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192 Animoosh A girl surrounded by brothers has to have a dream. Mine was to live deep in green woods near a stream with a dog to protect me. Not the family dog, that pile of lint who licked and begged, but some dream dog who would mysteriously appear. Heroic canine—swift as a Greyhound, she’d share her kill. Her markings would be expressive as a Shepherd’s mobile brows and a smiling muzzle. She’d be velvet-pelted as a Bulldog and as big-jawed to pull me from sink holes, mud slides. I’d call the mutt Annie, and when we rested on the cold earth, breathing the same raw-rabbit breath, far from home, darkness creaking about us, Annie’s ears twitching, tail swishing— we could howl all our loneliness into the world. I was sure the dog would come from my dream. With my back to the shadow edge of the shelter belt, I would stare until I saw her—always just beyond me, bounding through the long field of goldenrod and sun. Animoosh is Ojibwe for dog. ...

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