A most unlikely angel

Tuesday morning, I opened the front door to read my Bible on the porch, and saw this:

What?  A little dog, in my chair???  

Until others were up, I sat inside, and opened my Bible.  My lectionary of readings comes from the Church of England, and it turned out that Tuesday was a festival to honor Michael and all the Angels.  Historically the church calendar included days like this, to teach the public about various aspects of church history and doctrine.

So, how does a stray dog appearing tie into a festival of readings about angels?

Well, you must take into account that the evening before my first box of books was delivered.  A Chameleon, A Boy, and A Quest features a mysterious dog that appears out of nowhere and without giving too much away, I'll say that uninvited dogs and guardian angels could be significant.  Though if this is our guardian, we may be in trouble.

So here is life imitating art, and what are we to do?

For a day we petted this little dog, and offered her some leftover cornbread.  She is perky and pleasant, eager to please, wagging her little tail, with barely a peep of noise.  Those big eyes.  She has no collar.  Today I biked around to knock on doors a mile or so in several directions.  Which is not as easy as it sounds, since many of the trailers and homes around here have their own hostile dogs.  I chatted with a half dozen people, showed them my photos, and NO ONE had seen this dog before.  Yet she clearly has been cared for, and seems comfortable with people.

The rational part of the family has pointed out that we are on the road half the time.  That it is probably not culturally acceptable to show up as a guest with a dog, even a very small quiet well-behaved one.  We were NOT looking for a dog.  This is NOT our type of dog.  But this little creature has appeared out of thin air and acts as if she lives here.  Another dog came into the yard today and she made her first sound, hackles up, defending us.  She quivers with joy whenever we come outside.  And she hasn't gone more than a few dozen yards away.  She seems to think she lives here.

We are due to leave again this weekend, so a decision must be made.  I will probably take her to the SPCA tomorrow in the unlikely event that someone has reported her missing, or that she has a microchip, to try and reunite her to an owner.  But I suspect she was abused or kicked out or dropped off, she is so quiet and cowering.  Coming on the tail end (no pun intended) of one dog dying and another being left for the family moving into our house, of massive transition, it is much harder than I would have expected to not respond to those big trusting eyes.  Lord have mercy.