i've been wanting to do this for a while.. Lady belonged to my grandparents.. they found her as a skinny puppy, her age was around five to seven weeks old... she showed up on their doorstep during a winter storm back in the mid 1990's... and the area where they lived (where i live now actually) is remote, pure wilderness, hunting plantations, paper company pine trees, the local dog population is mostly hounds, german shepherds, bulldogs, and the occasional collie/mutt. in other words.... no exotic breeds.. its a small hick town where a dog is just a dog. oh and there are coyotes here as well.
my grandad swore up and down that Lady was a coydog that wandered away from the mother... (wether or not the mother was the coyote or dog he never thought about)
my grandmother couldnt stand it when he said the pup was a coydog.. she disagreed whole heartedly.. which makes some family memebers wonder if she snuck the puppy home and "claimed" she found it at the back door of their house... i dont believe that because both my grand parents loved animals and neither one felt a need to ask permission before bringing home a new pet..
So.. here is Lady.. as a senior dog..
...camera shy...
Dirty Lady
so you can see her tail... when she was happy she carried it almost like a husky's but the curl was not quite as extreme....
she looks real skinny in the above picture, but she wasnt.. she was incredibly lean and always had been.. she had a body like a grey hound, with a huge deep chest..
a lot of these pictures were taken when she wasnt looking.. except for the ones in the kitchen, which is why she was cowering...
she was scared to death of the camera. i never could figure out why.. she had never seen the flash on it.. but if she it in my hand she would run and hide.. i had to learn how to be stealthy with in order to photograph her.. the pic where she is dirty you can see the door nob in the corner.. i opened the door, snapped the pic and just before she realised what i was doing.. when she did, she got up and ran away.
when she was young she was a fun little dog but protective. when i stayed the summer she would sleep in my bed room on the bed, and go with us to the store(i would wait in the car with her) if anyone walked too closely, or if a car drove past she would snarl at it through the window...
on walks she would find sticks to bring into the house to chew on.. and tried to catch grass hoppers (proof that she was a coyote, my grandad said)
but years later, almost seven, when my grandad died, my grandmother couldnt stay by herself anymore so she went to live with my aunt. the two big dogs werent allowed to come with her, just the house dogs. Lady and the other dog, Sue (a rott shepherd mix) lived by themselves on the property, in the back yard for four years. my uncle would go by every weekend to feed and water them.. but he isnt a dog person at all.... so you could say the dogs were neglected, not petted or taken for walks for four years. Sue wasnt bothered by this, but Lady changed from confident to cowardly and fear aggressive... my husband accidentally stepped on her one day (she was sleeping right under the front door when he stepped out) and she jumped up and bit him on the butt... he still has those jeans.. with the hole in the rear... she tore through the cloth and gave him a good pinch lol
she also bit him when he tried to correct her for snarling at the kid next door.. the little boy got too close to the fence and startled her.. so she charged at him.. then ran away.. so basically she was.. feral.. as well as old.
she also had a way of slinking around you. she hated Kaydee with a passion too. if Kaydee was outside, Lady had to be inside, and the other way around. Lady would look for oppertunities to attack Kaydee and run away.. she would also pick fights with my mom's collie. if the collie was lying down minding her own business Lady would come and jump start chewing on her head...
i think all of that was because she had never been socialised properly. she only knew the one dog, a big intact male rotti (lady was fixed though) but she never knew any other dogs her whole life.
so.... all that aside, whats your guess on breed?
mine are... coyote/shepherd or chow/coyote or husky/chow or ... an actual Carolina dog.. American Dingo type.. i dont know how many people are familiar with Carolina Dogs though. but they can pretty much be anywhere in the southern states, living in the wild or on the outside of towns.