Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Classy Clown

No farm is complete without a dog.

Most farms around here feature obese labradors or border collies that eat espresso beans for breakfast. I suppose these are logical choices -- hardy, hairy, and happy about life in the mud and manure.

At In the Night Farm, however, we believe in being different. We adopted a greyhound.

This is Wyrsa. Unlike most greyhounds obtained through rescue organizations, she was never a racetrack dog. Instead, she was obtained from a breeder in our area who sells greyhound/Irish wolfhound crosses to farmers to hunt coyotes.

Greyhounds are not attack dogs, but they're plenty fast enough to run down coyotes. The usual coyote-hunting technique is to release a greyhound or two with some slower but more vicious dogs. The greyhounds catch the coyote and keep it busy long enough for the other dogs to catch up and finish it off...hopefully before the greyhound suffers injury.

Wyrsa, blissfully unaware of her thwarted career path, hunts the rare Idaho Blue Hippo instead.

A wyrsa is a mythical creature created by fantasy author Mercedes Lackey. According to Travis, who reads Lackey's novels, wyrsa are evil beasts resembling a cross between a serpent and a greyhound.

Pure evil.

Though still full of energy at 10 months of age, Wyrsa already exhibits characteristic greyhound couch-potato tendencies. Her motto: Why stand when you could lie down? Yes, even on the bath mat while Mama is in the shower.

Life is ruff.

3 comments:

Kessira said...

Wyrsa is SOOOOO cute! However, a Wyrsa is a mythical creature created by Mercedes Lackey, not Anne McCaffrey. Anne McCaffrey had those talking dragons. Mercedes Lackey created the Wyrsa, a creature than looked like a cross between a grayhound and a serpent.

Tamara Baysinger said...

Ha! I meant to double check that before posting. Obviously, I'm not the fantasy reader in the family.

Must go edit...

east end jenn said...

Anne McCaffrey also wrote "The Heavenly Horse From the Outermost West" and "Piper at the Gate," the only two fantasy books I've ever read. About horses, natch.