No, you’re not seeing double. We now have two dogs! We had originally planned to buy both brothers so they could work together to patrol and defend our property from unwanted pests. (Coyotes, bears, tax collectors, and such.) But the owner’s young daughter was so attached to Tag that he decided to keep him. But after some family discussion about priorities, they convinced the daughter that Tag should come to us. Whereas Rascal was the largest of the litter, and is expected to be even bigger than his mom when he is full grown, Tag was the runt. He is much more excitable, but also seems to be more alert to intruders. Rascal seldom barks, but Tag will hear coyotes howling and bark loudly to tell them to stay away. They both love romping with each other and have (almost) learned not to devour their food until I get it in their bowl and tell them “okay”. They’re both wonderful dogs, very affectionate and intelligent. They mostly keep within our property lines, but when the neighbor harvested an elk and hung it in a tree awaiting processing, the temptation to go sniff at it was just too much to resist, so we had to keep them in their kennel until the elk was all gone.

We took Rascal to the vet yesterday for his first round of vaccinations; it’s Tag’s turn on Monday. And then they’re both scheduled for neutering the week of Thanksgiving.