Her name is Gracie Cupcake Duncan and she is a 6 month old Formosan Mountain Dog mix, from Salty Dog Rescue. She was flown here to Seattle, spayed and put into a foster home. We met her at an adoption event at Immortal Dog Pet Supply and Bakery.  Scott has advocated for a puppy for a long time and started sending me puppies from Petfinder a few weeks ago. Scott and Rob met a Taiwan dog and heard all about them at the cigar store in Vancouver and was very impressed with the “breed.” I had to admit he was right about the timing on a puppy, Rob is the perfect age to enjoy one so we took him to Immortal Dog to do research. Research only. Well, you can see from the pictures how that turned out. Her call name was Cake. Since we always change names when we take in a new beastie, we named her Grace, from the Latin gratia  meaning  “favor; blessing”. In Greek mythology: the Three Graces were goddesses of nature: Aglaia (brilliance), Thalia (flowering), and Euphrosyne (joy). Another benefit of the name is that it has the same vowel sound as Cake so it only took a couple of treats for her to respond to it. She is a beauty, small, fast, and smart. She has been with us since Saturday and has already learned Sit, Down, Crate, and is catching on to house-training. Making her stop counter surfing is apparently going to take longer. I was in the office monitoring the incessant screech of the squeaky chipmunk she was carrying while she ran around the house, when the sound stopped. By the time I walked to the kitchen, she was standing on the counter, eating eggshells out of the compost bowl. Rob is  really enjoying her, they play and nap together all day and I feel very fortunate that he can handle her even when she is doing that wild-dingo thing puppies do around 7pm each night.

To read more about Formosan Dogs, click here and here.