My life with the animals

 "The animals, they speak to you," Brenda said one time.

Two days ago

Yesterday

 That, in a nutshell, explains me.  

I understand animals way better than I understand people. I pick up nuances of their behaviour that others don't seem to notice. For instance, a few days after Cork died, a red fox observed there is no dog here now. It spent most of yesterday afternoon searching for sunflower seeds that had fallen from the birdfeeders. Likewise it is not an accident a timber wolf came trotting past one of my trail cameras in full daylight -- in hunting season! Since nobody's home, we can do whatever we like, they are saying.

As I buried Cork last week I flashed back to just seven years ago when I buried our other chocolate Lab, Sam. It was exactly the same time of year, in fact, all four of our dogs have died within the same 30-day period.

There was a mother bear with two cubs cleaning out the apple tree back then, just like they did a couple of weeks ago. I feared the bears would dig up Sam's body. I knew it was just his body, that Sam himself was gone, but I was not going to let that happen.

I had nothing against the bears, nothing at all, but I would have shot them dead if they came after Sam. That's just the way it was. But even in my grief and despair, I thought about the most merciful thing to do if they came to Sam's grave -- first shoot a cub. In all likelihood, the mother would flee and take the remaining cub with her. If I was to shoot the mother, the cubs would not know what to do and would just hang around in which case they also would be shot. 

I like bears. I like all animals. But nothing was going to get Sam's body. That's just the way it was. 

The bears never came .