As the very deep and loving friendship between the Yellow Lab purebred puppy and the abandoned Arkansas Boston Terrier has deepened, I realized that it is the stuff of fairy tales.

These two are inseparable, Bud has taken Zinnia under his rather small wing and showed her how to be a puppy in our home. He also gets chewed on all day, and has scabs all over his head and neck.

When they aren’t playing tug-of-war or chasing one another under the table, they’re curled up in front of the fireplace staying warm.

In the Fairy Tale, Zinnia would be the rich dog, raised by a skilled and wealthy breeder, given the best food and care and environment to be born in. Zinnia has been loved every day of her life. She is only 14 weeks old, she needs a dog friend.

Bud is nearly three years old, he is the poor boy from across the tracks, abandoned by a cruel and ignorant owner who left him to suffer in the elements in a metal pen with no shelter outdoors. All of his pen mates died of exposure, and Bud himself nearly died of heartworm, starvation and exposure.

He was found and nursed back to health by a big-hearted rescue worker named Carol, and eventually was adopted and brought to a farm thousands of miles away. He was traumatized by the change, and it took him months to get his footing and health back, and settle in.

There on the farm, he met the rich dog and the story seems to have taken a happy torn for each of them. The beautiful and lovingly bred Lab from Connecticut loves the poor dog from Southern Arkansas.

The two dogs are very different, one was born of Champion parents, and will be tall and beautiful.  One was expensive, the other was free apart from medical costs. He was bred by a backyard breeder, suffered greatly, and and is short and flat-nosed.

Both dogs are sweet and patient, neither has ever harmed or menaced the other. Both love to eat things that are disgusting for humans to consider. Both are obedient and open to training.

It is dog love, not the human and messy kind. They seem to ground and comfort one another, each in his own way. It is a fairy tale in its own way, it is beautiful to see it in that way. Dogs are not bound by human notions of class.

Some stories do have happy endings.