In Praise of a Very Good Dog

Milo’s crazy brave adventure ended this month. He was a few months shy of 15 years and, though his heart was willing, his body just…. wasn’t. He ended his long life in his favorite place: the back of the van, with treats and hugs and a whole lot of tears (ours).

Funny how dog can make a home in your heart.

Milo came into our lives in the flurry of years when we were working full time, farming full time and raising three active kids. Why we added another dog to the mix, I don’t know. A random Craigslist ad for poodle mix puppies ($150 each) was all it took. Milo was an Australian Shepherd-Golden Retriever-Poodle, before “doodles” were even a thing. And he was an easy-going guy from the start. Which was fortunate. Between our long commutes, sports teams, farming, and school functions, he pretty well raised himself.

Puppy Milo spent his days puttering around after the kids and gently pestering our flock of free-ranging chickens. He was an easy puppy, the star of his one short obedience class. He loved the kids, and everyone else who happened by with equal ferver. At the end of the day, Puppy Milo would conk out so completely we initially thought he was ill. Later, we came to call this “de-animating”. Whatever he did, he did it fully.

As the kids grew older, Milo somehow became “our” dog. He took daily walks in the woods with Dan, and longer hikes with the two of us on the weekends. He climbed Mount Stratton countless times, chased a bear once on Mount Greylock, and got quilled by a porcupine on a section of the Appalachian trail.

When we began the planning stages of our crazy/brave adventure, we didn’t consider Milo. He was an old dog already. It didn’t seem likely that he’d be around for the nomadic adventures to come. But he surprised us.

In his 12th year, he parked himself in the driveway and watched as we built our new traveling home. That fall, he joined us on our adventure.

Though his 25 acres of leashless forest was reduced to 77 square feet of contained space, Milo adapted to his van life as if it was the most natural next step.

In his last two years, he visited 45 states and three Canadian provinces. He dipped his paws in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes too. He took to wearing jackets (as needed) and endured self-serve doggie baths. He heard coyotes howling and elk bugling.

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He rode down the Pacific coast and across the St Lawrence on ferries, sped around the Gulf of Mexico on a Motorboat, chomped on a glacier, and learned about cactuses (the hard way) in Arizona. He climbed mountains, mucked around in swamps, and wandered city sidewalks.

And, he made hundreds of new friends along the way, both human and canine.

In the last half-year, Milo’s age began to catch up with him. His back legs grew wobbly and his eyes foggy. He had trouble breathing, and an increasingly serious heart murmer. We had to lift him into the van some days, and carry him up stairs. He couldn’t hear much and had to be coaxed to eat. Yet, up until the end, there was something so youthful, something so guileless and goofy and sweet about our pup, that people who met him — up until his very last day — assumed he was a puppy.

Living in our tiny space with a hairy, breathy, 50 pound dog was often challenging. So much of our time (and worry) was devoted to making sure Milo was safe and comfortable and healthy.

We took turns shopping and searched out slivers of parking lot shade, we got up to let him in and out (and in and out and in and out) of the van at night, and we often woke to the sound of his labored breathing and…….. we miss him terribly.

So many of our travel memories are connected to Milo. Even our language: There was “happy roll” time, when Milo would waggle around on his blanket, reveling in his moment, and “lost noodle” time, when — around sundown — he would get a “wild hair” and start to (creakily) chase his tail and bark in his gruff old-man voice.

He was an agreeable old goofball, who lived a wild doggy life, and he was a very, very good boy.