Dogs

My Dog Lay Down on the Trail and Refused to Move Five miles into the Chelan Lakeshore Trail, my dog, Basil, walked past me, stopped in the middle of the trail, and lay down. Not the “this shade looks nice” lie-down. The other one. The one that means I have consulted my remaining resources and we are done here. Basil has never done that before. We were five to six miles from where I’d planned to stop for the day, it was pushing 90 degrees, and there wasn’t nearly as much shade as we were used to. The nearest camp was a mile away, and the plan I’d spent weeks building needed to adapt to the circumstances — fast. So I picked him up and started walking. ...