It was a warm sunny spring day in Pedro Ohio when a colleague and I went to a local farm to ask if we could do some surveys on the 'crick' that ran through the back of their property.
The farmer who owned the land approached us with a jocular, gap-toothed smile and asked us "do y'all like puppies?". I responded with a tentative "yyeeesss -why?" "Well..." he said, "my girlfriend found this puppy out in the back forty, and I'm a gonna have-ti shoot it... that is... unless you want it." I responded immediately with "don't shoot the little puppy; I will come back for it at the end of the day."
This is the story of how I found Billie-Mae. When I went back to pick her up she was a tiny five week old puppy, bloated with worms, covered in lice, ticks and fleas, starving, with a puncture hole through one eyeball.
With time and care and a lot of flea baths, Billie's hair grew back in the soft velour of most puppies. The local vet told me that she was a very special dog because of her genetic history. The story in that area is one of dog over-population due to a general lack of spaying and neutering.
Dogs run wild -literally. According to the vet, Billie-Mae is about a sixth generation wild dog. After this period of interbreeding and feral living she has become just like many other dogs in the world that are feral. They develop common characteristics such as medium height, stocky chest, pointy ears and curly tail. I like to call her my "Yankee Dingo"
Apart from a few allergies she has turned out to be quite healthy and vivacious despite her rough start.