Juniper Friday! Zigzag

Juniper, a dog, stands in a fence yard, her body clearly visible in profile. A slight zigzag is visible in her tail.

A detail of Juniper’s tail that photos don’t quite do justice is that it has two permanent “kinks” that give it a characteristic zigzag. She was born in a shelter with these, and they don’t give her any trouble at all. According to the shelter operators, this is fairly common in large litters (Juniper was the born the smallest of eleven puppy siblings), because when the womb gets very crowded, a few tail vertebrae can become fused at slightly arbitrary angles. When we met Juniper’s sister Kona by happenstance, we learned that Kona’s tail is fused in three places, at angles that give her a permanent corkscrew tail. They say that from crooked timber, no straight thing is ever made, but zigzag or no, Juniper’s as straight-shooting a dog as they come.