Chapter Two Hundred Twenty Two
We have a new neighbor. Hitty Pilar was taking Tasha for a walk around the block when she discovered a new family had moved in and they had doggies! She hurried home to tell us about the two big black and white spotted dogs she had seen.
Hitty Pilar did her best to describe the big dogs. I looked in our picture book of dogs and the description fit the Dalmatian breed. They were mainly used as carriage dogs and the first recording of them was in 1719 in Croatia. According to the article in the book, they can have either black or brown spots which appear after a puppy is about three weeks old and sometimes even have one blue eye and one brown eye!
Michael was anxious to be on his way to see them. Hitty Colleen and HittyBelle went along. What a treat for all of them - the yard was full of Dalmatians! Michael could hardly contain himself with excitement. He wanted to pet them all! The Hittys stood and watched while they roamed around the yard. This probably is a family that breeds Dalmatians since I am sure there are too many dogs to be just pets.
After standing outside the fence for some time watching doggies romp and play, Michael just had to go inside. They all seemed quite friendly and no one was around to say they could not enter the yard.
Eventually a person came to the door and the Hittys welcomed them to the neighborhood. As I suspected, they do indeed raise Dalmatians and were quite willing for Michael to take one home on approval. The Hittys gave their address and off they went with a puppy.
Michael, Hitty Helen and Ima were delighted with the puppy but they had not yet gotten approval to keep it. Becassine explained that another puppy and a different breed than our Tasha and Puppy might not be the best thing for our household. Plus I think having three dogs and one that will grow to be quite large is not a very good idea.
After some discussion, it was decided that we could not keep the puppy. I went along with a very sad Michael to take the puppy back to its home. The people were very nice about the whole thing and assured Michael and me that we Hittys would be welcome to come visit the Dalmatians any time we wished. For now we will have to be content watching the movie, "The Hundred & One Dalmatians".
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