Posted September 22, 1999

Brontė (the surname of some of my favorite Victorian authors) is a lovely black female American Cocker Spaniel. The name really suits her. She is quiet and gentle and dignified, and she has a fun-loving nature, too. She can playbow like a champion. She has finally found a loving home in Pennsylvania, and evidently her new family feels the name Taz suits her better. As long as she is happy.

Brontė was found wandering the dark city streets, looking for love in all the wrong places, I'm sorry to say. She was saved from a stoning at the hands of "children" (I continue to be dismayed by what is happening to our world, but that is a topic for another time and place, I guess) on the street, only to find herself labeled "unadoptable" when she landed in a Maryland shelter -- simply because she was a mess. Fortunately for her, they called me.

I found Brontė filthy and matted and very afraid. Her hair was stiff and sticky with her own waste. Most of the hair on her back end was actually gone. She had been trapped in the soaked mats on her backside for so long, her back end had been burned raw. It has healed nicely now, and the hair has grown back. Worse than the look of her at first was her cowering. No doubt she was wondering if I would be as cruel as others she'd evidently known. It didn't take her long to know she was safe, and soon she was frolicking happily in the grass, giving sweet Cocker kisses, loving to be held.

I give unending thanks to her wonderful foster parents, especially her foster mother, who took her in when she was sick and weary of the world. She cared for her and brought her around in amazing ways, making it possible for Brontė to find a home for life.