Our dogs, part 3 of 3, Molly and Emmylou

The final two dogs in our household are Molly and Emmyou. They are my hiking companions so they've been on the blog quite a bit. These two girls both started out a foster dogs, but became permanent residents and members of the family.

Molly is a rottie mix, she came from the Fluvanna SPCA. Molly was very happy to be here and quickly developed into the best kennel manager I've had in a long time. She would take the new fosters under her wing and show them the routine. She would police the fosters' activities and defuse tensions before they could escalate into a fight. When two boys were squaring off for some male stupidity, she would run between them and push them apart before they even got started. Some one once brought out a dog who was behaving aggressively towards me. Molly didn't go after the other dog, but she came and sat quietly next to me, putting herself between me and the other dog, clearly saying "if you want to go after him, you'll have to go through me first." Like most rotties, she wouldn't start any trouble, but she can handle herself in a fight.

Molly ruled the foster world outdoors, supremely confident in her domain. So it came as a real surprise to learn that Molly was terrified, actually paralyzed with fear, when she came indoors. I grew so attached to Molly that I would only consider the best of all possible homes for her. I found such a home, however, and Molly went with them, but once she got there she just cowered in a corner shivering, scared of everything in the house. Molly had never lived indoors and was scared of anything manmade. She is scared to walk down the downtown mall in Charlottesville and even spooks out on the trails if we encounter a manmade object of any kind. But Molly is smart and figured out the adoption routine and made her own decision about where she wanted to live. When she came back from the unsuccessful adoption, she took to jumping the fence and even climbing out of the kennels. She didn't want to run away, she wanted to come indoors. Molly had figured out that the outside dogs get adopted and sent away, while the inside dogs are permanent residents. She decided she would have to overcome her fears in order to stay with us.

So Molly moved indoors. For a couple days I had to drag her outside to pee because she was afraid she wouldn't be allowed back inside. Finally she got into the routine and she's been wonderful indoors. Of course, now I could never let her go, regardless of who wanted her. Once Molly became an inside dog, she was no longer interested in the foster dogs at all and doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She loves to run with Cabell, Bremo, and Zachary, and she can outrun and outjump them all. She's an athletic, high flying dog, fast and light on her feet, and she loves the water. She's also an easy keeper--one good pasture run and she's satisfied to sleep upstairs in my office for the rest of the day. No fence can contain her and she will stray a bit if not watched fairly closely, but she's not interested in going very far from home. Molly found herself a home.

There isn't much I can say abuot Emmylou that hasn't already been written. Emmylou is a greyhound/shepherd mix. She's tall, long, and lean. She's a hunter and she's built for speed. She is smart enough to get Molly or some younger dog to do her digging for her when she's hunting moles. Her ears and eyes need no assistance from anyone. Emmy is probably older than Gypsy, but we don't know for sure. She was given up by someone here in Fluvanna County, probably due to an unpleasant domestic situation. She was adopted out twice and came back twice. She loves people, other dogs, and even children. She is perfectly behaved indoors. She will go off on a hunt if given the chance, but she will always come back home. Emmy is terrified of storms and I can't leave her home alone during storm season. She had an ACL tear that has been slow to recover, but she's doing pretty well now and I really need to get back out on the trails with her. She has reached sainted status in my eyes and I think she feels the same about me. She sleeps by me at night and is never far away during the day. We are co-dependent and it's probably not healthy for either of us.

Emmylou is the alpha bitch of the upstairs realm in our household. She and Gypsy have never met nose to nose and they never will. Neither of them are really capable of fighting at this point in their lives, but they both would if they met each other. They co-exist by maintaining different spheres in the household, which we vigilantly enforce. They are both happy in their respective worlds and seem to ignore each other while secretly keeping a close eye on their potential adversary.


As a fan of English history, it occurs to me that Gypsy and Emmylou are not unlike England's Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart of Scotland. Elizabeth and Gypsy rule from a more secure power base and view their rivals with suspicion. Mary Stuart and Emmylou may covet the supreme position, but they know that their chances of defeating the more entrenched queen are remote. And in the end, both Mary and Emmy may have gotten what they really wanted most. Mary Stuart's son succeeded to the English throne after the death of the childless Elizabeth. Emmylou may not reign over the entire household, but she has the most one-on-one time with her dad, giving her some basis for claiming the title of alpha female.