The funeral dog of Vueltas

In the town of Vueltas (province of Villa Clara, Cuba), people still remember the ephemeral life of a dog that had a peculiar reflection: his nose was trained to "smell" the death. People say he arrived one afternoon at the town's mortuary where family watched a man's body, and perhaps for those twist of destiny, the dog stayed all night beside the coffin and the next morning accompanied the funeral to the cemetery. Thereafter, the dog appeared in the village whenever there was a funeral and then disappeared. And he did it with respect and responsibility.

The dog became famous and was the target of the comments of the population, divided between two opposing currents: one saw him docile and harmless, by chance or a conditioned reflex (it was said that the animal went to the funeral home in search of food); another, impressed, saw it as a mission of death.

Only God knows why!, but the truth is that the dog became legendary and the Cuban TV visited the small town to film the history.

Intelligent animal

When a Cuban TV team arrived to record the dog in his solemn mission, a mock funeral with all of the details was prepared. Everything was done very carefully, very patiently, without forgetting a detail, and the dog, as usual, came to the ceremony on time. Then the procession proceeded, the dog started barking before the funeral car. However, before reaching the parade to the first corner, the animal stopped and realized that this was a farce, that there was no body in the carriage and returned to the town quite angry. This was confirmed by their owners who claim that for several days the dog was very annoying. It was something that stunned all the locals.

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Real testimony

Jose Hernandez, a civil engineer and resident of Vueltas, said to me that when his father was seriously ill, the puppy appeared in his home. First he was playing with the family dog, then, the dog began to enter the bedroom where Hernandez's father lay on his deathbed. Since then, the dog "visited" throughout the illness until the man died. Later, he accompanied them at the funeral, and then never again set foot in the house.

Meanwhile, the funeral home staff said the dog appeared just moments before receiving a body.

Revenge or pure chance?

On the night of May 12nd, 1996, the puppy was in front of the funeral home, playing with others dogs, when a bus went barreling and slaughtered animals, killing them on the spot. The reaction of the townspeople was so violent that they wanted to lynch the bus' driver, but the police stopped them. He had killed the pride of the small town! The funeral dog was buried in the cemetery like any human being and a sea of people accompanied him to his final resting place.

Later, the bus driver had a fatal accident: he crashed the bus into a railway station and died. It happened less than two months after the death of the puppy. Was it revenge or pure chance? What no one doubts is that “the funeral dog” lives forever in the memory of his people.