Though we already have more dogs than we actually need, at Thanksgiving we invited one more into the pack.

This is Levi's dog, Laska. He is a big white guardian dog for sheep. Great Pyrenees. And he has only three legs. He has been with Levi for most of his life.

The dog has an interesting history. He started life on the range in central Utah amongst a band of sheep, and when he was about a year old a rancher found him tangled in barbed wire and unable to escape. The injury to his back leg was severe enough to require amputation. From there he went to a recovery/rehab place to heal and learn to walk again. Then to a dog shelter where Levi found him.

They moved to Ohio (4 years) and Texas (2 years). On the drive back out West, Laska slept in the far back of the car until they came through Georgetown, when he became very animated and interested in the landscape.

How does a dog recognize the terrain from behind windows and after six years of absence? Georgetown is a few miles from central Utah, but obviously the closest he had come in a very long time.

We offered for him to stay here on account of the Texas heat and the little yard he lived in. Levi took him for a walk every day and to the park when he could, but mostly Laska laid around on his carpet-sized piece of grass amidst the hubbub and noise of the city. He never barked anymore. He had another dog friend he got to see sometimes. He developed some odd habits, like refusing to cross thresholds at room or yard edges and avoiding all tight spaces. Maybe they reminded him of barbed wire or confinement or pain. But he never became irritable or mean or recalcitrant and never complained so far as I could tell, though he withdrew further into his own inner world.

With all this in mind and not knowing what, if anything, of his natural and primitive instincts he might be able to rediscover after being separated from the land for so long, it has been interesting to watch him out here in Idaho.

After about a week he opened his mouth and every night he calls out with a very deep voice to all the coyotes to let them know not to come too close. Hawks that fly low also set him off. He is a little slow on three legs and slips and falls on the ice every day.

But he is finding the perimeter of our land and getting around and through the fences when he needs to. He cannot get enough of the snow. And he is invariably patient and affectionate and trustworthy with all the farm animals, large and small. Every day I marvel a little about this.

To be injured and rehabilitated, moved around, and crammed into a city for most of his life but still have the resilience to recover — this is something profound. That inner dog soul, never extinguished, is now clawing its way back. How strong the will to live and be.