a lot times, dogs will wait until their family is around and then die. my sister was in college and i'm rarely home, but we knew that our dog wasn't going to be with us for longer than a year. well, one night, it was very strange because we were all home and loving our dog at the same time. he was loving it. anyway, we all went up stairs to talk about remodeling the upstairs and my mom said that she would be right back. we all hear her scream, and we run to where she was. our dog was dead. but we knew that he had waited for all of us to be together again....it shows how loving dogs really are. think about this. how would you have felt had you gotten home from your trip, walked into the house and seen (and smelled) your dog....dead. be thankful he waited to say good bye....