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| Gracie @ Home |
Yep, we got a dog! I don't think I'd write anything about Gracie if the circumstances hadn't been so uncanny and if her behavior hadn't been so remarkable. Here's what happened... starting from the beginning.
By saying starting from the beginning, I mean starting at least several years ago. And by several, I mean longer than six or seven years ago. I don't mean the 'several' that so many incorrectly translate as meaning three, four or even five. That's just a few.
Anyway, T and I started talking about getting a dog not that long after we married, 10-years ago this year. The rub was, we had a list as long as our arms why NOT to get a dog. We don't have a fenced yard, we like to travel, dogs shed, puppies chew, the dogs we want are expensive (I wanted a Bassett Hound & T wanted a West Highland Terrier,) etc, etc.
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| Gracie on the Porch |
Absolutely none of those reasons mattered because we didn't go looking for Gracie. Gracie just showed up like she was saying, "Here I am and I'm staying with y'all."
Seriously, that's exactly how it happened and Gracie checked off just about every 'box' (obviously, she's not a Basset or a Westie) we had when it came to why we couldn't or shouldn't have a dog at this point.
Gracie Day 1: We came home from a normal day working at the ranch. We pulled into our drive and....
Teresa: "Don't look now but there's a dog on our porch."
Me: "What? Where? Uh oh. Okay, let's see if it's friendly. Be careful."
Notice how Teresa says 'she' and I say 'it.' T calls all animals from fish to elephants as 'she.' She, Teresa that is, always has.
Teresa: "She's just a puppy. She's fine."
Me: "Terrific."
Turns out Gracie, but just called dog at this point, was just a puppy and she was just fine and she was just very thirsty and very hungry. So we watered & fed her leftovers. As I remember it, the dog really enjoyed leftover meatloaf. Who wouldn't right? 😃 We did absolutely NOTHING to encourage or discourage her from staying or leaving.
Day 2: It's about 7:45am and I'm leaving for the ranch. I walked out the front door to walk to my truck and that's when she bounded from the back side of the house. Gracie, still called dog at this point, had spent the night with us.
All this started about two weeks ago. So, my precise recollection is a little fuzzy. The bottom line is/was Gracie, dog, stayed a second night. We still didn't encourage or discourage her. She drank clean water and our leftovers for her supper. There's no doubt she liked our spinach stuffed chicken.😉
Day 3: We got up and she was STILL at our house. So at that point, we began thinking that she had to belong to someone. She was absolutely the most docile, sweet young dog that I could remember. She didn't have a collar (Note: In the top picture Gracie has a collar but that's a recent photo, not from the beginning,) but it was very obvious that someone had spend a lot of time and likely money training her. But obvious too was, she had been trained in a good, kind way. Gracie, still called dog, could sit, stay, come, load up in my truck and everything else a more mature dog might do. She didn't jump. She barely chewed. She didn't go spastic-excited around people. She was obviously a very young dog but her behavior was amazing!
Long story short is, we called neighbors, we took her to the vet to see if she had a 'chip.' We posted her picture on Facebook and just about every other animal website available to us in WTX. We got back nothing. No one knew Gracie.... until....
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| Gracie on the Grass |
Day 5: We still haven't officially named her Gracie yet. She seems to answer to anything ending in "ie." She responds to Maggie, Sadie, Missie and others including Gracie. Let's face it, she is a dog. All she hears is the emphasis on the last syllable.😁
I guess tomorrow (Tuesday, May 28, 2019) will be Gracie's two week birthday at Casa Robertson. I think T would agree. She's checked all our boxes. We don't care that she's black and has long legs.
Bill Robertson
Next: Gracie gets her name & more
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