Burger...

This afternoon when we got home, Sam asked (as he often does) to get out of the van and run up the driveway ahead of the me. I opened his door and he ran ahead while I waited for Lily to sit back down and close the van door. I pushed the button to open the garage door so Sam could go on in. When I drove up to the garage (which we always leave cracked during the day for the dogs), Sam had only been there for a second, but it was long enough for me to see something was terribly wrong. He was screaming and pointing at the garage floor and as I got close enough to see, I realized that it was Burger, our beagle. He was lying in a large pool of blood, probably six feet across. I jumped out, looked long enough to realize the dog was indeed dead, threw Sam back in the van and backed out of the driveway. I called Grandmomma's and told her to get Dickie outside to meet me. I dropped the kids off (Sam was still crying) and I drove Dickie back to the house where we got out to investigate. After rolling the dog over to look at him closer, we first thought he had been shot. It looked like he had multiple gunshots all over his underside from his chest to the underside of his back legs. I called the sheriff's dept. and they sent a deputy and they also dispatched animal control. The concensus after looking around in more detail was that the bullet holes were probably puncture wounds inflicted by some wild animal (probably a coyote, in my opinion). Whether it happened in the garage, or somewhere in the woods and he managed to get himself back to the garage, we will never know. The rain appears to have washed away some of the evidence.

Burger was the best dog. He loved to run and play. He had that beautiful burr-urrr-urrr kind of bark that all beagles have and he loved to chase rabbits and other small animals in the woods while barking that beagle bark. He was good for our kids, a good companion for Taco (our chihuahua), and a good friend to all of us. We will miss him so much.

Sam seems to be fine. After we took care of everything, cleaned up the blood, and removed the body from the scene, I went back and picked him up from Grandmomma's. He was sad but didn't seem to be as deeply bothered by it as I was afraid he would be. He is cuddling on the couch with Taco right now. She is staying in the house tonight and I'm shutting her in the garage until I get home tomorrow.