Hal the Pal (a story of love)

Once upon a time a young Great Pyrenees dog lived with several others in a dark small shed. They were cold when it was cold and hot when it was hot. There was very little food, so he was always hungry and thin.

Sometimes, when he was allowed outside, he was beaten and yelled at for reasons he didn't understand. Sometimes his other pack mates didn't survive.

Then some folks showed up to rescue him and his pack mates from the dark shed. While they were there, they also rescued the horses and cats who lived in that place. There were TV cameras and strange people. But they had kind voices, so even though the Great Pyr was scared, he went along quietly. He was taken to a strange place with many dogs. It was full of light and he got lots of food. One of his pack mates was in the kennel next to him, and he was treated with kindness by the people who cared for him there.

What he didn't know was that the mother of one of the Dream River Ranch folks had seen the TV reports about this Great Pyr and his pack mates. The mother had told her daughter, and she went to the Humane Shelter and put in a request for the Great Pyr, because Dream River Ranch had the heart, room and space. We needed someone to help Rusty and Sam guard the ranch. We needed someone else to love.

A month went by and the week before Christmas, Dream River Ranch got a call. Do you still want another Great Pyre? Boy did we! Plans were made to meet him and see if he would like a new home.

At the first meeting, he was walked out with one of his pack mates. She was small and delicate and lovely, but the person from the ranch had a knowing that the he was one we needed at the ranch. He was the one who could help Rusty and Sam. They needed him, and he needed us. So the person from the ranch spoke with the person at the Humane Shelter and it was decided to bring Rusty and Sam to meet this Great Pyre and see if they would accept each other as pack mates.

It was a match! The folks at the Humane Shelter were surprised, but Willa and Dree weren't. They both had a knowing that this Great Pyre was the one for Dream River Ranch. He needed a good home with lots of space, love, and kindness, after his home in the dark shed. Rusty, Sam and the Great Pyre liked each other right away. There would still be some issues of pack placement to decide, but that could be decided later. We paid for him that night and said that we would be back the Saturday after Christmas--because we needed to get his dog house into order before we could bring him home.

That Saturday was one of the snowiest days we had all winter. The weather was blowing snow, the road was snowy, icy and there were several slide offs on our way to get our new friend. Joseph was driving, so we weren't one of the slide offs! We got our new Great Pyre who was very shy and scared to leave the one kind place he had ever known. He didn't know it then, but he had just been granted the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

We drove slowly home--it took over an hour. When we got home, we took him off the leash and he took off. We were scared for a few minutes that he would run away, but he ran to the end of the driveway and stopped and came back. Then he ran the other way, but stopped when he got inside the South Pasture. He came back. We took him for a walk, but couldn't walk far, as the snow was deep in places and we didn't have snow shoes. But he quickly understood that this was his home. When he saw the large garbage can where we store our dog food, he thought he'd died and gone to heaven. He'd never seen so much food in one place in his life!

It took only a few hours for Rusty to teach him that an empty hand is a hand that could be petting a dog. And that all you have to do is put your nose in the empty hand in order to get petted. Sam was a little bit put off at first--was this new dog here to take his place? It took a few days for him to realize that this newcomer was there to be a help to him. Even if he was a little young and would need some training up.

This dog came to us without a name, and without much of a past. What could we name him? We discussed the fact that we wanted a good plain western sounding name. So we tried on Jake, and Shep (my personal favorite), and Bear, but none of them seemed right. We tried Hal, and then Willa found herself laughing when she would say Hal No! So the name stuck.

Soon we discovered that we were calling him Hal "y" Pal. Because he became the Pal that Rusty had always wanted and the helper that Sam needed. So the name Hal the Pal has stuck. He is still growing, and if he grows into his feet, he will be bigger than Sam when he is full grown.

So once upon a time Hal the Pal lived in a dark shed, but now he is living happily ever after, indeed.