I have some very sad news.
There were seven of us here at Xerika until a few weeks ago, but then our friend Zaira stopped living after eating poisoned meat.
Now don’t get me wrong. Most Greek humes are great, but there are some who don’t have a good attitude towards animals. Some humes who keep chickens are worried that foxes will take them, so they put out poisoned food to kill the foxes. Some hunters do it too because they don’t want foxes to kill rabbits and hares before they can kill them themselves.
One night in September – just for a bit of fun - we all escaped through a hole we’d made in the fence, and that was when Zaira found the meat. Less than two hours later, she stopped living.
She was less than eighteen months old and was a bit different from the rest of us. We’d all just turned up at the farm and stayed, but Zaira was an ‘anniversary present’.
You might remember me telling you that Sammy and Rory used to live at Xerika and they helped our mum to make Poppy and me. Well, they also stopped living after eating poison. (See Journey's End.)
Soon afterwards, the local dog-doctor gave Zaira to our humes as an anniversary present when she was a young puppy. They told him it wasn’t their anniversary of anything, but the dog-doc just laughed and they took her anyway because she needed a home. (The dog-doc is a very nice hume, but he sometimes does things to us which we don’t like but are probably good for us.)
The rest of us dogs – Ziggy, Gelert, Tess, Foxy, Poppy and I – miss Zaira very much.
Goodnight, Zaira. We’re all thinking of you still, and I’ll even forgive you for stealing my bone that time. Remember?
Born 25th April 2007
Died 16th September 2008
