I call them the Odd Couple. Two very different dogs from two very different places. Zinnia was bred by an accomplished breeder in pristine conditions, she has been treated well, carefully and lovingly every day of her life. You could say Zinnia is a dog of privilege.

Bud’s early life was an unrelenting nightmare. As a puppy he was left outside in a wire enclosure with no roof, he endured cold, snow, heat and neglect, with no shelter, no company, no good food.

This turned out to be a two-year sentence for him in Southern Arkansas.

All of the other dogs in his enclosure died of exposure, Bud barely survived. A rescue group came and purchased him from his criminally negligent owner, and he spent the next six months being treated for heartworm, starvation, sores and bites and infections.

These two dogs could not have been acquired in more different rays, one for $2,500 from an award-winning breeder; the other for $1,000 (mostly medical costs) and shipped on a giant tractor-trailer to a parking lot in Vermont.

She came in great health and coat, happy and curious and eager. Bud was a wreck, he was shivering, cowering dog expecting to be beaten at any moment. But they couldn’t get along any better if they were siblings.

Both are gentle souls, full of love.

But has turned into one of the sweetest and most affectionate dogs I’ve yet seen, and he and Zinnia just seem to adore one another.  He is teaching Zinnia how to navigate our world.

They are always together, playing, wrestling, sleeping, riding in the back of the door.

They are inseparable. It’s a beautiful story to me, a dog born in privilege, a dog born into neglect. They both end up together and in a good place.