I knew I would regret it as soon as I said it. The dog had no understanding of right and wrong. His crimes were minor. Only imagined future crimes, in the form of vaguely defined atrocities to our livestock, or rabid bites to my children could even remotely fit the punishment I had now sentenced him to.

He first appeared in our Canyon orchard looking scared but tentatively interested in human company. He was a red bulldog with the powerful jaws and aggressive stance characteristic of that breed. His collar made it clear that he was somebody's pet, left behind during a roadside picnic, or wandering too far from home in amorous pursuit of a bitch in heat.

For some reason he chose to make his home at the base of La Viña Canyon, the emotional heart of our ranch. This was not his home, it was my home, my fathers home, my grandmothers home, her fathers home… I felt invaded by the dogs' presence. It began to eat at me. I would startle him as I checked the creek next to the orchard to ensure that the creek was not jumping its bank to wander aimlessly in the orderly grid of our walnut trees. So many of my daily tasks seemed centered on this theme. Straighten out the chaotic landscapes that form naturally in favor of the regular grid more easily managed by machine. The Canyon orchard seemed such a wonderful example of these contrasts with its phalanx of regular trees marching up toward the wild canyon, from the cleared, leveled and cultivated fields along the river, its straight rows gradually conforming to the soft curves of the Santa Rita hills.

The red dog would run, then stop at a distance and watch me with his hungry eyes. My attempts to befriend him were entirely futile. Not once did he move toward me as I called him. He wouldn't accept my offerings of sandwich bits taken from the lunches he would occasionally watch me eat. He seemed unwilling to return to the orderly relationship of pet and owner that had clearly once defined his life. He seemed more comfortable with his newly found but ancient role of hunter and scavenger.

"Whatcha gonna do about that dog?" Dan, our cattleman, said. "He's gonna get hungry and go after a calf one of these days. You want, I'll take care of him for ya". It didn't seem right to simply shoot the dog. I'd spent too much of my childhood with a dog as my best friend. She would walk me to the bus each morning, and then meet me at the bus stop and walk me home every day in the afternoon, her company was constant and clearly caring. She listened.

I trapped him once, within the fence around the pool, finding nowhere to go he broke through the pickets and fled up the canyon. At last a crime! He had broken something of mine and obviously needed to be punished. This was quickly followed by the theft of a sandwich from the back of a van parked at the base of the canyon, a crime spree. I was building up courage to finally take some action, but I don't even own a gun, how was I going to deal with this? Why did I even feel that this required my attention?

I was saved by the suggestion that I call Animal Control. Of course, this was the proper thing to do. I would turn the problem over to the "appropriate authorities". They would take care of the dog, and find a home for it. The dog would once again resume its orderly role of pet to some master. The brief relief that I felt quickly dissipated during our phone conversation. "Can you see the dog now?" "No." "Can you trap him somehow?" "I don't think so." "We can only come out that far from town if you can guarantee that the dog will be there, and we can catch it when we get there." "Hmm, alright, I'll call you if I trap it."

"He's gotta be hungry by now." "Yeah." "You want, I'll lend you my rifle." "No, you go ahead and shoot him if you want." "Will do." What had I done? I felt as though I had ordered a hit on my neighbor, and for what? A couple of dollars worth of wooden pickets, and a ham sandwich.

Life went on, slowly, yet with the determination that the seasons force upon the tasks of a farm. Each new day ratcheting the endless cycle closer to the coming harvest. The dog continued to appear occasionally, but never long enough for Dan to get a bead on him. His time was clearly not up, and I was too busy to pay him much attention.

I had pretty much stopped thinking about the red dog. I was re-playing the meeting I had just had with one of our neighbors. We had met a couple of miles down the road, at the end of our discussion he had said "drive carefully, this is a pretty dangerous road." I was on my way back, driving around the last bend before the straightaway that leads to the East End of our place. A hedge of native shrubs hid the entrance to an access road to my right, and I barely noted a flash of red darting out from behind the hedge, as I hit the brake pedal, turned the wheel to the left and felt a bump against my grill. The retinal memory of the red flash took on the familiar image of the red dog in my mind as I lost control of the truck and began to slowly spin across the road. My mind insisted on focussing on the red bulldog, which had looked at me as it dashed across my path, rather than the view through the windshield which slowly panned from west to south, then east, and back around to the west once again. I managed to pull myself out of this reverie in time to grab the bottom of the steering wheel and force myself down onto the seat as the truck rolled over once down the embankment, and came to a stop resting on its wheels once again. Everything had slowed down considerably during the accident, and time only slowly ramped back up to its usual pace. I took inventory of myself and the truck as a wandered slowly around the scene, dutifully picking up the garbage I had shed during the tumble.

Aside from crumbled glass sprinkled through my hair, and a small cut on my temple, I was fine. The truck on the other hand was a complete loss, the roof had been crushed to the back of the seat, and the door was folded at 90 degrees. But where was the dog? My fruitless search for it or any evidence of blood on the road, left me wondering if I had imagined the whole thing, and simply driven off the road of my own accord to assuage my guilt over sentencing an innocent creature to death. Had I just tried to kill myself?

Salvador, sensibly looked at the grill when I tried to explain my predicament to him. He found me wandering around the hillside above my totaled truck, picking up tools and garbage. It was clear that he found my explanation of the accident as unconvincing as it had become to me in the minutes of doubt which immediately followed. It was only the red fur which Salvador found stuck in my grill which brought back my self confidence, and saved my reputation with Salvador. There really was a reason for which I had nearly killed myself, and totaled my truck.

As Salvador drove me back to the yard where I could get some help, we drove passed the entrance to La Viña Canyon, and the red dog, mocking me as he limped across the county road, and back up to his home in the canyon.