One minute she was playing around the front yard while I was mowing the lawn at our Lubbock home. The next minute she was gone.

I alerted Peggy and we jumped into our vehicles to comb the neighborhood for her. She was a beautiful Chocolate Labrador Retriever and would be a prize for a dog-napper. Fear and guilt for not watching her more closely grabbed at me as I drove down street after street looking for her.

Finally I turned a corner and saw her (at about the same time she saw me). She ducked into an alley. She was a little less than a year old, but she was old enough to know she was in trouble for leaving home without proper supervision. It had been too long since the last time we had taken her swimming in a nearby playa lake, so she decided to take herself. She was sopping wet and guilty-looking when she finally realized she had been "made" and reluctantly jumped into the pickup. I was mad at her, but hugged her neck anyway (ruining a good shirt). Her love of the water had overcome her desire to be obedient.

We moved to Cloudcroft the next year. Dusty was in heaven in the mountains. We immediately fell into disfavor with our neighbor because Dusty would steal his El Paso Times newspaper every morning and bring it to us. In self-defense we were forced to take out our own subscription. After a couple of weeks we heard from Vernon (our neighbor). He wondered what had happened to Dusty. It seems he was enjoying the cat-and-mouse with her...seeing who could get to the newspaper first every morning. He said there was a regular ritual. The delivery car would hand off the newspaper to Dusty and Vernon would be waiting at his door with a piece of bacon. He would then exchange the bacon for the paper.

There is good reason why Labradors are America's most popular dogs. They are, as a breed, the most lovable and loyal of them all. Dusty was as perfect a dog as there could be. Her only demand was our attention and the chance to run and play.

Dusty didn't deserve to die so young. She died of an intentional poisoning when she was just three. We have long since quit placing the blame for her death but we miss her terribly.

These hills were her playground. The people that live here were her friends. If you catch a glimpse of a dark form running through the trees, it may just be the spirit of Dusty.