The little dog came to us in late winter or early spring of 2018.
I first saw him in the field chasing cows with a pack of dogs that belonged to the Trash Trailer man and our other neighbor. The dogs all ran back under the fence when I yelled at them, but the little brindled brown and white puppy stopped just before he went under the barbed wire and looked back at me for 30 seconds or so.
He came back by himself later that afternoon to chase some more, and I yelled, "You're going to get yourself shot doing that!" He stopped and looked at me for a minute or so, then turned and went back under the fence.
A few days later, he was in the yard. "If you're going to be coming through my yard you're going to have to have some Frontline!" I told him. I went into the house to get some and when I came back out, he let me walk right up to him. I bent down to see if I could put the medicine on him. He didn't run away, and didn't act like he would bite so I put the Frontline on him and then petted him. His fur was so incredibly soft! His entire body wiggled with what I can only describe as "happiness" or even "joy."
Over the next few days, when RAF and I were outside, he would show up. RAF yelled at him and told him to, "Get out of here!" He just ducked his head down and wiggled all over. It wasn't very long before RAF was playing with him, throwing sticks which he chased with delight, even bringing them back to be thrown again.
"He needs a name," I said. RAF said we could call him "Mohammad" (after the late boxer Mohammad Ali) because with his underbite, the little dog looked to be part boxer. "Mohammad Moses," RAF would call him, because he said he didn't want to sound like he was favoring one religion over another. But I didn't like that name, so I just called him "Mo."
He started coming back when we weren't outside, and because it was still cold, he curled up into a little ball on the carport slab, shivering and shivering and shivering. I felt sorry for him...he wasn't very old, maybe just six or seven months old? I had an old yellow hoodie with a broken zipper so I put it out on on the front porch for him to sleep on.
Unbeknownst to me, RAF really liked him and secretly let him in the house one night after I had gone to bed. Of course Lola wasn't having that! He told me that she barked in her vicious high-pitched Chihuahua voice, and RAF was afraid she would wake me up, so he put the little brindled brown and white dog back outside.
But the sleeping outside in the cold didn't last long. When it became obvious that he had adopted us, we adopted him.
Little Mo left us on Friday, August 23, 2024.
His passing has left a huge hole in my heart. RAF has Lola, and I had Mo. I told RAF it's funny, but I hadn't realized how completely Mo was intertwined in everything in our lives. When I feed the cat, he won't be there waiting for his three or four kibbles of cat food. When I sit down to watch TV, he won't be sleeping on his couch cushion by the window. When we "go for a ride" he won't be in my lap trying to stick his nose out the cracked open window. When I sit in the chair by RAF's desk, he won't be there wanting to be picked up and held in my lap like a little puppy. When RAF plays certain songs, he won't be there howling along. When I see a rabbit, or the groundhog, or turtles at the pond, or a mole hill in the yard, he won't be there ready for the chase. When I cut up chicken for supper, or thaw out the hamburger, he won't be there ready to clean up any "scraps" that "accidentally" get left. He won't be sleeping on the laundry, or following me into the bathroom, or standing there ready to be picked up and put on the bed at 9 pm. He won't be dancing back and forth with excitement when I pick up his orange walking vest, my camera and walking stick. He won't be sitting in on the porch with RAF when I come home from town and won't greet me wiggling his entire body when RAF declares, "MOMMY'S HOME!"
It's going to take a while.
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| Mo on April 30, 2019, sitting and waiting for me to catch up on one of our walks down to the creek. |
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| Mo sleeping in RAF's lap. |
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| Mo wearing his new orange walking vest on November 25, 2020. He wasn't too sure what it was for but it didn't take him long to understand that it meant we are going for a walk! |