As I was coming down the lane one day this week I glanced over into the freshly plowed field and spotted two coyotes standing there in broad daylight checking me out. They stood close together and paused on their trek from one thicket of woods to the next giving me a chance to stop and gaze in wonder at something many folks will never see. I have seen them before and hear them often, but this time it struck me how fearless these critters must be to not run at the sight of a car passing by. They are used to being in the vicinity of humans and other critters and they are non-plussed by all of it. In short, it's their territory.

Pepper was a blue heeler mix that I got as a surprise pup for BabyGirl while she was gone to summer camp one year. Her friend Lori Brooke rode with me to pick her up at camp and when we pulled into the yard she had a FIT when she saw that puppy. We had lost her first dog, Penny,to heartworms a few years before and the grief was heavy for a long time. Pepper was just the answer to that hole in our souls requiring puppy sugars.

He grew quickly as larger dogs will, in spite of gettin' run over by a couple of old ladies out joy riding on our road when he was just a baby. We were out for a walk with him trailing me. As I moved out of the way for the old-lady-mobile to creep by, I spotted this black and gray ball come rolling out from under them! I carried him home and he stayed under the bed for several days nursing his pride and his wounds. Another time he fell OUT of the back of my ex's pickup truck which was going a LOT faster than the old ladies had been. He bounced across the pavement a few times, did the hide under the bed trick for a week, and was good as new, even though he never did ride in a pickup again. EVER!

Pepper roamed and took a lot of chances in the name of having a good time. He was the mascot for the golf course behind us for years. I still have a copy of a tournament poster with a picture of Pepper sitting in the cart right next to his old buddy Charlie. What started as a stray dog stealing hot dogs off the back of carts turned into a huge love affair between golfers and their special friend.

He was fierce and protective of me and BabyGirl. When I worked in the yard or went for a walk he was right by my side every step of the way. If someone had tried to hurt me, he would've taken them apart limb by limb. A couple of Octobers ago, I found two dead racoons in my yard. This was unusual because Pepper patrolled that yard so well that NO critters ever dared to cross the line. He turned up on the porch later that day with his face swollen and torn. My plan was to take him to the vet the next day.

I never got the chance. He disappeared that,night never to be seen again. We all figure that he crawled off somewhere to die alone like dogs tend to do. The rest of the story came later by accident. Daddy was telling me about how his friend trapped some coons in his back yard in town and dropped them off out here on the farm. Of course, being in town coons, they were used to going up into yards and looking for food. Pepper wouldn't have had any part of that. And he died protecting his Mama.

We almost never got over that one. No sign of him ever found....no collar, nothing. I like to think that he survived yet another near calamity and lives happily somewhere munching on hot dogs and ridin' in a golf cart.

And the next dog we got? We named her Faith.