A car backfired …

and I learned something about my sweet Brownie’s life on the streets

I was walking my two youngest dogs, Brownie and Rolo, on day a week or two ago. We were taking a long lazy summer walk up to the Canada Post complex because there are groundhogs there — and the dogs love groundhogs.

Brownie at home where she is safe. Photo by the author.

We walked up to a roundabout and as we crossed the street a car came by and backfired a couple of times. I didn’t think much of it. Brownie jumped a bit but that’s not unusual for her. Then the car passed right beside us and backfired four or five times in rapid succession as it did, Brownie went berserk trying to get away.

Brownie can be leash reactive but these days it’s because she wants desperately to meet ALL the doggies we see and it just isn’t possible. She is the sweetest thing in the world. She is incredibly careful to be polite and respectful with me and with the other dogs.

As it happened, my heard broke because I was learning something about her life before she came to me.

Brownie is a rescue from the UAE. She was living in Abu Dhabi on a construction site and being fed regularly by a rescue group called Animal Action UAE. It took them two years to catch her so they could bring her in to someone’s home. Mine was the first human home she’d ever lived in. She was not interested…