Friday, March 18, 2011

Penni

The godly care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel. 
Proverbs 12:10

Penni

We found this girl standing in the middle of carnage highway [that's what our vet calls it] on our drive home from our hunting property.  Out in the middle of no where, no houses or farms anywhere in sight.  She was just standing right in the middle of the road.  Around these parts, there are tons of loose dogs running around.  Often, we see dead ones along the sides of the roads.  It is just the nature of the beast where we reside.  Country, farms, woods, not too many people in our area fence in their dogs.

God spoke to my heart and I yelled at the Chief, "Slow down, don't hit that dog.  STOP!   We can't leave her in the middle of the road, she'll get killed." 


So my sweet husband pulled over to the side of the highway, and this pup came running right to us.  Squirming, happy, friendly, and licking.  After a few minutes of loving her up, petting her, scratching her belly we looked at each other and my guy says, "Now what? We just can't leave her here."   He opened up the truck door and she jumped right in.

We have two dogs already on our farm.  Koot, our big tub of love Newfoundland and The Bandit, a hunting dog mix the Chief picked up at our local W#lmart parking lot.  We really didn't need or want another dog.  I had been doing research on hunting dogs, something for the real far off future when we did add another dog to our family.  But not something we planned to do anytime soon.

But God.  He had other plans.  He's good like that. 

When you least expect it.  When you have well laid out plans.

 But God had other plans for this redhead four legged bundle. 

We talked on the drive home about what to do with her.  Maybe we would be able to find her a home.   She seemed like a real sweet heart.  We  weren't sure how our animals would react.  Does she get along with horses, or would she chase and terrorize them?  What about our two cats?  Would they be safe?  Koot loves everybody, and he's the alpha, and he is HUGE, so there were no concerns there.  But The Bandit, she's the princess, would she tolerate sharing her place with another female?

The introductions to the rest of our clan went well.  Miss Penni blended right into the family.   She barked once, at the horses, a huge, deep hound dog bark.  [Did I mention I had been researching different breeds of hound dogs?] The following day we dropped her off at our vet while we did the American Cancer Society 5k in town.  When we returned to pick her up, we found out she was not micro chipped, weighed 40 lbs, was approximately 6 months old, some type of mix breed, and full of worms.  Her necked was also rubbed raw and the vet said she was probably chained up and broke loose.  Yesterday, she was spayed and is now officially a member of our family and Freedom Hollow Farm.  We laugh about the "free" dog we found!  After two trips to the vet, she was far from FREE! 

My new hiking buddy, Penni

 Koot, he's my battle buddy.  The Chief bought him for me as a pup right before he deployed to I*raq.  He's one of the best dogs I have ever had the privilege of loving and owning.  Oh, how I love this big bucket of love.   I call him Kootie~Pie.   He doesn't have a mean bone in his body.  Unfortunately, due to very bad breeding/confirmation Koot won't be with us much longer.  Right now we are keeping him comfortable, happy and giving him all the love we can.

Me and The Bandit, my race buddy.  She did the 5k with us.  We've got another one coming up soon that allows dogs.  Penni will be joining us and starting her racing career. 

Rejoicing in His 4-legged blessings,
~s