" 'Jes 'cause you from Merlin don't mean you can pay no-never-mind to them signs." A Washington, DC cab driver pointed this out to me after my car had been towed on Wisconsin Avenue. The way he said it made it sound like poetry. You can read more about the incident in the post of November 17, 2007. This blog will be about my life in Maryland, where we have lived for over 40 years.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Saturday, January 21, 2017
A Mountain Feist named Dilly
This is a picture of my husband, Phil, and our dog, Dilly. She
will be 3 in May. We bought her from an Amish farmer for $20.00 (Her adoption
story, "Silly Dilly," was posted on 9-8-14.)
When we take her
for walks, people often ask us what she is. We used to say we didn't know.
Sometimes, to avoid getting into a discussion, I'd just say she was an Amish
Akita. The response was usually a second look and a sage nod. Those with
opinions often suggested "rat terrier with maybe some Jack Russell."
Finally, someone who actually knew what he was talking about pronounced
her "a mountain feist" without a moment's hesitation. He is
Amish, too, or at least he was, having left his community, but he said the farmer
who'd sold her was known for breeding and raising this type of dog.
So what's a
"feist?" My dad used to call me "a feist" when I was
kindergarten age, so I suppose, when it's human, it's something small and
mischievous. The second time I encountered the word was in The
Bear, a short novel by
William Faulkner. Only Faulkner called it a "fice." George Washington
had a feist and Abraham Lincoln mentioned the feist in a poem he wrote,
according to Wikipedia. The Wikipedia article characterized the feist as a
small hunting dog that originated in Appalachia. It trees its prey and its prey
is the squirrel. That's Dilly. She rushes furiously out the door at the mere
sight of a squirrel at the bird feeder, but she loses interest once the
squirrel is high in the tree. This is probably not a good trait in a hunter.
Dilly is protective of my husband and me, and slow to warm up to strangers.
Once she decides you're all right, though, you've got a friend for life.
You can find out
more about dogs like Dilly by checking out the "Mountain Feist Squirrel
Dog" page on Facebook.
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