Foster Dogs: Maida, Sorley and Senga

We picked up our first foster mama dog and her two pups on Thursday Sept 3, right before the holiday weekend. The NE Humane Society had been calling the mama dog "Neemo" but it didn't seem to fit, so they said we could change her name if we liked while we were naming the puppies.

Before we could name them, though, we had to determine their sex. As funny as it sounds, we just weren't sure since we had never had 1 week old puppies before! Once we determined which was the boy and which was the girl, we observed them for a day before naming them to get an idea of what their personalities were like. The male pup was constantly moving around and exploring, yipping a lot, and quite chunky. The female pup was slender and a little more quiet. And mama dog was super super shy and unsure.

Since the local Border Collie rescue chooses Scottish names for their dogs (because Border Collies are a Scottish breed), we started searching for some good Scottish names. We didn't quite find one we liked for mama dog, so I chose a Greek name for her instead. Her name is Maida, which means "Shy girl". Very fitting! She has a beautiful long coat, black with hints of red, and a nice blaze on her forehead. She has three "socks" and then one paw that is primarily white. That is her "posing paw" for when she is interested in something. She has a broader snout/forehead than most of the Border Collies we've seen, and she's also shorter, so we think she is a Border Collie mix.


The male puppy we decided to name Sorley, which means "summer wanderer" in Scottish, since he was the more adventurous of the two. He also is quite a bit larger than his sister! He tends to feed a little too much, but we're sure once he starts to walk he'll slim down. He has a mostly black body, with two little white spots on each side of his rear. He has a white collar, and a partially white face. The other portion of his face is black, and he also has a "patch" over his right eye that makes him look like he is wearing a mask.



Last but not least, the female puppy we named Senga. Her name means "Slender" in Scottish, and is also Agnes backwards. She has a beautiful red coat, with a nice white collar. Her paws are mostly white, and her face is mostly red with what appears to be the start of a white blaze like her mother. She has become much more vocal and adventurous since her first night here, but is still the much thinner of the two.