When I travel, I try to allow myself ample time to get lost, sight see, and explore. Unlike the younger me, I do not go from point A to point B using the fastest roads and the shortest distances. Now that I am in my “Golden Years”, I love to drive the out of the way roads. Occasionally they are not even paved and sometimes they barely travel in the direction I am going.
Every once in a while I find myself at a dead end and have to retrace my steps. But that is all part of the adventure. Spend the night in the car parked in the middle of nowhere? Yep, I’ve done that!
Accompanying me will be my beautiful Golden Retriever, “Cassiopeia”. She is Cassie when I write or talk about her, Cassiopeia when I talk to her. Thirteen years old with three working legs she is always ready to go. “Just jangle the car keys daddy!” She has one bad leg that is more of a crutch than anything. It has been broken twice and has had the head of the femur removed. She does not let that stop her, it may slow her down is all. In the mountains she will roll and frolic in the snow. She is drawn to swimming when we are at water’s edge. The woods seem to be her favorite. She investigates every leaf and twig, sniffing and occasionally flipping something over with her muzzle so she can smell the other side of it. She has yet to find a swath of grass she could not moisten. “I gots ta make water, daddy!”
I have had a lot of dogs over the years, but I have met few that have a less aggressive nature. She considers everyone she meets as her new and very best ever friend. You can feed her a piece of meat and before she swallows it, pry open her mouth and extract it. I have seen people other than myself do that. She not only tolerates that, she looks at you with an expression that says, “I knew you were going to do that, but that’s okay, you will probably give it right back to me.”
Years ago Charles Schulz drew a Peanuts strip showing Snoopy on top of the dog house typing away. Each panel read;
She had always been kind.
Sometimes, however, she wondered if she was appreciated.
“Even so,” she thought, “I shall always smile and be kind.”
Once a Golden Retriever, always a Golden Retriever.
Schulz once wrote that Snoopy’s only regret in life was that he was not born as a Golden Retriever. I think Charles must have known a Golden much like Cassie.
Sounds like some Beagles I’ve known… one in particular.