Our amazing dog Shadow
is the non-Doberman lying down on the living room rug. A “throw away dog” as my husband refers to him. Thrown away when he was a puppy, left to starve and feed on the dead rabbits killed on the roads nearby our house. Shadow took the biggest risk of his young life when he chose us out of the many neighbors who had tried to lure him into their homes.
We don’t know how old he is but when this Doberman came to live here as a 26 pound puppy, Shadow decided that he would protect him-he still does.
This morning, I watched while our amazing dog Shadow, who always gets fed first, he is alpha, after all, waited until the Doberman got his food. I’ve watched this throw away dog do this time after time. He will wait until Ally gets his food before he begins to eat.
Can dogs be polite?
I was reminded, as I watched this remarkable animal, of the many days this skinny dog would appear out of nowhere when the then small puppy Ally (pictured below) and I would walk up and down the dirt road in front of our house. I was taught to have the puppy on a long leash so that I could begin to get him trained to the command, “Come.”
Several times, Ally and I walked by a neighbor’s house with a huge Rottweiler. Invariably , the Rottweiler would run out of his yard when we approached and stand in the middle of the road while I stood there wondering what on earth I should do. The first time that Shadow appeared out of nowhere and placed himself between me, the tiny puppy Ally and the Rottweiler that weighted him by 50 or 60 pounds, I thought it was coincidence.
But the 3rd time, I knew this was no coincidence.
His eerie resemblance to the female Shadow dog my husband John had when we met and married made his name self-evident. Stubborn, independent, everything that is said about herding dogs fits this dog. But also a seemingly endless dose of courage that makes us think of him as our amazing dog Shadow.
