We took Bubba for a nice, long walk along the river this morning. It was lovely and cool, and the foliage is beginning a subtle change to autumn colors. As he was sniffing along the trail below and we were watching him from atop the levee, here came a big gray squirrel walking right toward him on the path, switching its beautiful bushy tail. Bubba spotted the squirrel right away, but I'm not sure the squirrel saw him until practically upon him. Either that or he wasn't afraid of him. They were almost nose to nose, when at the last moment the squirrel realized his mistake and bounded up into the tree with Bubba bounding right after him. That was the most life I've seen out of Bubba in quite some time, although earlier when I was returning home from my walk, he was waiting for me at the front gate just like Daisy used to. He was even vocalizing. It was a wonderful treat for me to have a dog barking at the fence again like before, but of course, it made me miss Daisy because she would have been there barking her head off, too. I'm grateful to still have Bubba, though. He was dashing around through the house the way they used to. I joined in the chase, and it was almost like old times.

I attended a pet emergency class last night, mostly for background on an article I'm writing for my monthly Pets & Their People column. It was very informative, and we got hands-on experience with the three dogs the vets brought with them to the class. The handouts could have been better prepared, but I learned a few things I didn't already know, such as the fact that in addition to chocolate, grapes, raisins and onions also harmful to dogs are tomatoes, garlic, and macadamia nuts. Daisy once ate a bunch of my late neighbor, Bernice's fabulous fudge. She loved it as much as I did, I guess. She survived eating it, but in retrospect I realize she was showing some signs of toxicity, namely agitation. She was normally such a hyper dog, though, who could tell? That's why I missed the signs in her. Fortunately for her, that little dog was as hard as nails, right up to the last day of her life. Her size may also have been a factor in her survival of the chocolate-eating incident. I swear her eyes were a little browner after eating Bernice's fudge, and I always called her my "chawklit eyes" from then on. Now I would know to get a dog to emergency right away if I knew it had eaten chocolate in any quantity. I'm glad I took the class and would recommend any dog lover do the same.