A few weeks back, my wife and I decided to take a stroll down the county road we live on. We live out in the country, and the dirt roads surrounded by farm land are pleasant and inspiring. It isn't uncommon to come across the remains of animals along the way, and that day was no different. As we were walking, we noticed the carcass of a large black dog with a puncture in its right side. We figured it must have been shot and died there.
We continued our walk for about another mile and as we were chatting, I sensed something behind us. I wheeled around ready to confront it and I must have scared it with my sudden turn, because a small animal dove off of the road and in the brush. My wife went darting after it and lept into the tall grass to grab it before it fled beyond the barbed wire fence. When she came up out of the grass, she was covered in plant matter and carrying a small black puppy. We carried it back to the dog carcass to verify a hypothesis and sure enough, the dead dog and the puppy were the same breed, and the dead dog was female. We figured this must have been the dead dog's puppy.
We went back to the house, gave it some water and took it to the store to buy it some puppy food (the poor thing didn't look like it had eaten for weeks). We decided that if it didn't have any major medical problems we would keep it. Upon taking it to the vet, it checked out okay, and now we have a cute female puppy - which will one day be a very large dog we are told. It is a black lab mix (though the black lab is so striking, it is difficult to tell what the other breed is). We named it Nymeria (as we have a habit of naming our pets after book characters) and it has become a regular fixture in our household. I've never had a dog before so it has been different having a bounding little animal around that doesn't go in an aquarium or perch on your finger. Fortunately, we have a lot of land for the dog to explore and enjoy.
