Bethlehem

The man and his dog were moving through deep woods in a remote corner of the Catskills.

There was nothing unusual about that. Alan Via hikes frequently, and even authored a guide to those mountains. Bookah was his constant companion. The chocolate Lab never missed a trip.

On that day last October, Bookah paused in the woods. She had found a treat that Via, trailing by 25 feet, couldn't stop the dog from eating.

There was nothing unusual about that, either. Anyone who knows dogs knows their scavenger habits, and Bookah was no exception. Via figured she'd eaten something left behind, to put it nicely, by a deer or coyote.

But Via soon noticed a darkness in Bookah's eyes that was unusual.

"If you own a dog, you know when they're in distress," the retiree said. "I knew something was wrong."

The pair, near the summit, began descending the mountain. But Bookah slowed as sickness engulfed her. She trembled. Then her legs failed. She collapsed, limp and nearly lifeless.

Via carried the 50-pound dog for as long as he could, hauling her over rocks and fallen trees. Then he looped a leash through Bookah's orange harness and pulled the Lab through the woods and newly fallen leaves. Exhaustion overwhelmed him.

"I couldn't carry her any further and I couldn't drag her any further," Via said. "She died in my arms about a quarter mile from the car."

Bookah was nearly 9 years old, and Via had loved her since puppyhood. He placed Bookah's body on the back seat of his Subaru for the long drive home to Bethlehem. The sharp autumn sunlight faded to darkness.

In the days and months that followed, vets determined that Bookah had eaten meat laced with strychnine. She'd been poisoned.

But why? Why leave poison is such a remote location? Via and Bookah weren't even on a trail. They'd been bushwhacking.

Via has come to believe the meat was left by a hunter hoping to protect the deer population by killing a coyote. There's no way to prove that, of course, but there aren't many plausible reasons for why strychnine would be placed so deeply in the woods.

Via hopes publicizing Bookah's death can prevent a repeat of his experience. Maybe this story, he hopes, will hammer home the consequences of leaving behind deadly poison.

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"I don't want anyone to see a pet go through what Bookah did," Via said.

Via, who grew up hunting, has nothing against the sport. I also don't want to paint hunters in a negative light.

I've known hunters who treasure forest ecology and their role within it, who provide their families with food that's truly free range and don't accept that meat must come shrink-wrapped.

But every group has misguided members, and so yes, there are also hunters who pile doughnuts in the woods to attract bear, or hunters who see coyotes as competitors for "their" deer.

I like to believe it's rare for poison to be left in the woods, but maybe I'm naive.

In the end, it really doesn't matter who left the meat that killed Bookah, or why it was done. What matters is that it was a horrifically reckless act. (It was also illegal.)

Any meat-eating animal could have found the poison. It could have sickened a bear, an owl or even an eagle. And strychnine poisoning, which causes intense and unnecessary suffering, is an inhumane way for any animal to die.

Via knows that too well. That hike in the Catskills haunts him.

He wonders if he could have done more. Maybe, just maybe, Bookah would be alive, he thinks, if he'd recognized her sickness sooner or had more forcefully ordered her to drop the meat.

You can tear yourself apart with maybes.

Now, Via has only memories of Bookah, a dog he describes as the most special he's known. He remembers her Buddha-like gentleness. He describes how Bookah helped him lead tours through the mountains and calls her an ambassador for hiking.

Bookah deserved a better ending. But at least she had a life that many dogs would envy.

"She made a lot of friends on the trail," Via said. "Her office was the woods."

cchurchill@timesunion.com • 518-454-5700 • @chris_churchill