Profoundly and perfectly.

You know, it’s much harder than you might think, choosing just one memory with your dog to expound upon. I’m sitting here in my homemade home office, trying to decide on which adventure with Aspen to delve into. Aspen is my now 2 year old blue heeler, border collie cross (a border heeler, if you will). She is just a little thing, about as tall as my knee is high, with smooth grey and white mottled fur, tonnes of freckles, brown socks, and a perfect black oval and black triangle (and black splotch) on her side and back. Yes, she is just a little thing, but she takes up all of the space in my day, in my mind, in my heart.

I think about the day I picked her up, how I was working in the woods three hours north of my town and how I could barely get through that wintry November Friday, knowing that I would see her that night and bring her home. The seller, who lived about 5 hours away, just happened to be in my city that very weekend and he had arranged to meet me in the parking lot of the Sandman Suites hotel, which lies just off of the highway as you drive into town. I remember how it felt almost like a drug transaction, where I got out of the truck after receiving a text and I walked over to a man I had never met before who had the goods tucked away in his zip up hoodie. The only light in the dark parking lot was a street lamp giving off a somewhat orange glow. We chatted for a second and just like that, I had a puppy. I walked back to the truck with something much more addictive: my little Aspen.

I remember the first time I took Aspen to the beach when we lived in Vancouver. It was a beautiful dog park with clean sand, large abstract looking pieces of driftwood to smell and climb, and grassy trails to explore just above the beach. It was her first introduction to water, and I wasn’t sure what she would do. In true herding fashion, she ignored the other dogs and became hyper-focused on her target, chasing the waves as they hit the shore, trying to make them behave. Back and forth, back and forth, jumping right in the cold ocean water and snapping at the white froth that headed the waves as they rolled onto the sand.

I think of that one summer day in 2020 when I was brought outside by her barking. I stepped onto the deck and saw her standing face to face with a deer who was not budging. Her barking subsided and she and the deer touched noses; her tail began to wag furiously. I left the deck to investigate why the doe hadn’t bolted and as I turned the corner I saw a little fawn standing a meter or two behind its mother, and I saw Aspen showing no intention to chase the perfect animals. I remember feeling so proud of her.

I think about our trip to Ontario, where Aspen injured her foot and we couldn’t do anything for about 4 weeks. We were playing fetch like we do every morning and she insisted on continuing playing. I had no idea she even had an injury until I saw her bloody paw print on our walk up the concrete steps to my brother’s house. I remember how challenging it was to keep her–a hyperactive herding dog–occupied while she healed, and how she would roll around trying to get her cone off. I remember how we spent so much time just being beside each other….and how we did that again when she sliced open her leg on a hike a few months later.

Or how we summited Mount Pope, a small mountain a few hours from our house, bordering Stuart Lake. She always runs ahead on hikes and after a few kilometres she walked right beside me because she was just so tired. We were both so exhausted the next day that we just laid in bed.

I think of our camping trip last summer and how we hiked Mount Robson up to Kinney Lake. She swam in the turquoise glacier waters for a while and on the hike down I noticed her tail was limp, it looked and moved like my ponytail. I was so scared (having, very obviously, an accident prone pup) that I ran the final 4 kilometres down the trail so I could contact a vet. Thankfully she healed from her ‘rudder tail’ within a couple of weeks and we were back to adventuring again.

I think about how Aspen has taught me some very important lessons, not the least of which is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Or that in life, it really is best to stop and smell the roses, to stop and smell everything, actually; that slowing down and soaking in a moment is good for the soul.

The point is, I can’t narrow it down and pick just one memory. From camping and hiking to lazing around, the most beautiful thing is that we are together. The one thing that makes any memory stand out is her, and that she is in my life. Perhaps living life unleashed is less to do with your adventure and far more to do with your adventure buddy.

You know, dogs can smell between 10,000 and 100,000 times better than humans, depending on the breed. Her visual acuity is better than mine. And she can hear not only a wider range of frequencies, but also four times as far, with serious accuracy in differentiating what she hears.

Aspen sees all of my imperfections, hears them, smells them. And yet her love is purer than anything. I think that’s how we live life unleashed; it’s not a moment, an event, a single memory, it’s a flood of love from one moment to the next, a collection of somewhat mundane days, and repeated walks, all with the pure love that can only come from seeing (and maybe hearing and smelling) another so profoundly and perfectly, and loving them in spite of it. Loving them because of it.