A quality dog

Linda, my southwest VA doggie dealer, has always brought me great dogs. I'll take dogs from her, but only her, sight unseen. However, I actually had pictures of this dog in advance. The pictures didn't do her justice. She looked much larger than she is, not that that's a bad thing, but she also looked a bit like a mixed breed in one of the pictures. In her description of the dog to me, Linda said that she was a "quality dog." I think I know what Linda meant. To me anyway, that said that she was a solid boxer, both in confirmation and temperament. She was exactly right.

Abigail is a small boxer, but nicely proportioned and most importantly, she's as sweet as can be. Her paperwork had three different spellings of her name on it, so I just did a quick search to confirm what I took to be the correct spelling. The search results included a Wikipedia entry saying that Abigail is Hebrew for "her father's joy" or "fountain of joy." I think that's nice, and it certainly seems to fit this sweet little girl.

She was owned by a young man who apparently took her everywhere so she's well socialized and she rides very nicely in the car. He grew up, his interests shifted (probably to meth), and he moved away leaving the dog with his father who took her to a shelter. Linda snagged her and held her for me until I was back from Montana. We met today at our usual spot. She brought me a shepherd as well, and a small dog that I transported for someone else with Animal Connections.

If I take her an adoption event, I can guarantee that some idiot will come up to me and say "she can't be a pure bred boxer because she has a long tail." I will look at the person with stunned disbelief, awed by their stupidity, and wonder, does this human-like life form standing before me really not know that boxers have short tails only if they had been docked? Does this person really think that breed is determined by whether or not the tail was docked? Or do they think that boxers, by law, must have a docked tail such that an undocked tails means that it can not be a boxer? I've had this conversation with people before, but I always cut it short by walking away. I don't really want to plumb the depths of a stupid person's mind. It's scary in there. Sarah Palin is likely to pop out.

Abigail is a joy. I immediately decided it was too hot outside for a boxer today so she came right up to my office. She knew how to do stairs, and she went right into the crate. She met the other household dogs, except Gypsy, and was fine.

Someone is going to be very lucky to have her. When the time comes that I can no longer have shepherds or rotties, I'm going to have a little boxer. They are quality dogs.