Copilot Is Off the Clock

There's a field somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and my dog is standing in it.

Not near it. In it. Way out there. Staring at me like I'm the one who made a bad decision.

I'm yelling. Honey. Come on. Let's go. I'm leaving.

She doesn't move.

That's not being a good dog. I'm leaving. Bye.

She ran for the truck like her tail was on fire.

Hit the passenger seat, turned around, and kissed me on the face.

I called her a misbehaving little monster. I meant it with everything I have.

Honey is a mixed breed, but every ounce of her orange and white spotted attitude is pure Red Heeler — Australian Cattle Dog, if you want to get technical. They were bred in Australia in the 1800s to herd cattle across rough terrain. Smart, stubborn, loyal to the point of being ridiculous. They bond hard to one person and they do not take orders well unless they've decided you've earned it.

She's decided I've earned it. Most days.

She's three years old now. She was five weeks old when I got her — pulled from a litter whose mom had stopped feeding her. A friend asked me to come visit. I didn't plan on coming home with a puppy. But she needed someone, and if I'm being honest, so did I. I'd lost a pet not long before that — a cat who found two inches of open window in the middle of the night and didn't come back. That kind of loss doesn't leave you fast.

Honey didn't fix it. But she showed up.

The first year was chaos. Shoes. So many shoes. Potty training on the road is its own kind of adventure. Teaching a Red Heeler that she is not, in fact, the one in charge — that's an ongoing negotiation. But somewhere in the middle of all of it, she became my copilot. Not just a dog in the truck. My dog. The one who makes me get up, get out, take care of something besides myself.

You can't be lazy when something depends on you.

You can't stay in your head too long when forty pounds of spotted chaos needs a walk.

You can't forget to laugh when she's standing in a field, staring you down, daring you to leave without her.

Three years of road, three years of training, three years of her teaching me as much as I've taught her.

She's everything.

by Renae