About a year and a half ago, I was living in Boston and hanging out in Somerville every night. One evening at the Diesel Café, I made friends with a guy name Reed. He walked rich people’s dogs while they were at work or too busy doing more important things. He had keys to their houses and would pick up these lonely pups everyday in his Jeep. I was desperately missing canine company as well a good walk through some un-manicured woods, so I asked to join him at ‘work’.

His morning pack was a typical group of wagging tails. Smelly labs, hyper mutts, muddy retrievers. They charged me, got a good whiff and went romping along with the rest of the gang. There was one extremely large dog that showed me no interest. I didn’t quite know what to make of her. She struck me as quite unusual, especially because of a strip of hair running down her spine, much like a mohawk. Nula was her name and Reed told me not to expect any affection from her because she was ‘his bitch’.

Nula was the first Rhodesian Ridgeback I ever met. The first time, in fact, I had heard of the breed (being relatively well-informed concerning the world of dogs.)

……………I’m still writng this. Come back tomorrow for the ending. :-j