If you called my dog a dingo... you were probably right.

I remember it as if it were yesterday.

I thought we were going to LOOK for dogs, but no, Erin had other ideas. In her mind, we were going to GET a dog. Not just any dog, but THE dog, and it had to be a puppy. Boy was it ever a puppy. She was about 4lbs, wrinkles all over, big floppy ears, big knobby paws, and tons of energy. She had fresh stitches on her undercarriage from being spade (which now pisses me off, but what can you do), a fresh tattoo, and a few worms, but other than that she was 100% tough.

Leila Jane sitting on Erin's lap the day we brought her home.

We named her Leila Jane, after the Clapton song, and figured Jane was a good middle name to use, just kind of came together. They told us she was a Chinese Sharpei, Boxer mix, and that she would get to about 35-40 lbs. At six months she was 40 lbs. She continued to grow, but she was always well-behaved, even for being confined to an urban apartment at first and now an even smaller duplex (although I must admit she loves to run the stairs, but with her long legs and muscular frame she only hits about 4 on the way up). She rarely messed inside, and if she did we knew she was sick. She played rough, but thats probably a combination of her size, my constant roughhousing with her and the fact that her best bud in Charlotte was Tanner, my buddy's Pit Bull.

She is now about 19 months old, and weighs in around 70lbs, she is still gentle, very intelligent, loving, and at times a bit weird. Weird, yeah, my dog... hunts dogs, and cats, and birds, and squirrells, and snipes (not really, I told you she was intelligent, she doesn't fall for the "snipe hunt" as quickly as a pledge). You ask, "what do you mean by 'hunt' Shawn"?" Well happy you asked, she gets down low, crouching to about half her normal height, her steps are slow and deliberately placed, eyes fixed on her prey, and just as she senses her timing is perfect, she leaps towards the prey accelerating to almost max speed within fractions of a second, and usually pulling my arm from my shoulder. A funny picture illustrating the end result of Leila's hunting prowess is below. The short of the story is that Leila got into "hunt mode" as she was exiting the house, she chased a kitten around the house behind us to our neighbors back porch. Once I caught up, this is what greeted me.Thank God for picture phones.

At this point if I were you (thank God I'm not, just kidding you seem like a great human), I'd be asking "What does this have to do with the title?" Well essentially this is all pointing to the fact that we cannot for the life of us figure out what type of dog she is. That is until the other day, I was at a friend's house up the road a spell, and his roommate's dog look just like Leila, well just like Leila plus like 30 lbs. After questioning the roommate about his dog I was told he was part American Dingo, also known as Carolina Dog. I had never heard of the breed, nor had I ever seen a Carolina Dog before, so I got home and gots to some reading.

You can click on the title of this article and Wikipedia will break it on down for you like you know they would. Essentially Carolina Dogs are thought to be the original dogs in this part of North America (what part? why the best part, the south east). Its believed that these are the ancestors of Korean dogs, who crossed the Bering land bridge with some of the first (who knows right? I wasn't here) humans to step foot on this beautiful continent, they lived here, side by side with Native Americans, as a type of Pariah dog, communal, a great hunting partner, and obviously a strong breed, as I have one of them using a pillow on my couch right now.

My research proved exciting as each and every bit of Carolina Dog filled my head. She fit EVERY single characteristic, she no longer looked like a Boxer German-Shepherd mutt, or a Sharpei mix, no, she was some sort of mutt with Carolina Dog, if not 100% Carolina Dog. Its a fascinating history these dogs have, still living wild in the lowcountry and swamps of the Carolinas and Georgia. Still living alongside humans thousands of years later, truly man's best friend.

Below I have put a couple of pictures so you can see what I mean as far as the visual similarities between Leila Jane and prime examples of American Dingos/Carolina Dogs. The personality profiles I read were also remarkably similar, and anyone knowing Leila can attest to the fact that she acts a bit unlike most other dogs.

Thanks for reading. Here's some comparison photos.Leila and Erin on the Beach.

Leila (8 mos) sitting on the couch.

Carolina Dogs. (above and below)

Check out more Carolina Dogs/American Dingos by simply performing a Google image search.