Meet Mona.

Mona is our mutt.  She has been a part of our family since we adopted her on August 24th.

We'd been looking for a dog for a while.  I'd visited several shelters numerous times but never found the right dog.  On a whim, I stopped by our local shelter one day before work.  I passed by a cage with a little black dog baring its teeth at me.  I looked at several others, passed by the black dog again, and doubled back.  Was she really baring her teeth at me?  Her tail beating wildly against the sides of the cage.  I'd never seen a dog growl and wag its tail at the same time.  Maybe she wasn't growling.  I asked about her, but the volunteer knew little about her as she'd just come in.  I asked to see her, and she was incredibly sweet and friendly.  I went to the shelter office to ask a little more about her, and before I knew it, I was driving home with a smiling dog in my back seat.  Three days later, we signed the official paperwork, and the little shelter dog tagged "Marley" was ours.

She smiles.  I've yet to get it on camera or train her to do it on command, but she scrunches up her little snub nose and smiles.  It makes her look so ridiculous you can't help but laugh.  She LOVES people, and smiles at everyone she meets.  Unfortunately, her smile greatly resembles a sign of aggression, so it's slightly alarming at first if you don't know her.  And since the only famous smile we could think of was Leonardo da Vinci's painting, we named her Mona.

Mona is a hodgepodge mix off who-knows-what.  She runs like a herding dog, swooping out wide, circling back in, and turning on a dime.  Our best guess is a Cavalier / Border collie mix.  I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little bit of gazelle in there too.  She's got the affectionate, outgoing, eager attitude of a Cavalier, with the smarts and stamina of a border collie.  She's mostly a quiet girl in the house, but the second you mention the park, a switch goes off and she becomes a bouncy, energetic nutcase desperate for another dog to chase her.

She's amazing.  She's nothing like what I thought I wanted (I thought I wanted a big dog; she's only 20 pounds).  But she's sweet and smart and everything I needed in a dog.  I want only the best for her.  And I think that best is raw.