NY Dog Days. Think hot, sweaty, and sluggish weeks following the solstice, iced tea and fans, sunscreen, sleeveless shirts, perhaps an escape into an air-conditioned movie. Already, in the last week of June, we are reaching 88 degrees.
But this summer the expression takes on new meaning for me.
Yesterday my daughter (a graduate student living out-of-state) arrived home with her
Yin and Yang, little Day-ay and her son, Ragazzo, for a five-week stay.
The mama, Day-ay, the smaller Yorkie mix (pictured, right), is all of
seven pounds; her son Ragazzo, the dark-faced handsome dog whose paternal pedigree is harder to pin down,
is 12 pounds.
Day-ay’s Origin
In November 2013, my daughter and her boyfriend found the little
Yorkie wandering on Native-American-owned land outside of Albuquerque. They put
up advertisements and photos, and let the community know via word-of-mouth and online, but
nobody came forward to claim the dog. By Christmastime, they had decided to
keep her; by New Years 2014, they suspected (correctly) that she was pregnant.
Day-ay, little as she was, gave birth in late January 2014 to five puppies. Two of
the five are now nearly twice her size, leading us to believe that her litter may
have had two different fathers (this is possible among dogs).
Having been dogless since 2012 when my second, Jackie, passed
away, I am looking forward to my own “Dog Days” of summer. Let’s see how the
little ones adapt to the amplitude of odors that New York City sidewalks have
to offer.
Note: Day-ay means “little fox” in Tewa, the language of
Pueblo tribes.
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