Small Town Hero(ine)

I got a call from an editor this afternoon to go get a picture of a local hero (or heroine, as the case was) for the next edition of the paper. This is Nyla -- a bullmastiff with moxie. As most households around here have at least one dog, dog stories make popular human interest features in our tiny paper.

We have some conservation land with cranberry bogs and a couple of ponds where people frequently go for a run or to walk their dogs. One day last week, a woman's brittany spaniel went into the pond after some ducks or geese. The dog got disoriented and started to panic. The woman began to take off her shoes to wade in after her dog and another walker stripped of his shirt to go in, when out of the blue Nyla ran into the pond, got behind the spaniel and pushed the dog toward safety and its owner.

Nyla's owner said she had no idea Nyla even knew how to swim. And it's true that bullmastiffs aren't really known as water dogs. Nyla wouldn't pose for me, but I managed to get a few candid shots of her before she licked my daughter's face and then ran off to the cranberry bog where she spends much of her free time. Maybe she's been taking swimming lessons down there on the sly. In any case, there are at least two families in town who are happy to have Nyla around.



Contemplated posting her in black and white, but decided on color in the end.