My
many tales begin when soon-to-be empty-nesters purchased me from an English
lady living in France and then brought me into their home. You see, we live in France, but my
owners are not French … so begins my international lifestyle. Instead, they live and work here in
southern France serving in a church filled with people from all over the
world. I have a feeling that I
will fit right in with these other internationals, whether they be human or not!
I
thought that I would begin to record some of our daily happenings, because
frankly … things keep happening! I also thought that these little nuggets of
adventures and tidbits of life would bring a smile to your face as you hear
what life can be like living in another country & culture.
Our
first trip down memory lane occurred when it came time to name me. No big deal, right? Well, actually there was more stress
than normal in choosing the name that I would be called for a lifetime. You see, in France names for dogs need
to correlate with the year in which they were born (“like hurricanes,” Robin
said. I wonder why she used that
analogy?). In 2012, the letter to
be used was the letter “h”. My
masters could not think of a really cool “h” name and struggled for days over
this enormous task. Being the
non-conformists that they are, I was registered as “Happy” (don’t go there …), but
they choose to call me Tzatziki (which is that really delicious Greek cucumber
sauce that all good Greeks enjoy!)
But you can call me Zeke, for short, since we are soon to be close friends
enjoying our many exploits together.
I
look forward to sharing with you some of my daily adventures as I, being an
English dog with a Greek name, do life here in France with American
masters. Don’t ask … it gets
complicated!
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| Guarding my kingdom ... |
But the other week John and I were startled by an unexpected animal out for a walk, as well! As we were playing "retrieve the large flying rock," John spotted a black pig come out of the adjacent field and begin to follow us. As the pig got closer, John began to realize that this was not the local farm animal that had just escaped, but instead a wild boar that in fact can be quite dangerous, even to humans. He quickly leaded me back up and we started to walk faster not knowing what this fellow would do. The funny part was that for some reason this young wild boar really wanted to walk with us that day and quickly picked up speed to catch up with us. It must have been a funny sight to watch as we too picked up speed trying to advert any possible danger. We came home that day winded from the brisk walk, but filled with excitement to retell our walking tale!
