Meet Willa

As I mentioned, we have a new dog. She looks a good bit like a mini-Maggie ...

And her long body makes me think of William...

 He disavows any knowledge of her, however...

This is how it happened: On Monday morning a neighbor on the other side of the mountain called to ask if we were missing a little brown dog. Since all our crew were accounted for, I told him no and said I would call some other neighbors and ask. I did but nobody was missing a dog and I dismissed it from my mind as Somebody Else's Problem.

Then Monday evening as I was fixing dinner I got a call from another neighbor -- Willa, on our side of the mountain and just down the road. Was I missing a little brown dog? When I told her I wasn't, she said that she would take it in to a no-kill animal shelter the next day but could I possibly keep the dog overnight as her dogs weren't behaving nicely with the orphan.

With a feeling of inevitability, I climbed in the jeep and went to get the little brown dog. As soon as Willa put her in my arms, I realized that, after all, I had been missing this pup. 

And when I got her home and showed her to John and asked if we could possibly . . . he, too, bowed to the inevitable.

I named her Willa because it's a pretty name and because folks around here often name their animals for the person they got them from. Miss Susie Hutchins for instance, is named for my friend Sue. 

I think Willa's a nice addition to the pack.