Emma Sightings

I took the dogs up to the cemetery for a run the other night. We have just started going back up there regularly after bypassing it most of the winter. The snow has pretty much disappeared with a few small mounds left in some shaded areas and wet and muddy spots on some of the roadways. I was walking along the back side of the cemetery near a big plowed field when something unusual happened. The dogs were running back and forth searching for anything that might be interesting to them. I noticed that a small funeral arrangement had been blown about 20 feet into the field and now lay on top of the dirt. Kate also noticed it and trotted over to where it lay. When she got there she nosed out that it wasn't anything worth while and ran back to the cemetery crossing a little bit in front of me.

A movement just beyond her caught my eye and I glanced up the road and saw a half-grown Britteny puppy run between one of the tombstones and a large juniper bush. I waited for the dog to reappear on the other side of the bush but it did not. I was a little surprised to see a Britteny up there and looked around to find its owner. I didn't see anyone else nor did I see a car parked anywhere near by. I thought that maybe the dog I had seen had been Duke but when he ran by me a few minutes later I knew that it was not. Duke is full grown and has the long legs and darker color markings of a full grown Britteny. The dog I had seen was definitely a puppy with the chubbier body, shorter legs, and faded coloring of a puppy. That's when I realized the dog I had seen must have been Emma.

I did not understand why she was appearing as a puppy but after I thought about it I wondered if it was because she had been up here with me before. This could be true because there have been times that I have seen what I assumed was Duke running in one part of the cemetery and then when I looked again he would be gone. I would ask my husband where he was and he would point him out in a different part of the grounds. I was always surprised by how quickly Duke could get from one section of the cemetery to another. Maybe all those times I thought I was seeing Duke I was actually seeing Emma. Maybe this time she wanted to be sure I knew it was her.