Gone to the Dogs

 Our son texted us photos of Mungo recently. Mungo is their dog. I got the following from Wikipedia:

"Mungo Park was a Scottish explorer of West Africa. After an exploration of the upper Niger River around 1796, he wrote a popular and influential travel book titled Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa in which he theorized the Niger and Congo merged to become the same river."

Our son and daughter-in-law are avid travelers and met as Peace Corps volunteers in West Africa. And yes, our granddog, Mungo did have the spirit of adventure like his namesake.

 

Keola and Sarah adopted Mungo from an animal shelter in October of 2009. We met him in spring of 2010. 

Mungo was full of spirit and loved to explore the mountains of New Mexico where they lived.

Unfortunately, he hated men. I was surprised that he could tell men and women apart. He especially hated men who wore glasses and hats.

We surmised that he must have been badly treated by men.

Still... he tolerated Keola and loved Sarah with total devotion.

Art loves dogs. He's had three dogs while growing up and they were all named Finnegan. I have no idea why. They were just Finnegan 1, Finnegan 2 and Finnegan 3.

However, whenever Art would come into the house, Mungo would growl and bark at him. When Tiffany, KC or I would walk in first, Mungo was perfectly fine. Art would always have to make sure he had doggie biscuits with him as payment for allowing him to enter the house.

Mungo has aged, but he is still a fine looking dog. When we visited Keola and family in Maryland last year, we found that Mungo had finally accepted Art. He was willing to go for walks with him and allowed him in the house without demanding any sort of doggie biscuit payment. 

They celebrated Mungo's adoption/estimated birthday this weekend. Wow! He's about 13 years old.

When I texted these photos to my cousins, they texted me photos of their special family members.

Cousin Hol sent this photo of her precious canine children. 

I could swear Cassidy is smiling. 

Hol tells me that Gunner is wearing her tank top because he'd had some surgery.

I think he's smiling too.

Cousin Lor sent me her Bailey and Journey.

Bailey is an Irish terrier mix.

Hmmmm.... Was he named after Baileys Irish Creme, do you think?

Journey is an Airedale/whippet mix. Hmmmm.. Maybe he likes long walks?.

Cousin Pen sent me this photo of her granddog, Steven Pawking. 

His namesake, Stephen Hawking would surely see the intelligence and sweetness in Pen's granddog's face.

Art just told me that if the ratio of dog years to human years is 7, Mungo would be the same age as my mom. He'd be 91 years old.

However.....

I got this information from WebMD:

"...Dogs mature more quickly than we do early on. So the first year of your fuzzy friend's life is equal to 15 human years.

Size and breed also play a role. Smaller dogs tend to live longer than larger ones, but they may mature more quickly in the first few years of life. A huge pup might age more slowly at first, but be nearing middle age at 5. Tiny and toy breeds don't become "seniors" until around 10. Medium-sized pooches are somewhere in the middle on both counts..."

Hmmmm...

So I'm thinking now that Mungo must be around 74-80. 

Now that I'm nearing that age, I'm considering Mungo still quite young.

However, as I sat talking to Mungo last year and looked into his eyes, he seemed older and tired and more serious.

With the pandemic keeping everybody housebound though, I can imagine how happy Mungo must be to have his family close by and loving all the extra attention.

It's a wonderful thing for us seniors to have loved ones close by.