Oh, yeah somewhere, someplace, someone is forgiving me for cadging Jack Aubrey’s joke in the movie version of “Master & Commander”, about choosing the lesser of two weevils, in reference to my darling daughter presenting me with the choice of either a gun or a dog as a personal home protection device. I chose, of course, a dog as the lesser of two weevils, over my own misgivings, and the even deeper misgivings of the cats, especially Bubba and Parfait, the visitors who now find their gentleman’s paradise closed to them, for now my backyard is home to… a dog. I put their dishes on the front porch, but they have not been back since yesterday morning, when I returned from my morning run, dragging Lesser-Weevil back with both hands on the leash from chasing them. A couple of miles, and she still has energy and enthusiasm. The discipline will come, and fairly easily, I think, for she appears to be an intelligent and personable dog.

Her qualities are as murky as the circumstances under which she was acquired, from friends of my daughter who were either vague, or unknowing, but this much we have been able to deduce either from personal observation, or from the judgment of an attending veterinarian: She is an un-neutered female (and partial to females, small children, and non-threatening males), is somewhere between six and nineteen months of age. Her adult teeth are grown in, but relatively unworn, her paws and leg bones are in proportion to the rest of her, and the expert veterinarian concludes that she has grown to her adult size and weight (about 45 pounds), and is in excellent health. She appears to be mostly boxer, and lashings of something else, at which can only be guessed; whatever what may be in the genetic mix she is openly friendly with other, non-hostile dogs, and genuinely civil and affectionate to the average non-hostile person. She was actually pretty territorial about Blondie’s car, during the drive from Cherry Point, which bodes well for her assigned profession as a guard or alarm dog.

Lesser-Weevil also— which is good for me and the small yards in the neighborhood I live in— not one of those nervy or terribly bored dogs who barks interminably at any provocation as a hobby. (Her bark is more of a deep, sonorous bay, the sort of thing you can imagine from a bloodhound on the trail) I may have to get a couple of the distant neighbors to walk up to the front door as a test, to see how she handles strangers coming to the door; she is quite calm about Blondie or Judy or I coming up the walk. She sleeps on the back porch, curling up very small, and is ecstatically happy to go out with me for my early-morning run, cavorting and bouncing up and down on her hind legs for about the first half block, until I shorten the leash and then she settles down into a steady mile-eating jog. Three mornings, and she seems to have already grasped that I need a dog that will pace a short distance from my right hand, not tugging or jerking at the leash. Blondie is already working on “sit/stay”, with promising results; the Lesser-Weevil sits and waits, even while you have her full food-dish in hand.

Now, if she would only restrain herself from chewing up everything in sight; she’s already done a number on the bamboo table on the back porch, my gardening hat (well, that was nearly shot already), the plastic lighter I use for the oil lamps, and Blondie’s pleather purse…. Ah, well, things to work towards.