Thanks Mango for the link.

Question: What would you do if you had 1 hour left to live

I particularly like the bit with the little kid at the end. He seems to be learning about the benefits of technology equally with his buddy the daschund.

Smiling, I watched her play with this, her first and last, litter and I wondered what she thought—when she brought a dead squirrel to them just after their eyes first opened; when she avoided their attempts to suckle, nosing the dead squirrel closer and when she played.

I had a lot of dogs then. This one came to me an abandoned, half-grown puppy. She wandered in from the woods, covered in burrs. Ticks, gorged on her blood, poked out fat and grey from her coat. She was a long-hair, black, tan and white mixed-breed. Where I lived, on the Spokane Reservation, people came out from the city and dropped off unwanted dogs. I think that some of those people think it is an act of kindness—that the dogs stand a better chance of survival hunting for a living rather than going to the SPCA or some similar organization. They don’t. Dogs have to learn to hunt, what to hunt, what species are easier to rundown, what species will not be eaten, where certain food animals live. All these things have to be learnt, despite the fact that the act of hunting is instinctual.

When she came to me she was already pregnant. Her first heat, I suspected, had been the motivation for her forced change of address. Because so many dogs came through my life, and because I have a sense of horror of dying by starvation, I have the dogs spayed or neutered. It has proven to be costly and time-consuming but what, realistically, are the alternatives for unwanted dogs? And yet, watching her play, knowing that I would shortly take her puppies from her, knowing that she would never have another, knowing that she had at least enough thought and feeling to love her children, to teach them through play, I felt guilt along with my reasoning.

My dog flipped over on her side panted from a last circling run around her puppies and allowed all four of her brood to scramble over her head, legs and belly. Part of me wanted to play like that, wanted to be rolled on by four eight-week-old fuzz balls with legs. And I wondered if only guilt, remorse, grief, injustice—a sense of moral incorrectness—are what separate humans from other animals. Is it our sense of helplessness and fear at some of the things we must do to protect ourselves and those we love from a future we can sometimes all too clearly see that makes us human? But no, in my experience that doesn’t work either, because once I took the puppies and came home again without them, my dog keened for them, searched for them, grew listless and in this behavior I knew we shared at least some of these feelings.

On the day I took the puppies, my dog left the other adult dogs and came to see what I was doing. She nosed her puppies as I picked them up and put them in the pet carrier. My dog moved from one puppy to another, reacted to their squeals and grunts. Her body was tense, the flag of her tail moved only with the sway of her head—from puppy to puppy—from puppy to puppy. I put the carrier in the front passenger seat; closed the car door, got in and drove off. I saw my dog run down behind me as far as the main road. I sped up and drove the fifty miles to town.

When I returned my dog came up to the car. She stuck her front paws in the car, her long nose poked into the empty pet carrier. I pulled it out, set it on the ground. I patted my dog, told her it had to be and went inside.

A few days later, I saw my dog head into the woods. I never saw her again. When I realized she was probably gone for good, I went and built a sweat. It was hot. I sang hard and cried but still today I cannot shake my sense of shame.

and then halfway down the hill along the river, a dog barked at me from across the road. I stopped wandering, stopped my feet and turned to pay attention to the dog. She sat on the sidewalk, where the dim edges of light from two street lamps met. It is unusual in this area of the city to see a dog running loose. She was a big, young, mixed-breed. In the light of the street lamp her coat seemed a light tan. She barked again. Twice: sharp bites of air. Her tail did not move. I spoke to her a little sharply; told her no, I am not a threat.

I started walking down hill again. I spoke again, forcing a soothing, quiet voice. Good dog. It’s ok. I kept walking, an even, calm gait. Where I lived on the Reservation there are a lot of feral dogs. Many are more than willing to reestablish ties with human beings, but some are not. Some are dangerous, whether from old histories of their own, or from a sense of possession of space and food sources into which human beings fit only as a threat. Her tail didn’t move, her body was tense but her lips had not pulled back to expose her teeth and so I didn’t know if she just wasn’t sure which kind of human I was or if she didn’t know if she could best me in some territorial dispute. I kept walking because normally if you get out of an animal’s personal territory he or she will simply forget you exist and you can walk out in peace. She didn’t stop though. She came across the road, circled round me, got behind me, her body a little jerky from the tension of her not-knowing who and what I was going to be to her. When she got within twelve feet of me I stopped and turned sideways to her, slid my heavy bag off my back and into my right hand. I gripped it hard, looping the shoulder strap around my hand. I sighed. I do not like fighting if I can avoid it. Good girl. Good dog. I moved a few more feet down the hill; she followed. I spoke a little sharper. Mind your manners and I will mind mine. I will hit you if you come at me. In this way we came inside the block where my building sits on its earth shelf half way up the steep river bank.

She had been creeping closer to me as we moved in tandem down the hill. I turned, stopped and faced her with my bag clenched in my hand, my arm just slightly extended to allow for a strong swing should I need it. When she got to a place about four feet from me she stopped and sat. She looked at me. Didn’t bark; didn’t move her tail. I lowered the bag and stared back. Ok, so what? I asked the dog. I stood there for a while, maybe as much as two minutes, her looking at me, me looking back. You want some food? By this time I could see her clearly under the street lamp. She had a collar, looked healthy and well fed. It seemed clear that she was a house dog, probably just out for a night walk with an owner frantically calling for her dog. I kept up the conversation and walked to my front door, put down my bag, got out my keys and unlocked the door. Wait a minute; I’ll get some food for you. I went in, put my stuff on the floor and got a bowl of food. I came back out. She waited by the door. I put some Kibble out for her, sat in the little plastic chair on the concrete pad in front of my ground floor apartment, about two feet from where I had put the food, and then waited while the dog decided what she wanted to do.

I sat there for about ten minutes. At first she ignored the food. She went around the back of the building, checked out the woods which my living room windows overlook, looked at the road that kept going down the hill, smelled the garbage cans, clicked back along the concrete sidewalk, her nails tat tat tatting up to where I waited. Then she lowered her head to the food dish. She lifted it again without eating, walked over to me and placed her head in my lap. I rubbed her ears, smoothed the brown hair down along the crown of her head. She stood there receiving attention; I talked. So what now? I can’t have a dog here. I have two cats who wouldn’t like you at all. I rubbed her ears. Come by now and then; I’ll leave food. I felt for her collar, her id tag, felt that and her rabies tag. I patted her shoulder. After about another five minutes I went inside. As I went in I said be careful. She left, trotting down the hill, without eating the food.

The next day I came outside, just after the light came, to drink my coffee. The food was gone. Maybe the dog ate it, but I think it was probably the skunk or badger, or some of the outside cats around here, or if the food was still there in the morning, maybe it was the flock of starlings. They really like cat food. About a week or two later, coming home from a workshop, I saw her—on a bright green leash being led by a woman in her early 30s. I waved. I think the woman thought I was waving at her.