My dog, Buddha, has company for two months this summer. Our guest here at Camp Buddha is Osa, an active white lab puppy whose parents have flown to Wisconsin. She’s a sweet pup, who runs circles around 7-year-old Buddha, a Shepherd-Shar-pei mix, who prefers lolling about the house to frolicking in the great outdoors.
Our house sits on a 5-acre lot in the mountains of Puriscal, in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. We look out onto a landscape that features a veggie farm, a field where horses romp and a pigsty. (I know you’re thinking, foul-smelling(!), but they must be clean piggies, because we rarely pick up a scent of them.) It’s a great place for a dog. There’s no need for leashes, dog-runs or fences.
Osa would have made a great companion to a hunter- she chases everything that moves. We’ve been happy that she hasn’t been able to catch anything, but that all changed this morning. As is my habit in the morning, I sat reading the volumes of email that had arrived in my inbox overnight. Suddenly, the birdsong was interrupted by a bloodcurdling screech. I jumped up, ran outside, and found Osa engaged in the act of killing a chicken, while Buddha looked on.
Naturally, I screamed for my husband, Jack, who arrived too late to save the helpless chicken. Would it be wrong to have that critter for dinner?
