I’m going to tell you about a very special pruppet named Willow and how she came to be the best friend of one of our listeners, Darrah.

Darrah is a freaking PALEONTOLOGIST. Which, I think we’re both smart and all of our listeners are smart, of course, but anytime your job title ends with -ologist, I’m just like, oh, you’re really legit. Anyway.

Darrah was on a DINOSAUR DIG in Montana over the summer with the museum where she works and had actually left the dig to accompany some of the volunteers back to where they lived. The day after she left, she started getting these texts about a dog that had wandered to the campsite which seemed really weird to her, because it was supposed to be like SUPER stormy and bad weather the night she left. Her friends still at the dig were like, yeah there was a huge thunderstorm, but everyone at the camp had actually been woken up by like, crazy barking AND THEN the sort of yip yaps and howls of coyotes! The crew chief went out to check things out, as well as the chief’s husband. The chief’s husband thought that the dog that was out there was sick, or even rabid, but as soon as the crew chief got out there, this prup came right up to her and rolled over right at her feet. They made a safe place for the puppet to stay for the night under their trailer, assuming it’d kind of sleep it off, rest up, and be gone back into the wild by morning. But, the next day, the dog was still there!

She was obviously really skinny, and had been wandering on her own for a while and was even favoring one paw and kind of limping. Everyone at the camp fell in with this little fluff, and she became Willow the Paleo Pup, the unofficial mascot of the dino dig! She would even follow the crew out to the actual dig and help them dig up… a TYRANNASAUR. This dog is so much cooler than I am.

While Darrah was away from the camp, she still got updates on this dog. Other members of the team had tried to locate her owners, even asking around the area, but no one claimed or recognized her. Darrah had just moved to North Dakota and was totally ready to get a dog, and the field team brought Willow back for her. They’ve been besties ever since!

Willow is a blue heeler border collie mix, which I’ve had both and they are insanely smart balls of energy! She had had a pretty serious injury to her paw, but it had mostly healed by the time Darrah got her and she’s back to full health and is a total goofball. Some of her favorite things to do are to run up and down the stairs and do her zoomies in the yard!