From whence did Smooch come?

Someone recently asked on one post or another (and of course I can't find it now) how it came to be that Smooch joined the 7MSN family. 

It was January 2006. Has it really been six years? I had just lost my sweet yellow lab Annie to bone cancer. My other elderly yellow lab, Dusty, was bereft, as was I. We both needed another dog. I went searching on petfinder.com for a puppy to join our family and located a four-month-old "possible Chihuahua mix" named Gracie at a local animal rescue. When I went to the rescue to meet her, I took her for a short walk and she seemed to like me well enough, so I brought her home.

The name "Gracie" did not suit her at all, so when I wanted her attention, I made a loud and obnoxious kissing sound and she would come to me...some of the time. After a week of trying out a litany of names, none of which felt right, I finally gave up and called her Smooch.

The name is rather genderless, and often people wrongly assume that Smooch is a he. In my mind, Smooch is neither a she or a he – Smooch is a dog, a dog's dog, a four-legged, 36-pound, fiercely loyal companion who scares the crap out of strangers, snakes and rabbits with her ferocious bark.

When Smooch is not on high alert, she is comatose. There isn't much of a middle ground.

Smooch: What was that?

Me: Nothing. Now go back to sleep.

Actually the noise she heard was the camera shutter. 

Nothing gets past this dog.