UPDATE ON THE PUPPIES

Apparently there were 5 puppies .... the four brown ones I watched over and found homes for, and all along, there was a fifth  one, mostly white...  I am told, now, that our next-door neighbors had him in their care all that time...

Anyway, upon our return to our village home after 4 months away:
The moment we approached our humble digs for the first time since we left (last June), who should come running out to us -- from across the road, where he now lives -- but Coyote, so ecstatic to see us that he bowed his head as he GRINNED, walking sideways, tripping over his own feet and falling, tail a mere blur of joy....  When he reached my outstretched arms, he collapsed on the ground, belly up and there we were:  me scratching his entire body while he wriggled ecstatically.

Not long afterwards, there came Manuela --who we learned has been renamed Pantera (Panther).  She approached me in exactly the same overwhelmed-with-joy fashion.

Pantera y Coyote  --perritos felices, en buen salud.  They now come by daily for long visits, of course, but we never feed them.  We merely provide water (and cannot resist petting them).

What about Guantes and Pirata?

A few days later, we drove to the next village up the road from ours....  The couple who adopted them both are good, responsible, loving people, but the news is less joyful.

Guantes (Socks) is dead.  He was the first of the puppies to appear in our yard -- a starving, stumbling, pathetic puppy...  the very sight of whom made me spring from my hammock to give him water, and search for some kind of food that is good for puppies...  The Beginning...

Alas, while living with his owners, he got into some chicken bones.... As we were a told as kids when I was growing up -- never let dogs get into chicken bones....  But Guantes DID get into chicken bones.  A bone or bones, lodged in the throat of dear Guantes, and he did not survive the trauma.  I did not ask for details.

As for Pirata...  He is healthy, but I see no light in his eyes.  He showed no recognition of me, nor even interest when I offered him a sniff of my fingers... He just plodded solemnly to his little resting place by the front door of the beautiful  cottage (surrounded by flowers and veggie garden) -- and plopped down.  He did not move after that...  I have no idea what.... to think.  As a human, I entertain the idea that maybe, though he recognizes me, he is deeply grieving for his beloved brother...

What is happening NOW, is the white brother-dog (name slips my mind but its a good one), and Coyote have taken to sneaking onto our porch (where we sleep while it is still raining at night) and curl up up very nearby, under the table, so very very near to us.... and then hop off of the porch if we glimpse them.  They "know" better!    (Curiously, this white brother greets me in the same ecstatic manner..  even though I had no interaction whatsoever with him... basically unaware of him before.)

And Manuela?  Manuela is permanently injured (folks here do NOT take dogs to veterinarians).  She was chasing a little motorized vehicle, got hit, and badly damaged one back leg.  She now hops on the other three, holding the injured one in the air....SOMETIMES putting weight on it (and she does not wince when we touch it all over, checking for injury).... so there is vague hope she could heal.  She has not been joining her brothers in these clandestine sleepovers on our property.  I presume she sleeps at her own digs just across the road.

All three of these guys remain ecstatically happy to see us every day.  Again, we do NOT feed them.. They have owners now.  We just keep water available to them, that's all... Oh, and we DO pet them.  Can't NOT pet them.