A newly acquired dog proves to be a delightful traveling companion on a cross-country adventure. By Paul Sullivan

Date published: 4/2/2005

IN THE 1950s, author John Steinbeck went out in a camper with his dog, Charley, in search of America. His epic 10,000-mile road trip resulted in a best-selling classic of road warriors, "Travels with Charley."

As a young man, I read that narrative and loved it.

As a not-so-young man, I adopted a lovable mutt from an area shelter last month and, not coincidentally, set out to reread Steinbeck's account while taking my own far-flung road trip.

My regular readers may recall the story I told a few weeks back about my search for the ideal dog. My "Goldilocks dog," I called it, since it would have to put up with my odd habits and roaming tendencies. Like the little girl in the children's story, this Goldilocks couldn't be too much of this or too much of that. She would have to be Just Right.

I had thought about calling this little girl Goldilocks, but when I took a dear friend to have a look at her in the shelter, as soon as she saw my gentle friend-to-be, she exclaimed: "Hi, Annie. This is an Annie dog."

And so she is.

A week after signing the papers, I set out from Fredericksburg, heading west across the United States in a small pickup truck with Little Orphan Annie as my sole companion. An orphan is what she had been. County animal control officers picked her up as a stray. In the interim waiting period before she was put up for adoption, no one claimed her.

As a household pet, Annie readily adapted to anything, everything and everybody. I could put her outside or keep her inside. It didn't matter; she never complained. Cats? She shrugged off five of them.

In fact, I had begun to think her so mild-mannered as to be incapable of barking. The misperception vanished when a neighbor's dog approached her one day in the yard. Annie exploded in fury, lashing the hapless visitor, who was only trying to be sociable.

Date published: 4/2/2005