, Brownie. With his first visit to the vet his age was estimated at three to four months which meant he might have been born in July. And now to Blackie’s story – he was a stray wandering around my old neighborhood, too shy and frightened to trust anyone. A neighbor left cat food out for him and I would talk to him, but he kept his distance. My dog Kodi would stand by the fence and put his paw through – reaching out to the shy dog. I kept talking to him, Kodi was working his doggy-magic and slowly he came closer, standing in the street and watching. I was worried about what might happen to him; one day I was gardening in the front yard when a creep visiting across the street started to drive toward the black stray – until he saw me glaring at him and brandishing a shovel. The next day the dog moved closer to fence, that afternoon I open the gate and he came in. He was greeted by my dogs -  with joy by Kodi, Rollie was grouchy, as usual, and Posie was a bit snooty. Molly the cat watched from the roof. The black dog greeted his new buddies, ate his fill of food and seemed to relax, he just sighed and the tension went out. Then there was the matter of a name… He was BLACK! The only things that weren’t black were his white teeth and sweet brown eyes – so he was named Blackie. The day he walked through the gate was July 4th, which became his birthday, now that birthday has been handed down to another dear dog who was in such need of a home.