Coton de tulear

     I remember when I first got him. He walked through the front door with awe and a little bit of fear. All he would do was run down the main hall in the house, back and fourth like a Newton's cradle. This house and the people that lived in it were foreign to him. Almost hostile since he had never even seen us before. Whenever I tried to pet him he would stop and faintly growl. Showing his front row of large teeth and scrunching up his snout. I don't think he slept at all that night because I can still remember his whimpers and how he was howling, begging to go back to his mother. I was filled with sadness to hear him cry but at the sane time I was really amazed that my family was actually getting a dog. Our first dog.

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     Two weeks later after he arrived I still couldn't figure out a name for him. It was hard because I couldn't find anything unique and creative to name him. The past owner named him "Angel" because of his bright, white coat. I thought that name was horrid. So, I decided to name him something else. I just hadn't figured it out yet. 

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      One early morning as I was waiting for the school bus my father and my dog accompanied me. We soon figured out that the dog has lots, and I mean lots, of energy in his small, but strong, body. So in order to satisfy his needs we bought him a tennis ball and he just absolutely loved it.

     All was going well for a while. The natural order of things were aligned and the universe was in harmony, until a car came by. The ball went across the street and the dog went after it blind to the fact that a car was coming his way. Then the ball went under the car's rear tire and he was trampled by the left rear tire. He yelped in pain and I was more than sure he was not going to survive. A woman came out of the car as my dad picked the poor animal off the asphalt. I couldn't speak because I was too concentrated on the dog's cries. I just stood there watching everything unfold.

     The woman and my dad left with my dog. My dad told me that he'd pick me up at school later to come and see how the dog was doing. Then I left on the school bus and all I could think about was the sight of an animal being run over. It felt like the bus ride took forever to get to school. Or maybe it was because I wasn't paying attention to the actual trip from Sparks to Hidden Valley.
     I was called down to the office, but I already knew the reason why. My dad was waiting for me there. We left to go see how the dog was doing at a local animal hospital. When we arrived I barged through the front doors and immediately ask where my dog was. Then a man in a lab coat took my dad and I into a room where we found the dog on a table asleep. The veterinarian told us that he suffered minor injuries and only one broken bone. He was going to live.  

     I was relieved to know that he was going to survive. We took him home and I thought of a name for my nameless dog. Lucky.

 ***

     Lucky is now approximately ten years old ( I say approximately because apparently he already was two years old when I first got him).  Yet I don't see him act like an old dog where they get grumpy and just aren't fun anymore. I feel like he is still a little puppy because all he wants to do is play all the time. Whether it's fetch of tug of war he will not stop bothering me to play until I get up and fulfill his wishes.
     What are you? I started to become curious about my dog so I decided to do some research. But where would I even start? I don't even know what type of breed he is! My dad told me the only information the previous owners gave him was that he was from an island.

     So I started my search with the types of dog breeds that developed on islands. I thought of places where he could have possibly come from like the Easter islands, Hawaii, Japan, Micronesia, and Malaysia. My search led me to Madagascar where I stumbled upon a dog breed called "Coton de Tulear" and they looked exactly like Lucky. The snout, eyes, and fur all matched the way Lucky looked. "That's him. That's his breed," I told myself.

     Coton de Tulear dogs are believed to originate from Madagascar but it is unclear whether they are indigenous or another breed was brought from another country where it mated with a native dog, creating the coton. These little white balls of fun were named after the port city of Tulear (now Toliara) on the southern tip of Madagascar and because their fur resembled a very soft, "cotton" texture and color. During the 17th century the Merina, a ruling tribal monarchy, domesticated and bred these dogs to become royal dogs. Coastal tribesmen and non-noblemen were forbidden to even own this dog as it soon became known as "The Royal dog of Madagascar." Later french colonist soon conquered most of the island and they also adopted the coton as a most noble dog. (History: coton de...)
     Who would've known that Lucky was so important to people at one point in history. And his decedents come all the way from Madagascar! Lucky, what else have you been hiding from me?

***

     In most of my observations Lucky does the same things over and over again like pee and shit everywhere. Sometimes, if he tries hard enough, he'll find a treasure of some sort--like a tennis ball or a Frisbee. In the most recent observation he found a torn pair of pants deep inside of some shrubs on the south end of the park. It didn't seem much like a treasure but to him it was the best thing he could have ever found. Of course I think that is pretty disgusting, but who am kidding, he's a dog and he doesn't really care about the sort of things that disgust us humans. Either way, I still love him. 

     Lucky doesn't mind the cold. He has a thick coat of cotton-white hairs mixed with patches of brown fur on his back. Actually the brown is very light and it stands out so much it almost looks like someone spilled their morning cup of coffee on him (Field notes 10-14).

Works cited

"History: Coton de Tulear." American kennel club. web. 29 Oct 2014.