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ahaha, she so should! as awkward as she is, hilarity might ensue. 
Having traveled half the world from her birthplace to get to American shores, Alacrity was aware of the variety of cultures that spanned the civilized and partially-civilized continents. She was less informed about the intricacies of life here on these feral shores, but she assumed -- rather wrongfully -- that a lack of visible civilization meant a lack of culture. This was a rather large blind spot in her logical thinking, because her birth pack had not been civilized in any stretch of the word, yet had as culture rich and vibrant as any modern European city. Still, there was enough world experience in her to realize that her companion's continued compliment was a misunderstanding of her reaction, but she decided against correcting him. Besides, while she recognized miscommunication, she had as little grasp of his background as he did hers, and would not know where, exactly, he was coming from. So she smiled instead and accepted the wink with good-natured grace.
"If travelers leave Africa, they generally head north to Europe or east to the Orient," she replied to his next comment. "So it's no surprise you've never met someone from my homeland before." Alacrity herself was no exception to this rule - she'd followed the river north to Egypt, crossed the Mediterranean, and explored the townships of the shoreline until chance led her to a ship that crossed the lesser of the two great seas. "It is only a desert for part of the year, and then it is hot and dusty and dry." she corrected gently with the light of memory in her eyes. "But when the rains finally come and the rivers fill, then it is paradise." Here, the changing of the seasons alternated in hot and cold, and it was the cold that was deadly. At home, the seasons hinged on the coming of rain; when the rains failed the savanna suffered and it was then that the canines of her kind died.
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Le Poer," she returned his bow with a dip of her head, her large ears pulling back as she did so. "I doubt you could pronounce the name that was given to me on my name-day. It translates roughly to Alacrity, though, and you may call me that." That was the custom of her kin, anyway. A pup was called something simple to distinguish it from its littermates while growing up. Upon entering adulthood, a suitable name was given to the survivors of each litter. And also by custom, the name translated to tongue being spoken, so the quality inherent in the name was not lost to the listeners. "I had heard that it can get cold here. I suppose if it gets too bad, I'll head south." Her clan followed the herds as they migrated to find water, and she assumed that a similar pattern existed here. She, like Anselm, had seen a map of this strange new world, but had wildly underestimated the distances involved: African Wild Dogs were built for running tirelessly for miles on end, but it was unlikely that even she could outrun the season.
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