It is a quiet Friday morning, a day off, my son still sleeping in his room just down the hall. I am at the kitchen table sipping coffee and sifting through the newspaper spread before me.

The glass door to the back yard is open, a fruitless attempt to capture a rare whiff of cool air available only this early in the morning. In another 20 minutes, the door will be shut again as the mercury steadily climbs into the 80s, 90s, beyond.

The three dogs wander in and out, knowing this freedom is short-lived. It is quiet, not an ambience I prefer. Usually I’d have the stereo on, but this is my son’s first day of summer vacation and I don’t want to wake him.

I take a sip from the half-filled ceramic cup, a blue and beige mug purchased from a tiny gift store in Bodega Bay more than 20 years ago, a Christmas gift from my parents given to me when I rarely, if ever, drank any sort of hot beverage. Now I drink – no, I need – coffee each morning.

As I drink, my eyes drift to the living room. There is a, well, small mound of something on the area rug. Sandy, an Australian kelpie (smallish dog, soft chocolate brown coat, lighter at the haunches, darker along the spine) stands over it, licking it at first, then taking a small nibble.

Great, I will let her nibble at it, since it appears to be a small pile of grass. I can make out shreds poking from the center of the mound, though I can make out little else with the scene just a silhouette with the light filling the back door.

Sandy has always been a stealth puker. Everything is fine one moment, suddenly there’s a moist stain on the carpet. I will clean it up when she’s done dining on the remains, trying to make it as easy on myself as possible.

I go back to the paper, keeping an eye on her to see when she finishes. Less than a minute later she turns and walks out the door. Damn, now it’s my turn.

I push out the chair, mindful of the scraping noise it makes across the tile. I walk toward the carpet to get a measure of the mess and see what I will need in the way of cleaning supplies.

Only it’s not grass. It’s something else. There are piles of tiny white balls, smaller than BBs. They are swirled about small scoops of brown pudding, and there’s a short, thin twig, bent in the middle and frayed on one end.

Not, not a stick. A bone. With a little claw. And there, inches away, poking from under the mound, white-tipped gray feathers overlapping one another in a straight line. A wing.

Wonderful.

Sandy wanders in again, heading for her prize. Her head dips over the largest pile.

“Sandy, no!” She cowers, taking a step back, but she recovers quickly and is back over her kill. She nips it at the center, lifting it with her front teeth. I don’t stop her because the majority of the remains have lifted cleanly from the carpet. The rest will be fairly easy to clean up.

“OK, go, go on, outside,” I say, pointing to the back door. She slips out and I follow her across the patio to the grass, where she drops it.

“No touch, no, no!” Again she backs away. I will clean that up later. With the lawn mower, the perfect vacuum cleaner for such a mess.

I order her back inside and shut the door behind us. We walk past what is left of the bird, and Sandy stops. Her had dips again, but I can’t tell what she has this time.

“Drop it!”

She looks at me. Her jaws close slowly, gently.

Crunch.

“I said drop it. Now!”

Crunch.

“Sandy, no! Drop it!”

Crunch.

Oh well.

I retrieve the vacuum cleaner from the entryway closet, sucking up most of what’s left without having to get too close. Then with a paper towel, I pluck the leg and wing and toss them into the trashcan.

My son sleeps through the entire episode.

I pour a fresh cup of coffee and go back to the newspaper. Sandy pads over and slips under the kitchen table. I feel her breath on my knees. I scratch under her chin but pull away when she tries to lick me.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “Bird eater.”