Me and Dog had driven back up to the mountains on New Years Eve day.  2018 was most certainly a year to forget, and assumably, 2019 was setting itself up for being worse.  Yeah, life didn’t feel all that wonderful.  In fact, it felt like a new and unimproved low point was as close as it could have been without completely breaking me to pieces one again.  Uneventfully, both Dog and I were fast asleep by 8:30pm PST. 

It didn’t take too many days into the new year before I was showing myself(and surely others) real signs of cracking.  My attitude, negative.  My passions and desires, dead in the water.  My pathetic eating habits were exactly that, pathetic.  I felt completely victimized yet I was the driving force behind all the victimizing.  Bad, I know.  And no way to live either.

I couldn’t take this paralyzing holding pattern that had become my reality any longer.  I couldn’t wait around for “something to give.”  I had to make some kind of move.  Something had to be put in motion. 

Sometime around noon, while feeling anxious as all get out, I placed a call to Ann Gratzek’s office, hoping to speak with my main contact Autumn.  Love that lady!  My goal was to tell Autumn that I was sure it was time to pull Quinn’s eyes out, but that to communicate that conviction, I suggested to her that I wanted to send an email directly to Dr. Gratzek, but only if i could be assured that she would read it.  Autumn assured me that it would get read.

The email:

Hi Ann, this is Aaron Lubell.

Quinn is in the struggle when she opens her eyes.  Her left eye the real culprit.  As you’ll recall, I have come up here to Truckee CA for the winter to slow things down in my life and also be there for Quinn 24/7 as the disease worsens.  She spends 95% of the waking day with her eyes closed now.  But when her eyes are open, she comes across as being very bothered, confused, and uncomfortable.  She rests and sleeps very comfortably.  Dreams deep, which is all very reassuring to a degree.  I am just very saddened by what I see when her eyes are open.  A lot may have to do with the altitude.  That is why I am cutting things short and heading back to sea level.  Also, last time we talked, you had said to stop giving Dorzolomide, which I did, but now it seems like ALL the eyedrops are having a bothering affect.  I am not getting second opinions nor am I reading anything on the internet.  My faith is and has always been in you guys, and I am at the point where it seems like removal should be upon us, or around the corner or somewhere close.  I was just down in bay area over the holidays and it seemed like her eyes were doing slightly better being off the mountain but maybe not.  She is eating fine.  Thank you Ann.  Please advise.

That very evening around 5pm, my cell phone rang and sure enough it was Dr. Gratzek.  I wasn’t expecting or wanting a phone call, rather a return email, but that was neither here nor there.  She said hello, I said hello and thanked her for calling.  I didn’t ask her whether or not she read my email, I just began spilling the beans and opening my heart.  I did my best to tell her over the phone what I had emailed her office but five hours prior.  I spoke for about a minute straight, and I guess my dogma sat well with her. 

“It sounds like it is time for surgery.  I will turn you back over to Autumn and you guys can schedule it,” she said. 

And that’s how it went down, and before I could thank Dr. Gratzek, Autumn was back on the line asking if Quinn and I could come for an appointment on January 15th, with surgery scheduled for Thursday January 17th.  I said Yes, and that was that.

Our life took a turn.  Not sure whether it turned up, down, left, or right, I just knew it took a turn.  The moment that I had been fearing in some form or anther for the past 14 months was now upon me(us).  On one hand, I knew that it was going to be a very long two weeks to endure ahead of surgery.  On the other hand, I suppose I was feeling a small sense of relief.

Nighttime Truckee snow fell at a pretty good clip all weekend long, yet daytime temps kept climbing into the upper 30’s.  In other words, overnight lows were just cold enough to make heavy snow while afternoon highs were plenty warm enough to melt it down somewhat.    In even other words, Sierra Cement.  

For reasons too numerous to mention, that combination had been adding up to double black diamond difficulty for Quinn to sufficiently handle herself safely outside.  Between the icy, razor sharp berms and the slick as snot roads and sidewalks, Quinn was often in over her head.  To properly understand You’d of had to have walked a mile in either my boots or her pads to understand.  It was hard.

I still took Quinn outside a time or two each day, but conditions, especially if you throw in the high winds, seemed to really get the better of both of us.  She wasn’t able to hear my footsteps or sense my presence and so it was easiest to just throw in the exercise towel.  She spent 99% of the weekend in her bed, seemingly comfortable with her eyes closed.  I wasn’t too far behind her.

8:10pm, Sunday Night January 6:

Hi Autumn, this is Aaron Lubell, regarding Quinn.  It’s late Sunday night and I was hoping that maybe we could move that appointment and surgery up a week.  She’s not doing so well, and you can probably can tell neither am I.  Don’t worry if you can’t swing it then we are still a go for the 15th & 17th.  The number is 831-246-2010.  Thanks Autumn.

****

Pretty early the next morning, I set off on a run to fetch my van that I figured was buried in the heavy stuff.  I had been parking it at and on my friend Kevin’s back lot for most of the winter.  It seemed best to leave Quinn at Jeremy’s. 

Simply put, I woke up with this anxious urge to get Dog back down to sea level where it appeared she was a bit more comfortable.  Whether that was true or not, it was how my math added up.  I knew there was going to be at least an hour’s worth of digging to get the van on the street.    To me it wasn’t going to matter whether or not the surgery was going to be changed to this week or kept next weekend, I had convinced myself that being at 6000‘ altitude wasn’t doing the already high pressures in her eyes any favors.  I would come to be wrong about that, which is neither here nor there.

By 9am, the van was only half the way from being dug out of its snow cave.  Aside from all the snowfall, Mr. Snowplow Man had left a very thick berm which in itself was going to take a half hour of my time to make go away. 

At 9:15am my cell phone rang.  Sure enough, it was Opthamology for Animals:

“Hello it’s Aaron”

“Hi Aaron, it’s Autumn”

“Hi Autumn”

“So we got your message this morning, and I just spoke with Dr. Gratzek and she said she can see Quinn tomorrow at 10:20am and perform the surgery on Thursday.”

“Whoa, uh, Autumn..look…i don’t want to get into the details, but it’s going to take a real feat and some luck for me to get my van out of the snow and safely get over Donner Summit today to ensure that I can make that appointment.  That being said, I am going to tell you that Yes we will be there, but there stands a real chance it’s not going to happen.  So much is out of my hands.”

“No problem Aaron.  I’ll put you on the schedule, and let us know if you can’t make it.  If we don’t hear from you we will assume you are coming.”

“Thank you so much Autumn.  Gotta Go!”

I grabbed the shovel and continued digging.  By 10:30am I fired up the van and luged my way through the walls of snow.  The sun was shining bright and the roads were still quite icy. I carefully crept my way back to Jeremy’s house and began the speedy process of loading up all my belongings.  Time was ticking and of essence. 

My strategy hadn’t changed since early in the morning.  If I could prepare myself to leave Truckee around 1pm, I knew I would avoid all the apres-ski traffic, and as importantly, avoid having to chain up my automobile to get over the Donner Summit.  And all we had to do was get over the summit without incident and we’d be good as gold.

I didn’t go too overboard with too early an arrival like I easily could have.  The 10:20am appointment seemed to crawl its way to its sticking point.  Anyway, we showed up at 10:05am to a nice, warm smile from Autumn, then Dawn, then most of the others.

The Red Heeler(so I have come to understand better than well) is a heady, sensitive, highly intuitive, well mannered, socially conscious breed of canine, and the staff at Opthamology for Animals seem to know that as well as anybody else might.  Quinn slowly pin-balled herself around the lobby taking handouts from any and all hands.

She weighed in at 50lbs, and I wasn’t surprised.  Call it her surgery weight.  The last several months I had been spoiling her rotten with all sorts of extras.  

In came Dr. Gratzek.  In a matter of seconds she put her helmet on her other helmet which went on her final helmet.  That might be my only exaggeration in this book, but it makes my point best.  She then reached for the blue laser instrument.  She used the laser in each eye for about 15 seconds.  She then waved her hand back and forth in front of Quinn’s face for another 5 seconds or so.  Thirty seconds later, this was our conversation:

She:  Do you think Quinn can see?

Me:  Uhh, well, I would have to say not really, though she finds her way, but yes I would say she is totally blind, wouldn’t you agree, or can you explain the question and define what you mean by the word see?

She: Well quite often people in the seat you are sitting in right now tell me their dog is totally blind in both eyes, but that same dog can run in and out of every room in this office looking for whoever it might be they are looking for.

Me: Oh God no, Quinn could never do that!  She probably couldn’t even find her way out of this room, let alone another one.

She: If there was a candle burning on the ground do you think Quinn would walk into it?

Me: Every single time!

She: Ok Aaron, I’m finding zero sensitivity to light in either eye.  The pressures aren’t crazy high, no higher than they were five months ago.  What she is dealing with now is a corneal ulcer, and that is why her left eye is swollen.  It’s quite painful for her which is why she is keeping her eyes closed when possible.

Me: Uh.  Yeah.  Hmmm.

She: [seemingly shaking her head No]  I can do surgery on the ulcer which will fix that problem but it won’t have any barring on her Glaucoma.  Again, as you know, it’s not a matter of IF they will need to be removed, it’s a matter of when.  I think now is the right time.

Me: I agree, let’s take them out.

She: I tell you what we can do.  You can bring Quinn in at 8:45am on Thursday before the other animals scheduled that day for various surgeries.  Dawn will be there and she is going to be the one that administers the Pre-Anesthesia.  You can be there with Quinn as all this is going down, and as soon as she begins to feel the sedative, then we’ll take her into the surgery room and you can leave.

Me: Wow that sounds incredible, thank you!

She: And then we will call you..probably before 11am, and you can be right there for her as soon as we determine that she can stand on her own.

Me: OK great.

She: OK Aaron, don’t worry, she’ll do great.  I probably won’t see you again until you return to have her stitches taken out in two weeks.

Me: OK, thank you so much for everything!

She: You’re welcome Aaron.  Quinn will be fine.  I should at least warn you that it might be hard to initially see her with her eyes sewed shut.  It takes a little time to get used to.

Me: Actually, I don’t think I am going to be affected by it too much.  The past three weeks or so she has spent most of the day with her eyes closed anyway.

She: Excellent, and take care.(handshake)

I felt good.  It felt right.  I was sure that I had prepared Dog and Me for exactly this time in both our lives.  We were ready.  Barbara Lawrence had been right.  She had said all along that I should, and eventually will, be thankful, that I have had this past year to prepare myself for this very day.

I opened the sliding side door, and with the ever so slight brace & delay, coupled with a hint of command and encouragement, Dog blindly and courageously jumped up and into the van and made her way to shotgun.

We slept comfortably in the work van for our third consecutive night. It made the most sense, plus Dog loves it when the work van morphs into a softened up free-for-all.  Before leaving Truckee, I had arranged the inside of my 2002 Ford E-250 with a twin bed for me, and numerous pillows, blankets and dog bed choices for Quinn. 

I hadn’t told anybody in Santa Cruz that we were going to be in town for Quinn’s surgery.  Not a sole.  This had been our journey and it was going to remain our journey.    Though Quinn never once showed a sign of being down and out like I at times tended to demonstrate, 2018 had been a tough year.  Certainly for me, and quite likely for her as well. There was a sense that it might all be finally coming to a head.

Several months prior, as her condition began to really worsen, I concluded that although I have plenty of loving support and genuine care out there for both our well beings, no friend or family member could possibly relate to our current state of affairs.  This was our show, and there would be no audience.  Hence deciding to sleep in the work van. Besides, warm enough winter temperatures along the central coast gave us that opportunity to see this thing through as covertly as I had hoped.

On surgery day I was wide awake at 5am.  Safe to say I was a bit nervous. I went directly from the twin bed to the driver’s seat and started the van.  Because sleeping in the work van has now become an anomaly, Quinn signaled to me that she was befuddled by the action of events. I signaled back for her to remain curled up in a ball for a little while longer.  

Quinn knows her vans.  I own two of them.  And even though neither van was officially being used as a sleep van throughout all of 2017 and 2018, it’s not like we don’t have practice sleeping in vans, because we do.  It’s just that she has come to understand that there is a sleep van and there is a work van, and the work van is never the sleep van, and only sometimes is the sleep van the work van. Yes, she had been thrown a curveball.

I drove straight to Peet’s Coffee in Capitola for a couple reasons.  First, they are open at 5am.  And second, I love my Peet’s.  By 5:30am we were in the member’s parking lot at the Chaminade Hotel and Spa.  Our second home away from home, maybe our third. The fitness center hadn’t yet opened.

Certain that I had played the ‘Potty Card’ correct, I opened the slider, Quinn jumped down, and immediately sniffed her way to the grass where she took care of her morning business.  We then did a slow, half mile jog around the upper lot, and then it was back in the van.  Quinn drank some water which was allowable, suggested, and right on schedule so far as I was concerned.

So far so good I thought.  We then drove to the Seacliff Beach area to wait out the final hour before it was finally time.  I parked the van facing the ocean, tilted the seat back, and followed the January sunrise as it came up and over the coastal mountains behind Salinas, CA.  Quinn rested shotgun.

***

At 7:40am, we drove to the office. I parked the van about a half block away.  I don’t know how many times now Quinn had blindly and courageously jumped in and out of this van, each time trusting that I had safely prepared her landing area, and this time was no different.  She jumped out and we slowly made our way towards our destiny.  The parking lot was empty. 

We stepped into the office, of course there was Autumn, and within minutes Dawn appeared.  Being surgery day, neither administered any treats, instead Dawn administered the pre-sedation shot to Quinn as we sat in the lobby.  I kept a strong, reassuring hold on Dog’s scruff. 

Dawn and I sat there talking about what could be expected post surgery.  It didn’t take too long before Quinn began to show signs of getting very sleepy.  A surgery technician came to light and said that the room was ready.  I walked her down the hallway towards the door which led into the surgery room.  Quinn was clearly in wobble mode, slipping on the tiles floor with each step she took.

Up to this point, I had never seen the surgery room, but recall feeling the intrigue.  From the hallway’s perspective, the room appeared rather large, certainly larger than I had anticipated it being.  I remember seeing a couple other surgery techs that I hadn’t seen before doing some last minute readying. 

Right when we got to the door, Dawn said my time was up.  I handed over the leash, told Quinn to be a good girl, and turned my back.  All of it was neither hard nor easy.  The vibe was exactly like it needed to be.  I couldn’t have felt any better about the way by which we made it to where we were.

I went to my van and drove around the corner to a coffee shop in the Aptos Station.  I had a small cup of coffee and a heated pumpkin/banana muffin.  With a couple hours of time on my hands, I took this time to let a handful of people know that I was in Aptos having Quinn’s eyes removed and that I would keep them posted.

At 10:15am the phone rang.  The call came directly from Dr. Gratzek herself.  She said the surgery went very well, and that the girls were going to monitor Quinn for the next 30 minutes or so, and that I could come get her at 10:45am.   

I drove back to the office and this time parked in the parking lot, closest to the front door.  Thursday is surgery day at Opthamology for Animals.  That means animals get dropped off in the morning and picked up in the evening.  I was feeling my A+ treatment and exercised it accordingly.  I backed my van up with the sliding side door facing the front of the office.  I disconnected the interior light and left the slider open.

I stood in the lobby up against Smitty’s cage.  Bigbird got as close as he could to my left shoulder and began composing a slew of random sounds and repartee.  To this point, I hadn’t heard him make a sound.  The muttering felt deliberately reassuring.  

Autumn motioned to me that the girls were leading Quinn down the hallway.  I went to the hallway and met them halfway.  She could barely keep herself erect on the slippery white tiled floor, but was striving nonetheless.  I said a few words and she made a half attempt at a tail wag.  That gesture was music to my eyes.  Poor Girl looked hammered! 

I lifted her up, carried her through the lobby and right out to my van.  I laid her down on my twin bed with all her blankets.  I was told I could stay in the parking lot as long as I wanted, so that is what we did.  I kept my hands on her trembling body, put light music on the radio, and sat there for the next three plus hours as she shook off what remained of the anesthesia.

It wasn’t circled on the calendar, though it is now.  It wasn’t a premeditated moment of truth because it happened with too much spontaneity.  It wasn’t on a wish list and it wasn’t any kind of short or long term bridge that we had been meaning to cross.  No, no, no, and no, it wasn’t anything like that at all.  It just happened one day.  One very fine day I might add. 

Chaminade Lane is a 1/2 mile long road that lets out at the entrance to The Chaminade, a luxury hotel and spa in Santa Cruz, CA.  The twisty, single lane road is shrouded in Eucalyptus Trees and poison oak.  It’s a two lane road without a yellow center divide. When one car is going down and one car is coming up, both cars need to pass each other with precision and care.  One side is hillside terrain, the other side more gulch-like that streams water during the rainy season only.  There are a couple speed bumps near the bottom.  There is a stop sign at the top.  

Maybe it was the flowing water, maybe it was the many downed trees, likely some of both, whichever, something about this painting lured me into a bit of a trance.  Without question I completely lost myself between the bottom and the top.  Next thing I knew I was rolling through the stop sign at the top of the hill like I always do.  

I could tell the hotel was my kind of empty.  Nobody was at the pool.  Actually, there didn’t seem to be anybody outside at all.  I take that back, up in the distance and off to our right, Maintenance Mike was loading the John Deere drivable lawn mower back onto its trailer.  I also noted my boy Rolando tinkering with his edging tools.  

I veered left, briefly popped into the front desk area of the spa and fitness area, and poured myself that mandatory afternoon half cup of black coffee.  It was 2pm on a Tuesday in early March.  All of Santa Cruz seemed peaceful and very still.  The entire central coast was in between massive winter storms.  Enormous white clouds billowed above.  The sky was crystal blue.  The air had an unseasonably dry warmth to it.  It was just how one might want it to be.

I climbed back into the running van and slowly made my way to where my favorite secret parking spots are, near the outdoor tennis courts.  I chose my favorite of the favorites, shut off the engine, and began sipping my afternoon coffee. 

That trance had worn off, but it lasted pretty long and left me feeling very relaxed. The smell of fresh cut grass captured my attention. Quinn’s Lawn, as it is known by many a few, had been primed for the taking.  This chunk of crab grass has been our semi-personal field of dreams for many years now. Today was proving that once again.    

Dog & Me were on our fourth day back to work after a long and cold five month winter hiatus.  It had been a lot of back and forth from Truckee all winter long, which obviously also included Quinn’s surgery. But now we were back in The Cruz, ready to forge our way through the 2019 work season. 

The van was in total disarray.  So much so, that as I was parking the van, I was keeping an eye on Dog just in case she felt the urge to jump out of shotgun and get that head start that never gets her ahead. She’s just a dog after all.  

When the work van is in true disarray, I need to be extra cautious with Quinn. There are times when I wish she wasn’t so filled to her brim with mad courage, unwavering trust, and a passion to be right where she thinks she is best suited to be, but she is.  Therefore, and especially pertaining to the work van, a real serious injury can be all around her at any given time. An injury that hasn’t happened yet. An injury that I don’t want to ever have happen.  

I lightly pinched her upper lip, put on my hypothetical serious face, and I extra firmly told Quinn to keep her cattle ass seated and that I was going to open my door and then I was going to close my door, and that there are bad things in the way and so I need to do some rearranging for the next ten minutes or so.  It would have sounded a lot like the word STAY.

Quinn knows exactly what to do and how to be when I am extra stern.  It’s rare that I ever go that route, but there are those times when there are no do-overs or second chances.  I try to always make the van Quinn-Safe, but sometimes it gets away from me.  Most all commands these days aren’t even commands at all.  They are more routine verbal guidelines, like talking commands to keep her close by my side and on track in the great, big world.  Therefore, a hard, firm command has come to mean real business, and she takes it right to heart.  

So I’m fiddling about the van, Quinn proofing the back area etc..  Tucked away under a tattered canvas tarp, I spotted two volleyballs that I knew all along were somewhere back there, I just didn’t know where.  Both had been punctured as I had remembered them being.  One was flatter than the other though neither was too flat to have lost its round shape or ability to roll. 

It had been maybe eight months since one of those volleyballs were used last.  I remember when I brought the larger-sized ball into our bag of games once she had become very near blind. In fact, we used the volleyball quite a bit until I could just tell that it wasn’t that much fun for her. I understood. Likely something to do with her eye pressures being so high and painful. There was a time, probably in the summer of 2018 sometime, when I remember saying to myself that we had seemingly played the volleyball game for the last time ever.  Likely a sad day.  

Once I made the van safe for Miss No-Eyed to jump down, turn left, and turn left again, that’s when I said that her coast was clear.  She stood waiting, eager as always to make the jump down to the ground, and with the runway safe for landing, out she went.  

She felt her way over the concrete parking block and under the shrubbery that surrounds the 5000 s/f fun zone.  She stood there and curiously waited as I purposely decided on the flatter of the two volleyballs.  I ducked under the shrubs and tossed the volleyball in her direction. Checking the temperature. Curious to see her initial take on the situation.      

She easily heard the sound of the volleyball, and so far as I could tell, understood exactly what was happening before her. I admit to calmly building up the moment while I was organizing the van, and Dog seemed pretty locked in.

Here’s what I saw as I entered the playing field. I witnessed Quinn, without taking her eyes off of me,(if she had them) touch her nose to the ball, and then backed herself up and off to the side as if to say she has been waiting for this moment her entire life. It was hard to believe.

Calm and quiet were very much still the modus operandi.  I hid my excitement so deep within me that there was no way whatsoever it was being detected. She stood absolutely statue like.  Every so often, without taking what would be her eyes off of where she knew I was, she would take another small step back and off to the side. Like the old days.

Sloth-like, I inched my way towards the ball, establishing some directional energy or whichwaywardness. It got to the point where every half step I would take forward, she would take a half step back and to the side. I knew we were on the same page.

When I was but a moment or two from kicking the ball, I reinforced the energy, making sure she was leaning accordingly.  Boink! I toe poked the flattened volleyball about 20 yards along the fresh-cut, obstacle-free grassy area, and she absolutely bee-lined directly to it with all her youthful velocity and radar precision.  She whipped the thing around in her mouth for a second or two and then proceeded to roll on her back in utter bliss.  

I was tripping.  Shocked and Overjoyed.  Quinn remembered that this particular game of fetch never required her to bring it back, so I slowly walked over to her, feeling as though I had to try this out again to prove that it wasn’t a fluke.  So with that same momentous calm, as she again backed away from the object without taking what would be her eyes off of me, I again toe poked the ball in the direction she was sensing.  And again, she darted directly to the ball, getting to it before it even had a chance to stop rolling.  

Oh My Goodness, Girlfriend was SO back!

By early spring 2019, for all intents and purposes, Quinn had to be considered 100%.  Her stitches had been pulled out.  The swelling and tenderness had gone away.  All her hair had grown back that had been shaved.  Outside of the fact that my dog had no eyes, one wouldn’t be able to tell that the surgery to remove them only happened six weeks prior.

I pulled the driver’s side of the van up to the empty curb under the redwood tree whose roots were wreaking significant havoc on the sidewalk and into the street.  We had no intention of stopping, but because the small, midtown park was empty, and I noticed two women, one man, and two cattle dogs having what appeared to be a real time of it, I couldn’t resist.  In fact, right when I pulled up to the curb, one of the Blue Heelers was in the process of going down the plastic slide at the far corner of this street corner park.  Judging a book by its cover, this was our kind of company. 

I turned the van off and opened my door without giving Quinn any kind of ‘off command’.  That’s her queue to wait for me at the sliding side door.  Silly I know.  I cracked the slider and she jumped out into the street. 

One dog was on a leash and the other wasn’t.  Quinn sniffed her way to the grassy portion of the street corner park.  She peed immediately and began to blindly bark which is her way of saying that additional canines were surely in the very near vicinity.  Her radar is usually good to about 75 yards.  These dogs were only about 100 feet away. 

So she starts barking which is my queue to tell the other dog owner(s) that my dog has no eyes.  The reaction(s) by the three humans, in particular one, were almost in line with the reactions I have been getting from most humans, though this energy didn’t quite feel right enough and I immediately began to feel like I had made an error stopping at this dumb park.  Here’s how this 90 seconds played out.

Right from the get-go, he started calling my dog buddy.  “Hey buddy!”  “I’m right here Buddy!”  “Can you see me buddy?”  Very odd behavior I kept thinking.  Downright annoying actually.  For starters, Quinn is not a buddy or a Buddy, and most certainly not this guy’s buddy or Buddy. 

I come from the school of canine where buddy is a sound that is predominantly reserved for the male dog.  Of course a female dog can get referred to as buddy or ‘little buddy’ for a while, but only a while.  Like maybe six months maximum.  How many adult women in the world are named or referred to as Buddy or Bud?  Probably not too many, if any.   

For his next act, and without asking of course, AND in a very abrasive sorta style I must add, especially towards a canine with no eyes, let alone any living being or creature with no eyes, he began sticking little dog treats into my dogs muzzle area and asking “Buddy” if she wanted a treat.  He obviously didn’t know that my dog is NEVER going to take candy from a goofball stranger, but sure enough he kept trying.  I finally said, “Hey Bud, she doesn’t want your stupid treat!”

Act 3 began when this guy calls his people over to meet the dog with no eyes that ‘looks just like’ some dog that they know.  I hate when people do that but that too happens quite frequently.  Like it’s not enough that I have a very sweet Red Heeler with no eyes, YOU have to make a new declaration that my dog looks like a dog that you know that isn’t here for anyone to judge whether it’s true or not.

Anyway, the ladies now both come over.  Actually, the lady that had the other Heeler on the leash sort of kept her distance signifying to me that it might not be the most socially understanding dog.  The other lady however walked over and said something like, “Oh yeah HE looks just like Rufus but maybe a little bulkier,”  Or maybe she used the word huskier, I forget. 

So from (B)buddy to food forcing to show stealing to dog shaming to overall lack of what on dog earth is going the fuck on, I was a wrong word away from removing myself and Quinn from this small park and the humans and dogs that were currently making it up. 

And then it happened!  So out of thin air that it really truly surprised me.  His dog attacked Quinn and then attacked her again.  A double attack out of nowhere!  Why dogs do what they do when they do it is sometimes impossible to fingerprint, but I quickly had my theories.  No dog has ever attacked my dog and we have been around hundreds of dogs on our journey together. 

So the attack goes down.  I scream something loud and the one-sided fight stops immediately.  I was so bummed for Quinn and so angry at the other party involved, but I didn’t say a word.  Nor did I look at them with any kind of disdain or dislike.  I also didn’t make them feel like they had a lot to learn.  I picked up Quinn, turned my back and walked away. 

After about a minute, and still I suppose purposely within their sight of us, I set her down and stopped to check her status.  Her hair was still spiked up.  She was definitely shaking in her boots.  She had a little blood near the tip of her lower lip.  Outside of that she was perfectly fine.  We were both fine. 

I gave her 30 hard seconds of very encouraging words and we moved on down the road.

Uncanny is one word for it.  ExtraTerrestrial should be another one.  It’s likely a combination of both.  I’m referring to Quinns capacity to blindly sense that there is another canine in the greater vicinity, and not only that, the level of danger that she feels it presents to her.  This ‘level of danger’, from what I’ve been able to unravel and piece together, seems to be determined by the overall size of the canine divided by the sound their collar makes multiplied by the distance this creature is away from her.

If Dog isn’t riding shotgun in the work van or sleeping like a baby in the sleep van, it’s very likely we are on a job site.  If we aren’t on a job site, then inevitably we can be found at a well maintained grassy park, ball field or the like.  No matter the spot, Quinn has been guaranteed to have her trusted work bed within paw’s reach.  I should know, I gave the guarantee.  

At first glance, this trusted work bed appears to look no different than any other round dog bed one might find at any old pet store for $39.  In fact, from a size and shape standpoint, it looks identical to the ones the Kirkland Company manufactures for Costco and sells for $29.   

The reason Quinn’s work bed cost a whopping $159 about 4 years ago is because the bed cover is constructed out of an ultra durable canvas.  Imagine if Carhartt made a dog bed.  It has proven over and over that it can go the extra mile.  It can handle sharp, jagged rocks, and it can hold up fine when placed in the mud.  It can cope with paint, stain, grease, rain, coffee, beer, wine, you name it.  In fact I did name it.  I named it RoundHouse.  That’s correct, another name for another dog bed, and trust me, I have my reasons.    Quinn knows darned well by now that RoundHouse symbolizes one of her safest, most sturdy places on her earth.  We are going into our fifth season with this tenacious work bed, and it appears to have plenty more life in the tank.

It should be noted that this intuitive radar of hers is always on display on some level, and certainly not limited to her being on or near RH.  However, her most accurate and decisive aforementioned calculations have proven to take place when she is either on, or within close proximity to her one and only RoundHouse.  And that should make a lot of sense, at least it does to me.  99 out of 100 times when Quinn feels that need to sound her horn, it is when the canine activity numbers have been proven to be greater.  Sure she needs to do some figuring from time to time in both the work van and the sleep van, but in both those cases, there has NEVER been another canine up her ass.  However, a popular grassy field, likely filled with the Chuck-It-Teers, The Frisbee Freds, and their easily distractible canines, that scenario will obviously transfer a much higher level of protective vigilance out of my No-Eyed Canine.

For example, if we are chilling at our favorite grassy ball field, minding our own business, and 100 yards away there is a three pack of let’s call them Bichon Frise’s, Quinn will feel their presence long before I ever catch their wind.  This is sure to prompt her slightly concerned mumbling sounds, possibly getting as revved up as sending out several high pitched meaningful dog chirps.  I’m then real quick to tease/validate her by saying that although her math is spot on, and that there are indeed some canines in the general vicinity, they are harmless little fur balls that are very far away, and on a leash.  

Now if those dogs get too close, say 100 feet or less, those same chirping sounds will become a little more discriminate, certainly a little more intense, and she will likely sit up tall in her bed and assume the ready position.  I’m still quick to calmly let her know that she need not be so up in arms.  “Dog, those are pip-squeaks.  On leash at that.  I know it’s tough completely ignoring that triple metal clanking sound, and not being able to set what it is, but trust me, you gotta let it go.”  I always give her all benefits of all doubts, allowing her to voice whatever opinion she may have with her perceived notion at large. 

Sticking with the ball park theme, let’s now suppose we are sitting there minding our own business and off in the distance, undetected by the human ear, is the unleashed 70 pound Yellow Lab, likely friendly, submissive, playful, all of it.  Even from 100 yards away, Quinn puts herself on much higher alert than she does with the Bichon, the Pug, or the like.  If this Lab gets within a 50 yard radius, Quinn is definitely off her bd, hair is sticking straight up along her back, and she digs up a more callous voice. 

If that dog has a misguided demeanor to it, that’s when I step in.  If that dog shows that canine math is not its strong suit or perhaps doesn’t piece together that my dog has no eyes, that’s again when I need to step in.  Now if that dog shows me calm, submissive, and understanding behavior, then I slowly but surely encourage the acquaintance.  It can be a delicate situation, especially if the mindless owner is talking on their cell phone while shouting at me that his or her dog is friendly.  “HE”S FRIENDLY!!!”

Quinn’s math can be laser accurate.  Admittedly it can also be off base from time to time.  Nobody is perfect.  I’m just so thankful that she can lock into her other senses, especially as it pertains to protecting her own well being.  When I hear her begin to mumble and fidget, many times the other dog isn’t even the picture yet.  At least not in my picture.  Countless times I’ve had to tell Dog to pipe down because nothing is there, yet sure enough, here comes that frisky Mini Schnauzer from around the corner.  One time, on a frigid afternoon in Truckee CA, I remember Quinn being bothered by a canine from two streets over.  It’s like she gets a whiff of a sound, and that’s all it takes for her to set off an alarm.  

My favorite game to play happens when somebody else is with us and Quinn starts twitching amuck, yet neither one of us see another canine.  That can be my queue to have a little fun with the situation and say to that somebody, “$5 says it’s an excitable 45 pound Blue Merle named Bingo, 6 years old, slight limp, tail docked, coming from that direction in five seconds, four seconds, three, two, one, Bingo.”  Whether my math is accurate or not, I like to have fun with it, because having fun is what counts most.

The work project was located on the upper westside of Santa Cruz, close enough to the university where many of the homes in this upscale neighborhood likely rent out to students whose parents dish out what now has to be considered a small fortune worth of rent each and every month.  I had never worked on this particular street before, but I knew its whereabouts, and I knew it to be an area that is filled with older money and/or students renting from those with older money.

Million dollar homes for sure, with the homes at the end of this oddly shaped cul-de-sac where my client lived, all having sweeping views of the Monterey Bay.  So in theory, two million plus dollar homes.  I was initially there to give the bid in September 2018, and here we were in late May 2019, thankful to have earned the business, back to actually perform the work.

Looking back on September 2018, I couldn’t recall too much about the bid itself other than it coincided with a real shitty time in my life.  Earlier that month I lost a close friend to ALS, which really put the squeeze on.  I was also filled to my brim with all things Quinn.  She was not doing well, and when she isn’t doing well, I am not doing well.  I’m not sure how I was able to keep my composure.  I can’t even believe I decided to give this bid in the first place.

I do remember having to park the van about a quarter mile away.  I recall it being a very hot Indian summer afternoon, which meant I needed to find some real shade for Quinn while I was in the backyard giving this work bid.  Based on prior phone conversations that I had with this old lady with old money, my hunches suggested that I might be away for a while, and it turned out I was right. Obviously I would have preferred to park closer.  Ideally I would have parked right in their driveway, but I had been warned that their new driveway had just been freshly stamped and yellow caution tape wrapped its perimeter.   

At the time of this bid, it had already been about four months time since I had to draft up Work Rule 3C which stated something to the affect that Quinn would no longer be accompanying me while I am giving a work bid. It still tugs at me a bit that she isn’t granted that participation. She’d like to still give bids.  She jumps out of shotgun and waits at the slider as though she is ready to help with the bid.   I don’t know what to say other than an executive decision was made earlier this summer relegating Quinn to the work van when I was out giving bids, and a rule is a rule.  The reason behind the new rule is that it’s in the best interest of the potential client that I arrive at their door with all my focus and attention span, completely free and clear of any and all No-Eyed dog responsibility and/or drama.

Enough of all that.  Eight months time had passed since being there last, yet there we were.  I had earmarked three full weeks of our time to get the work completed.  As I drove down the street, that’s when the recollections started coming back to me.  Not the part about my friend Tony passing from ALS, or the fact that when I was here last, Quinn wasn’t doing too well.  This was a much more superficial retrospective that sounded more like, “Oh yeah, crappy parking setup on this street.” 

Unlike late September, this time around I had to park close to the house because the van was stocked full of gear, including all three of my tallest ladders tied down on the roof rack.  All of it needed to be unloaded and carried into the backyard.  My only option seemed to be the old triple park, or double park, or whatever that form of illegality is called.  

I partially blocked the driveway next door which is one of those long, easement-style driveways being used by multiple homes.  The front portion of my van ran neck and neck with a red fire hydrant which felt ticket worthy.  And for the final act, I also parked facing the opposite direction of traffic so the sliding side door could face the street, ensuring I could wheel my machines out the side door.  Of course it also meant Quinn could exit the vehicle sans assistance.

So for the next hour or so I unloaded the van, removed all the ladders off the roof rack, and basically set up shop in the client’s backyard.  I then chose the general area where I could situate Quinn in what would become her work shop for the next several weeks too.   

Sometimes a job site has that perfect setup for Dog, and sometimes it doesn’t.  There is a lot to consider when setting up her space.  I take this part of the job as seriously as any other part, but please don’t tell the client.  Once everything was in place, I put Quinn into what I consider the mother of all commands, that being the firm down-stay.  I then went back to my van in search of a legitimate parking spot.

A couple things cropped up during her 15 minute down-stay, and neither had to do with her pulling the plug on my command.  First, I noticed a parking spot within the fringe of the cul-de-sac itself that just had that look to it that said, “I am available for a reason, and that reason is because I am a very tricky parking spot to squeeze into, and that’s because this is an irregularly shaped cul-de-sac to begin with, but mainly because the seven or so, twenty some odd year old Sorority Sisters in that house right there,(I looked) they make parking around here very disheartening if you know what I mean.”

It was weird I admit, true, but weird even so.

The second detail that issued was that once again I had to park the van wayyy too far away.  To add some insult, when I finally returned to the client’s backyard, that’s when I realized that I had forgotten something very important back in the van.  “This is already getting old,” I thought.  I sat there and questioned whether or not I should go back and get the ear pieces to my musical device.  I decided not to go back to the van.  Instead I chose to only log a couple hours of work before calling it a day, making this more of a “getting my feet wet” sort of start.  By 2pm I was out of there.

I put a leash and collar around Quinn and we walked off the job.  This is when I first witnessed some comings and goings of these Delta Gamma chicks that the tricky, under utilized parking spot had mentioned.  In fact, I noticed one sister who had just parked her shiny new Mini Cooper about four feet away from the curb.  Again, and admittedly, the cul-de-sac is tough to manage, but four feet away from the curb?  Cmon lady!  I just chuckled inside because it was funny and I didn’t care.  My work day was done.

Before I forget.  I did also acknowledge an old man, probably in his early 80’s, standing on a two foot step stool, washing his older Toyota T100 in his driveway.  He wore a long sleeve pink polo button down, khaki shorts, and rubber boots that came up to just below his kneecap.  We made brief eye contact.  We may have even waved to one another, I forget.

The next morning I arrived early and found the parking to be worse than the day before.  I just couldn’t believe it.  Something had to give.  Now that all our work gear was already in the backyard, I suppose I could have parked far away, but I was quick to remember that I am not being paid to be a hiker.

As I approached the end of the street, staring me right in the face, was that one spot on the left which everybody, including the Tri Sig members always seemed to shy away from.  It’s kind of hard to describe its complexities.  This spot was kind of like the spot where the base of a muffin meets the muffin top itself.  Almost like if half the parking spot was the muffin base and half the spot was the muffin top.  Tricky indeed.  I didn’t know what to do.  I certainly wasn’t going to attempt to park there with the right side of the van facing the curb.  It would have been a nightmare trying to fit in, not to mention having to assist Quinn.

What did I do?  Well, I drove my left front wheel over the curb and then cranked the steering wheel to the right until the left front wheel came off the curb and the left rear wheel was butted right up against the curb.  In other words, and if you will, one wheel on each part of the muffin.

And that was that.  Perfect in fact.  I looked around this posh neighborhood making sure that nobody had something to say, then I walked around to the sliding side door, Quinn jumped out like always, and both she and I disappeared into the client’s backyard.

Believe it or not, this wrong-way, muffin top parking shenanigan went on for the entire remainder of the week.  Pull up on the curb, pull off the curb, squeeze in tight without getting boxed in, side door opens, Quinn jumps down to the ground, we disappear.  Nobody said anything to me.  Nobody looked my way with any disdain either.  The Alpha Chi Omega clan always seemed to have their heads glued to their phones, so they of course never chimed in.  The one old man that was washing his car on the step stool that one day, who’s house I was parking directly in front of, I hadn’t seen him once.  

And then came Saturday..

Saturday I showed up around 10am.  Like always, every spot was taken except that spot.  Like had been the case all week, and now with the greatest of ease, I slipped right in and immediately turned off the engine.  From the driver’s side mirror, I caught a quick glance of the old man walking towards me.  He just had that look that I have grown to stereotype unfavorably.  Wreaking of wealth if you will.  Yellow Polo Shirt this time.  Baggy Designer Jeans pulled up to his belly button.  Indoor/Outdoor Slippers.  I had to act real fast, and I knew exactly what to do.

Instead of opening the driver’s side door to get out, I threw myself in the back and opened the slider.  Both Quinn and I jumped out the side door and into the middle of the cul-de-sac. I pretended that I didn’t see him but I was well aware that I was seconds away from what I assumed was going to be a confrontation.  One with condescending overtones.

Pretending to be startled by this 85 year old rich guy, I played the part and said hello.  Once I opened my mouth to say hello, that is sort of Quinn’s queue to blindly get her security bark on, and on queue, she did just that.

“Sir, good to see you again,” I said.  “Before you say what I think you are going to say, let me stop you.  As you can see, I have a dog with no eyes.  She is Quinn.  It’s imperative that when we arrive at work that she is able to jump down from the side door of this van onto the street, not the sidewalk, the street.  To ensure that Dog retains the courage to jump down, the distance needs to be exact every time.  Imagine for a second if you had to jump down off of something and wasn’t sure where the ground was.  Anyhoot, I fear that varying the distance will begin the process of building up her hesitancy, ultimately preventing her from wanting to make that jump.  You obviously know this is a very crowded street for parking with the Gamma Thetas and all, and so far as I have been able to tell, this is really the only parking spot that I can make this happen without parking too far away.  If it makes you feel any better, we are only working here for two more weeks, and then you will probably never see us again.”

“You are funny,” the old man replied.  “It looks like you have yourself quite the cattle dog, she’s a beauty.  No, I wasn’t going to tell you that I didn’t want you parking in front of my house.  I came out here to ask if you would care for a homemade banana/blueberry muffin that my grand daughter  just baked.  She is in the Pi Beta Phi sorority and actually lives right there.”(He points to the other side of the cul-de-sac and I look)

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I replied.

“Fresh out of the oven, I’m not kidding,” he chuckled.

“Oh man, I’d love one,” I said.

It(they) happened twice daily, right at noontime, and again at 5p.  Both on the sharp and both as though our lives depended on them.  Over the course of 85 days, Quinn and I performed this routine 170 times.  That’s batting .1000 in my playbook.

This procedural labor of love took us 20 human minutes from start to finish, beginning to end.  This wasn’t ones typical dog walk because Quinn isn’t ones typical dog, and Puerto Escondido isn’t ones typical place.  Time and time again, here’s how it seemed to pan out.  

First thing I always did was top-off her water bowl and stick it in the freezer.  It took Dog a while, but she finally figured out that equation.  For over a year now, I have been dialing-in that pitch black, lights out internal clock of hers with assorted drills and daily routines, yet it never had anything to do with me putting her water bowl in a freezer. 

She came to know in a very short period of time, that right at noon and again at 5, her dog bowl(which of course she can’t see) was going in the freezer, and that in turn meant we were headed out for a walk.  It became a sense.  My take is that she felt the water bowl being removed and then heard the sound that the freezer door makes, and that was all she needed.  If freezing her water didn’t ready her, certainly the dangling sound of the keys did.  The invisible leash.  The prompt of all prompts.

Second, I ran the scalding hot water out of the fifty foot hose until it got on the warmish side of cold enough.  Dog liked to play, “Hard to Find” as hose time approached.  Her way of hiding has become pretty funny.  She basically stands close by but looks the other way. 

Anyway, I’d call Girlfriend over and super-quickly hose down just her back.  Obviously she had her reasons why she wasn’t so fond of that part of the process.  Maybe they are theories.  I told her every single time that it only lasts three short seconds and that she really does appreciate it despite not being able to see twenty or so dog seconds into her future. 

Last but certainly not least, we had to slowly maneuver between my van his truck her car and their motorcycles, sometimes two.  Once Quinn was through the vehicular obstacles, I always skipped ahead so I could hopefully unlock and open one side of the two-sided giant black iron gate before her arrival in order to seamlessly guide Ms. No Eyed out to the dirt street.  That was the goal anyway. 

Usually what ended up happening was that Dog got to the black iron gate before I had enough time to safely get it unlocked and fully opened for her, and like so many door maneuvers that have opened and closed before us, she would bonk a time or three, and/or position herself on the closing side of an open door, in this case a monster iron gate.  Ultimately she would feel her way around the hard obstacle, finding her way through to the street.

With the prep and the pinball out of the way, we were ready for the walk itself.  This walk never involved a collar or a leash.  This is how it broke down:

Out the gate, we’d go left for about 150 meters until the dirt road ends.  At the T, we’d head left again for another 150 meters.  Right about the time this half road becomes more of a dirt path, we’d veer left once again for say 75 steps or so.  A final left-hander down a bumpy one lane dirt road for another 150 meters before making the only right hand turn of the walk, and 75 additional paces, putting us right back in front of our black iron gate.  In simpler terms, it’s a small-sized, rectangular block with a few extra steps coming and going.

It didn’t take long into our 600 some-odd meter routine before we would encounter the four barking dogs on the right hand side.  To say they always barked at us is still an understatement.  We never made it past this doggie gauntlet without them going berserk.  Tip-toed, the whole 9.  I even bet Quinn some treats that it couldn’t be done.  Treats? 

We hated it.  It was the most savage canine sound compilation imaginable.  It deafened our ears which often angered me and confused Quinn’s sense of direction.  It prompted all the neighborhood dogs within a tropical radius to pile on.  Thankfully it only lasted ten seconds and always tailed off the very same way, with the smallest and scrawniest mutt of them all hitting the final few notes.  

I never made eye contact with this pack of bandits, and obviously Quinn didn’t either.  Every once in a while I would gesture at them to shut the fuck up.  And to be fair, every once in a while, so did some Italian male voice from somewhere inside the house.  As bad as it always was, it was also par for the course.  The alternative is them being given permission to be outside their gate, bullying anything and everything that walks by.  So for the great most part we accepted the protective ruthlessness.  They were just doing their job, and a damn fine job at that.

Now I know from experience that all four of these dogs aren’t all junkyard.  Likely it’s just one.  The others just tag along.  Yank the ring leader out of the equation, and many times you are left with curious, often even submissive dogs that are finally being given a chance to be themselves.  Put them behind a gate with a loudmouth, and you get four barking dogs. 

Before I forget, there was an instance where ‘all four’ were on the street because the owner and his buddy were also on the street likely talking fettuccini recipes.  When Giuseppe saw us coming, which I suppose would have been either at 12:07pm or 5:07pm I forget which, he smiled a friendly gesture and began to semi-coral his pack, in particular his main trouble maker.  With Old Blackie locked away, his friend Cenzo might have even begun the process of a total corral, yet I stopped him in his tracks.

“Oh you don’t need to do that, it’s probably a good idea that everybody gets a good old fashioned meet and greet,” I suggested.  

Bad Idea!  Meet and greet my ass.  A three second, one-sided brawl broke out, and like always, Lady Miss No-Eyed was on the receiving end.  She bled a bit near her right back leg.  We scooted away without making it seem like we were aggravated.  I tried to baby her but she didn’t seem affected whatsoever.  Dog didn’t want my babying.  It was written all over her face that she had already moved on.  Worked for me.  I love that about my Quinnie.  Forgive and Forget.  She had fully adopted our motto:  What she can’t see can’t hurt her so long as I am by her side.  

Our first left hand turn happened right at The Pancho Villa Estate.(that’s just what I call it)  The entire property is surrounded by a 15 foot high, white concrete wall, and it’s bad ass!  The two-sided wooded gate to get behind the wall and onto this majestic property makes my monster gate look considerably less monstrous.  There are cameras that say “Smile, we have you on Video.”  My initial thought was that it should be written in Spanish, though I’ve come to learn why that isn’t so.  

It’s a powerful spot alright, and clearly the vortex of the dog walk.  Remote & Enchanted, Colorful & Raw!  A picture could never capture its essence.  It has to be felt, and we felt it.  From this spot, the warm and always mighty Pacific Ocean is still in plain sight, as are stacking panoramic views of massive Sierra Madre peaks.  Everything in between is for ones imagination only.  It was here when things got real.   

Batting leadoff was Pluma.  She wears a red, power collar.  She is young.  She is long.  She is local.  She always appeared about 100 steps away and immediately assumed her position of playfully still and calculatedly low.  She waited for us to get 75 steps away, so that we could then get 50, then 25.  That was her queue to begin flying up and down the rocky dirt road about as fast as you will EVER see a canine rocket back and forth.  If there was ever a dog that could immediately showcase what it is they do very best, then we were witnessing it.  At least I was.

Pluma has no bad blood, and never meant any harm.  It was just that her mind bending velocity, combined with her ability to come inches from us as she went screaming by, well that can be quite dangerous for Quinn.  Pluma too.  My take here was that most dogs she encounters can always make sure to step aside or turn a cheek, or properly tilt themselves in the right direction as she sped by.  Quinn, not so much.   I foresaw unfortunate consequences in this style of hyperactivity, and it came in the form of a nasty collusion which might even cause a dog or two to die on the spot.  Taking no chances, we would stop and wait it out.  When Pluma’s tongue was just about hitting the dirt ground, that’s when it felt safe to continue.  

It was here that the horse shit mounted.  It was here that the mango, ficus, and parota trees overwhelmed.  Small birds seemed to be everywhere, and full of song.  The predator birds circled above.  With a couple of burros to prove it, there was a low lying, rusted barbed wire fence tangled in bougainvillea to our right that separated us from hectares of Maguey.  Ant hills everywhere.  Lizards galore.  This portion of the walk took the most time.  Quinn couldn’t go two steps without fixing her nose on something.  I tried to hurry her along, never letting her fix on something to the point where she was curious enough to try it out in her mouth.

With Pluma out of our picture for the time being, and two left turns behind us, I would prepare my dog for the quick 75.  I called it that because I hurried this section along as quickly and as quietly as was possible.  I did this because we were often faced with sharing the right of way with full sized horses.  Usually four of them.  Beautiful specimens.  Well behaved. Always busy chewing.  

The only rule I know about horses is probably the golden rule of all the rules which is to NEVER approach a horse from behind.  Easier said than done on this overcrowded path.

Every single time we’d get to this portion of the gauntlet, I stopped, squatted down to what would be Quinn’s eye level, and I told her that these are enormous creatures she was about to encounter, and she needed to be extra smart and extra careful.  We’d then proceed with the utmost caution.  Me personally?  I made zero noise.  I never got too close.  I quietly prayed that my zero eyed animal didn’t walk into one of them, god forbid one of their back ends.   

We logged this exact walk about 170 times when all was said and done.  I’d be lying if I said those horses were always on this portion of the walk, but they were there at least three days per week.  When they were there, Quinn usually ended up nose to nose with one of them.  Nose to nose!  Freaked me out every time.  As priceless as I suppose it was, I could barely look.  There was nothing I could do but get out of the way and let animals be animals.

As we made our way down one of the final stretches, there were several other areas where barking sounds were being felt.  We had come to understand what that meant among other things.  One thing it meant was that we are about to see the Pluma show once again.  Yes, Pluma has full access to be completely uncontainable , so of course we always let her do her thing before proceeding. 

In the strangest of dog ways, Pluma looked after Quinn.  I went to a neighborhood BBQ around the holidays, and Pluma somehow showed up and Quinn recognized her. They were even spotted spooning on the cold tile.  She’s our good friend.  

With the ocean back in plain sight, and with just 75 meters to go, we once again had to deal with the infamous Four Tops, but by this point we both could have cared less.  And we had come to find that the chaos definitely toned down a notch as we passed them for the second time in ten minutes.  I would dangle the keys extra loud and Quinn followed my that lead.  Regardless of whether it was 12:20 or 5:20, she was panting, I was sweating.  She needed some ice cold water, I needed an ice cold shower.  Thankfully, I knew where to find both.