Ollie went outside with Zina earlier today when she was taking some trash out to the burn barrel. He saw a squirrel right away and took off in hot pursuit- right towards the road. And he never goes towards the road. Until today. And a pickup truck pulling a trailer happened to be passing by and hit him and killed him. I heard Zina screaming and went running but he was dead when I got there.
She was sitting on the ground crying, she had to see the whole thing. The guy in the pickup stopped, he was almost crying, and apologized over and over. I was almost crying too- ok, I was crying- when I picked him up and carried him over to the porch. Everybody loved Ollie.
I carried him around back where she couldn't see and laid him on the ground by Other Dog's grave, then got the shovel out of the shed and started digging his grave.
It was raining then, and Zina came out and asked if she could have him cremated, and of course I said "of course you can, if that's what you want". So I carried him back around front and put him in the shed. I had started putting him in a black plastic bag around back, but I didn't close it. I've been out to the shed and looked at him about 5 times now, hoping he was going to "come to", but it's not going to happen. It just still doesn't seem real.
This was just this morning.