Abby Normal?

 The in-laws lost all three of their dogs to old age last year.   They had to put the last one down shortly after Christmas.   Today, The Lovely Bride went visiting and met their new puppy.

That's about as still a picture and she could get.

The in-laws are the second owners.  The dog came with a micro-chip pre-installed.  They didn't like its official name so they have rechristened her "Abby."

The people that they got her from said it is "a hound mix."  The vet says it won't get over fifty pounds.  TLB said it looks just like the Labradesian Retridgeback that lives next door.  I don't know why someone crossed a  Labrador Retriever with a Rhodesian Ridgeback.   Maybe they had a lion in their pond and they needed a dog that would kill it and bring it to them.  I guess its possible that the neighbor-dog's parents didn't ask their owners' blessing before hooking up.  Who can make sense of puppy love?  All I know is that we have a dog next door that is half Lab and half Rhodesian Ridgeback and Abby looks just like it  but in puppy size.

Ok. So what if it looks like it has some Rhodesian Ridgeback in it?  Nothing wrong with that.  They do tend to run well over fifty pounds when grown though.   They can be kind of energetic too.  The in-laws think they got a hound that will sleep all day like Duke on the Beverly Hillbillies.

TLB said it slept through airboats passing by on the river but would wake up and be fully alert if she so much as shifted her weight on the couch.   Not inconsistent with what one would expect from a dog bred to be around humans and dangerous, stealthy critters.

Its feet don't look big enough to suggest that it will get as big as a Rhodesian Ridgeback and it doesn't have the characteristic ridge of backwards fur so TLB thinks its probably just some mongrel hound mix.   I pointed out that an alternate name for the Rhodesian Ridgeback is "African Lion Hound" but she's still unconvinced.

I think I am going to get the last chuckle on this one though.   She told me that her parents named it Abby because the people they got it from gave it a really stupid name.  She asked me "why would anybody give a dog such a stupid name?"  Then she spelled it out:

 "Z - U - L - U."