Thursday, January 6, 2011

Siblings

The pretty girl at the left is called Shadow.  She was adopted by a dear friend of mine many years ago when we first started fostering.  In fact Shadow may have been our first adoption because she was born to Maggie, our first foster dog, and I think that Shadow's adopter got the first pick of the litter.  Shadow has always been wonderful with her family and she helped raise three human children.  That may be why she's always been a little protective of them with regard to strangers. 

The handsome dude on the right is our pup, Bremo.  He's Shadow's brother out of the same litter born to our first foster dog.  Bremo was always the biggest of the bunch, a consequence of him being the pushiest when it comes to eating.  He's led a very sheltered life, rarely leaving our property.  He adores all people and expects them to pet him, and hopefully, feed him.  Their mother, Maggie (below), was a rottie mix, maybe a rottie/lab combo. She had classic rottie markings but more of a lab-like build and head.  The brindle must have come from the unknown Louisa county father. (Most of Louisa county, human as well as canine, should be spayed and neutered.)  The offspring were all marked like rottweilers, except most of them were brindle where a rottie would have tan or mahogany markings.

The pups will be 10 years old this year, about the third week of March. 


Maggie must be at least 11 years old now, because she wasn't much more than a year when we got her and she had that litter of puppies.  That look on Maggie's face is similar to the look I get from Molly everyday, complete trust, ready for anything, and a questioning anticipation that perhaps we are about to do something fun.  Like many foster parents, I wanted to keep my first foster.  Gypsy had other ideas for her so we found her a great, great home.  It was that experience, giving up a dog for adoption that I wanted to keep, that made the next 10 years of fostering possible.  The many dogs who have passed through our doors since then are the happy beneficiaries of the lessons we learned from Maggie. 

The Christmas cards we get from her each year show an aging dog, but she always looks like this in my mind. 

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