My girl, Ardan.
Adopted during my military service. Her name is miltary jargon for 'all's well, relax', originating from a psychotropic antidepressant the army shrinks would hand out to depressed and suicidal enlisted men back in the day.
She was found near a military outpost where I would be stationed for weeks on end, after a massive wildfire ravaged the surrounding landscape and most of the nearby villages. She had a collar, but no tag or chip, so we adopted her as a guard-dog (for which she displayed an excellent instinct, being fiercely possessive of us). Once, she bit onto the boot of a corporal who was playfully roughousing with one of 'her boys' and hung on for dear life (thankfully the corporal was a good sport about it, and even praised her for her courage) ; several more times she warned us of incoming patrol checks by barking like mad, something for which we adored her.
Then autumn came, and we started getting massive rains; and we only had an adapted shipping container to sleep in in the outpost, and there was no way we could let a stray sleep with us (the senior non-com would throw a fit). So, poor Artane was having a lot of trouble finding shelter. Things came to a head when she panicked and tried to sneak into the container after a night of particularly torrential rainfall, at which point I spent the entirety of my two-hour watch taking care of the poor animal, drying her out with one of my T-shirts and keeping her under my poncho. Two days later, I woke up to find her curled around my boots, something that she refused to do for any other soldier. A few days later, I was recalled to the main barracks for a week or so - when she realised I was leaving, she followed the military truck for six kilometres, crying all the way. We were both very happy to see each other in the outpost when I returned...
After my service term came to an end, nobody else had expressed any desire to take care of her, so I bit the bullet. She's been with the family ever since and she's everyone's darling.
