3 Things My Old Dog Taught Me About Adventure
I wrote this a while back, about a dog I had a while back. With so many new pet adoptions happening these days, I thought it was worth another mention that dogs change your life: usually in all the ways it needs changing.
Road trips rule.
As editor for an international snowboard magazine, I used to spend winters on a plane hunting stories and following storms. Dirty laundry notwithstanding, my bag stayed packed and ready to deploy at all times. Eventually I left the magazine to become a freelance writer, but I still lived for immediate adventure gratification. Step on a plane in Portland, step off in the Alps or the Adriatic. Boom.
Suddenly, enter a dog with severe separation anxiety who didn’t think he could live without me. Instead of flying home from Oregon to Colorado for the holidays, I would road warrior through 3 states in the grip of winter so he could come with me. On those trips, the alpine passes were treacherous at times, but I saw grand moonrises over the Idaho sage and once a bobcat slink off into the dark. I camped in Arches National Park, and by the warmth of a cedar-wood blaze worshipped the austere beauty of the desert under new snow.
The airports were not missed.
With a dog, the road is longer and more winding. You stop a lot to walk, wiz and sniff the wind. Off the highway, you encounter so many beautiful and unexpected wild spaces. And while you can’t go on as many adventures at this speed, nor can you go quite as far, prizing quality over quantity and rejoicing in the journey—that’s a Lefty lesson I’ll never forget.
Snow demands some solitude.
When I was 2, my parents (both ski instructors at Vail) plopped me into a set of skis and sent me down the bunny hill. For 2 decades after that, the sharp scent of snow and the hum of chairlift cables felt like home to me.
At a certain point, though, ski-resort riding stopped giving me what I need, and so I stopped setting aside time for it. I moved to the city. The drive to the mountain sucked. The crowds sucked. The lift-ticket prices sucked. Worst of all, I couldn’t bring my canine accomplice.
So I procured a splitboard, and that changed everything. Armed with skins, poles and dog, I became powerful. I could explore in the deep snow what had before been inaccessible.
The first time I went splitboarding on the flanks of Mt. Hood, the simplicity made me happy. It felt more like “play” than any snowboarding I’d done recently. Free from set agenda, from reliance on chairlifts or runs. Just me and a quiet ecosystem of powder dollops. And it was fabulous exercise. My body grew warm and my lungs worked hard. My face steamed into my goggles, and I sent a prayer up into the trees that my muscles would continue working—my heart keep pumping. They did. It did!
At the top, I felt that excited flutter for the descent. An old forgotten feeling. And just like that I was off, dipping through the trees with Lefty hot on my tail.
Walking is noticing.
When you have a dog, you walk a lot. The same routes, the same roads, through rain, sun and ice. And you can’t hurry on a dog walk. You have to stop and sniff, pause and pee. Slow and contemplative is the pace to take.
Walking this way every day for years with Lefty, I began to notice the world in a new way. I learned the local greenery and flowering fauna. I observed bunnies living in the tall grass by the baseball field. I identified a bush that would honey-bomb the neighborhood every January—the perfume sending my winter-weary brain spinning off into spring. Before I knew it, I’d become a naturalist in my own neighborhood.
I always feel a little bad for people without dogs, because they miss these walks. It’s the first thing I do every morning—a better wakeup than a shower, just as grounding as meditation. Now, 4 years later, I’ve got a new dog and a few new neighborhood routes. But sometimes I wander the old path past the elementary school and down to 54th Street. On those walks, I’ll think of Lefty and all the adventures we had together. I still remember them well. I hope I always do.
