There was a sad note to last week’s vacation, though.  My mother’s dog, an 11-year-old black lab named Chula died suddenly at the end of the week. 

From the time I realized that something was wrong with her to the time she was dead was about 10 minutes.  Her symptoms indicated to me that she had gotten into something poisonous.  Whether this was due to a snake-bite, something she accidentally ingested, or something she was given is impossible to say.  But in my more suspicious moments I can’t help but wonder if the people who recently moved in across the road didn’t have something to do with it.  Chula had a habit of running out to the road and chasing anyone who rode a bicycle in front of the house.  She didn’t mean any harm by it and if you understood dog body language you would know she wasn’t a threat.  But I could see how a young child (such as the boy who lives across the road) would be intimidated by her.

I just hope that my suspicion was misplaced.  Unfortunately, we’ll never know for certain what happened to her, and I suspect that it will always bother me.

We buried her near her favorite tree, where she used to spend hours watching and waiting for squirrels.