a dog story

A neighbor up the hill got in touch late this past week, saying she'd seen and heard a dog from the direction of our driveway when she'd been walking down the lane to get mail. She'd wondered if it was our dog, but didn't think so, and whether we knew anything about it. We didn't. 

She said it was a big dog, with a big, throaty bark. We hadn't heard it.

This afternoon we walked down the driveway to get our mail, which we'd forgotten about yesterday. Lupine dashed down the hill and around the curve of the driveway and we heard this unknown dog's big bark. It was baying from the hill above the turn in our lane. It wouldn't come, but wouldn't go far. I hiked up the hill towards it, and a light-colored something on the ground. It was another dog, curled up next to an old wood pile, dead. It was clear that the barking dog had been sleeping in the leaves right next to its dead friend for a number of days and nights. It still wouldn't come to us.

The dead dog had a collar, and a tag with a phone numbere. I called and delivered the news to an older fellow who said he'd been missing two dogs for five days. Jake drove to the township hall to meet him and led him back to our place. The barking dog came to his owner, wagging and whining, and hungry, and Jake carried the other one down the hill and put him in the man's truck. The man was shaken, but thankful we'd called.

We'll never know what happened, there were no visible wounds on the dead dog. I feel badly we didn't know sooner. Maybe they'd been there all week, and we drove by them early morning and late afternoon and didn't hear or see them. I keep thinking about those dogs, and how the barking one, Clyde was his name, wouldn't leave his friend. Buddy. Buddy was the dead one. Clyde barked at people walking by, which where they landed only ended up being our one neighbor and us, asking for help in the only way he knew how. He did the right thing, and got them both home in the end.