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Lupe

On a trip through Texas, Steve came across a couple of men in Fort Stockton giving some scraps of food to a feral dog. He stopped and asked if the dog belonged to them, and they said she didn't. Steve asked if they minded if he took her off the street, and they said they'd like it if he did -- they had seen another feral dog killed by a car the day before, and didn't want the same to happen to her.

After about twenty minutes of talking quietly to the dog and giving her some beef jerky, Steve was able to get a leash onto her without being bitten too badly, and she was off to the vet around the corner for shots. She met the other dogs traveling with him without incident, and made the trip back to Washington with no problems.

Lupe is a feral dog, or a 'pariah dog,' which means, depending on which scientist you talk to, either that she is the descendant of domestic dogs that reverted to living wild, or she's the descendant of wolves that never took the last step into domestication -- wild dogs that have lived on the fringe of human society for thousands of years, eating our leftovers and picking through our garbage. In the southern United States, pariah dogs are often coyote hybrids as well, and a dog living in the west Texas desert almost certainly has some coyote ancestors.

Lupe is small, weighing only about twenty pounds; she is a little underweight, but she is eating well now that she's out of the truck and on solid ground at the Sanctuary. Despite her size, she is getting along well with the other dogs, and even though she is a wild dog, she has quickly taken to human contact, and would prefer to spend most of her time sitting on someone's lap. When she's not demanding attention, she loves to run around the yard, and she can really move!

As soon as she has settled in completely and her weight is where it should be, Lupe will be spayed and microchipped; she'll never have to scavenge for a meal again, and she'll have all the socialization with dogs and people she ever wants.