Meeting the neighbors

Living where we do, we rarely get a chance to talk with our neighbors (other than the ones who live right next door). It seems we don't run into them, or have the chance near as often as we'd like. Most of them work all day too, so there is no one home in the daytime. Anyways, yesterday we had the unfortunate opportunity to do so. For quite some time, this little dog (Pomeranian) has come over to our house on occasion, and we didn't know where it came from, but it seemed friendly enough. The boys would play with it, and although it was rather scruffy, it seemed to need the love. It hadn't been over in quite a while (we called it "the yappy dog" since we didn't know it's name), but yesterday it was sitting by G's shed when he left for work in the morning. He didn't think much of it, but when he came home, it was by the back steps in a rather 'unmoving' position. After some examination (tap, tap on the foot), we concluded it was dead. Poor little guy. Anyways, we had to call the neighbors (who we suspected owned it, since we didn't really know), and sure enough, he was theirs. They had been suspecting he would die soon, since he was 14 years old, and getting quite unhealthy, apparently. So, we then got a chance to visit with the neighbor, and also the opportunity to explain the answer to "why do dogs have to die?" question from our eldest. You just never know what each day will bring....