People can be pretty crazy about their dogs. We love our dogs and we would do anything for them. It’s not a contest, I know, but if it was a contest, then obviously I would win the prize for Craziest About Dogs. As I write this, I’m watching Mu, Fozzie, and Tino sleep, and it’s like this thing I do, watching dogs sleep, and it’s the best thing ever. What kind of crazy person likes watching dogs sleep. It might be because I have so much shared experience with them, working with them toward a shared goal, training together, learning to read them and understand their behavior. Maybe I’m crazy about my dogs because of the time and effort and love invested in them.

But then I meet Moose, and he allows me to catch him, and I’m deeply in love with him when he won’t even let me pet him yet. I went to visit Moose at the shelter today. He isn’t able to relax there. It’s noisy, and the other dogs are often upset and anxious. Moose ate out of my hand, but he didn’t seem calm enough to try to put the leash on him. I will try again in a day or two. I feel responsible for Moose, of course, because I trapped him. I know he is safer now than if I had let him wander the forest and the swamp. Since I did catch him, it makes me feel like he is my responsibility. I need to make sure he has a pathway to a better life, if his owners don’t claim him. He is at a critical time, and I need to help him ease into a new home somewhere.

I’m sure I love Moose because he reminds me of my Valentino. What would I do if my baby was lost? Based on where we found Moose, and his behavior, one scenario that comes to mind is that his owner has died or gone off to the military or prison or something. It seems like Moose had someone who cared for him, and that person has disappeared from his life. If I died, I hope someone would take vary good care of my Tino. I’m sure I would love Moose if he was a Saint Bernard or a Chinese Crested, but because he looks similar to Tino, it’s probably giving me extra motivation to take care of him the best I can. I will keep working on him.

It’s probably weird that I think about Kelsy all the time. I know everyone has lost a pet at some point. I think that it may be because, besides just the fact that she was a great dog and I loved her, she was at the center of my three main vocations or avocations: searching for lost pets, writing, and photography. Not only was Kelsy the main character in the novel I wrote while she was alive, and the subject of the nonfiction book, but she is a main character in at least two upcoming novels, and at least two planned nonfiction books. Besides, she pops up on my Facebook feed all the time. And I’m surrounded by dogs that make me think of her every day. If I had ever decided not to think about her, in order to save myself some grief, that plan probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.

Although I am always sad that she is gone, I mostly feel happy when I think of her. We worked and played together. She is, really, the reason I got started doing this work in the first place. I think of the lessons I learned while working with her, and it helps me when I’m working with Tino. Although I definitely feel the absence of her, I also feel her presence, like she’s right here with me.

In the upcoming novel, School of Assassins, Kelsy is a digital assistant, like Siri, but she actually works. Kelsy is an AI that lives in the cloud and helps with everything throughout your day, like navigation, grocery lists, real-time translations of what the cook just said to the waitress at your favorite restaurant, identifying birds by their songs, and directing you on the steps to fixing the dishwasher. This augmented-reality Kelsy walks along like she is there beside you, but she is also in your head, providing you the best information, as soon as you need it, and helping you make the best choices. While this is fiction for now, it seems very likely that the technology will be available soon to make this a reality. Maybe ten years from now, I will be wearing a pair of glasses that allow me to see Kelsy walking beside me, and I will hear her (synthesized) voice in my headphones, talking to me the way she does in my novels. When we reach that stage, it will be perfectly normal for me, since she has always been with me, guiding me.

Kelsy is very much alive in me.

Happy Birthday K.

This morning Viktor played with the dogs more than ever. All the dogs were interested in watching me eat a piece of bread, so they didn’t play right away, but Viktor joined the group and stayed close. Tino found a piece of cardboard from the recycle bin and he shook it at Viktor to invite him to play. Viktor seemed interested, but he didn’t quite know what to do next. Tino got distracted and dropped the cardboard, and Viktor pounced and grabbed it up and scampered off to a corner to chew on it. A bit later, when Viktor had torn off a piece, Sky came and got the main chunk of cardboard and took it away. Viktor followed her to get it back. In the middle of the pack, he did a few play bows and little woofs. Tino did a play bow back at him and then bopped him on the head with his huge paw. Sky also did play bows with happy wiggles. Then Viktor grabbed the cardboard back and scampered away to his corner again. Some time later, Mu was going to take Viktor’s cardboard, and Viktor ran over to it, with his little chest puffed out, and whuffed at Mu to guard his cardboard. Mu wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, so he didn’t take the cardboard. Viktor is playing more and more, and he really seems to enjoy being with the pack, in the middle of the commotion. He’s not ready to wrestle or play hard like the big dogs do, but he plays in his own way. Mostly, Viktor likes to steal things, toys and cardboard and unguarded boxes of cookies. Sometimes I will set up a cookie box with just one or two cookies in it, and I will say, “I hope no one steals this box of cookies sitting here on the floor,” and then I turn my back and Viktor runs over and grabs the box and carries it away to destroy it and get the prize. Viktor is short, so he has to hold his head way up so he doesn’t trip on the box as he runs.

Mu and T had an extended wrestling session this morning. They were playing with a toy with a squeaker. Mu usually stays low and rolls over while Tino bites him from above or smothers him with his body. I know Mu is strong, but sometimes his neck is bent at odd angles while they wrestle. If my neck was bent that way, I would be dead. It never bothers Mu. Tino is bigger and stronger, with more energy. He plays rough, but I think he holds back with Mu, being careful not to hurt him. When T wrestles with Sky, it looks like he’s killing her, but he’s careful not to hurt her. When he wrestles with Fozzie, he basically just bops him on the head to get him stirred up then he sits patiently while Fozzie bites him all over. The other dogs play with each other sometimes, but mostly everyone plays with Tino. He needs a whole pack to absorb his energy.

I wish there was a device that I could attach to Tino‘s collar and it would record all of his words. A lot of his barking is sharp and loud and it scrambles my brains, but when he’s not barking, he says all kinds of other interesting words. I know what he means with these funny little words, but it’s not necessarily easy to translate. He has a word that means, “I’m ready to go now,” but the way he says it also conveys his sweetness, and that he is glad to be with his pack. He mutters and groans. He sings a beautiful howling song almost every morning. If a strange dog approaches on the street near our house, he has a deep bark that clearly shows his concern. It really seems that Tino enjoys his life. Unlike all my other dogs, he has never had a bad day in his life. He has known me and the dogs from the moment he was born, and his words seem to have a lightness and joy to them, even when they express longing. The longest he’s ever been alone, apart from any of his dogs or humans, was twenty minutes waiting in the car. His job is challenging, but he enjoys the work. Something in the way he talks seems to reflect a love of life. I will try harder to capture recordings of some of his words.

Mu and I went to search for a cat in Issaquah today. I thought we were going to get cool weather, like we had had the previous morning, but the clouds burned off earlier than expected. We were going to do one more sweep through a section of the woods, but Mu said no. He had started panting, he looked tired, and he just started walking back toward the car, pretty clearly indicating he was done. This was unusual for him. However, he has been doing the job for six years, more than 100 searches per year. It’s certainly okay for Mu to say he’s too hot and tired.

July 5th is typically a mop up day. It’s hard to work a case when you’ve been up past midnight and you would have needed to start a search before dawn. This year seemed to generate more missing cats and dogs than previous years, and I failed to catch up with responding to all of the requests. The heat makes it hard to schedule searches. Although we couldn’t help everyone with advice or searches, I still tried to keep up with the postings on the Lost Dogs of King County Facebook group page. Most of those dogs were eventually found, but not all. It was a day of rest for the dogs.

Today I took Tino with me to search for a reported stray Shepherd mix who was injured and emaciated. Tino wasn’t with me as a search dog, but just to keep me company in the air conditioned car. I did take him out into a field for a short time, just to see if he alerted to anything, possibly catching a sign of the dog that I might miss. We didn’t find any trace.

Tino walked off leash, watching rabbits and sniffing the grass. It was a field between warehouses, with no one around on a Saturday, just a few trees and an enormous sky streaked with ribbons of cloud. If someday in the future, it would be possible for me to inhabit a memory, I would just like to be walking through that field with Tino, without words, a warm day, with great clouds. Tino became interested in the scent trail of a rabbit, and he started running toward a road. The street was empty, with no cars in the past hour, but I called him back anyway, just to be safe. I said, “Hey,” and he stopped in his tracks and came right back to me. Then we got back into the air conditioning of the car and I turned all the vents to blast icy air on Tino and cool him off again.

Fozzie hasn’t been getting many jobs lately because Tino is doing so well, plus, Tino will just barrel through any obstacle, where Fozzie would get stuck. On the other hand, gentle little Fozzie gets to go places where a crazy German Shepherd wouldn’t work so well. Fozzie gets to go on errands with me.

Today, I was going to run an errand and Fozzie could tell. I went out the door without him because I wasn’t sure how long I would be away from the car. Fozzie let out a cry like he was being murdered, and I could hear it clear out at the car. I had to go back and get him. He was very glad to go on errands, and I just made sure to check on him frequently.

This day started with light rain. Mu and I searched for a cat in North Seattle. I think the cat’s owner had asked how close Mu had to be in order to detect a cat. I probably gave my typical answer, that he has detected a cat from 100 feet away when the wind was blowing the right way, but he could miss a cat that was three feet away if the air flow carried the scent away from Mu. Shortly after that, Mu walked by a cat that was sitting on top of the fence. He didn’t catch the scent until he got to the end of the fence. Then you could see his head come up as he followed the scent plume around the fence and his nose went up toward the top of the fence. It was a perfect illustration of how air flow affects the scent dog’s work.