California to Ohio: Even if You Leave the Internet, the Internet Follows You

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My dog Jack is a herding dog. Anyone who spends time around him knows this. Once he has determined the pack, everyone must be present and accounted for before we can go on a walk or anywhere. If someone tries to leave the pack, he will try to follow them or resist moving forward.

For future reference, I’ve never been one of those dog owners who discipline or train their pets. There is no point in arguing about it. It’s just the reality of who I am as a person — too much empathy. So I would never want to train Jack out of his herding instinct. Instead, we work around it.

If someone who spends time with us must leave, we time our departures so that they are gone and out of sight before we take Jack out for a walk. Only a few people know about this, and those who do, don’t need to be told. So, thankfully, we’ve never had to explain it to many people.

Here he is during our road trip, watching the doors she went through, patiently waiting for her return.

Jack was an abandoned puppy I found while driving to Colorado once. The tribes on the reservations drop puppies off at gas stations, where they loiter for a while until they’re picked up or chased away. If no one picks them up, they get too big and no one wants them. Jack crawled out from under a trailer, smiled up at me, and wanted something to eat. How could I resist?

He’s a special dog, or at least I like to think so. I had his DNA done once—probably a scam—and they said he was part collie, great dane, Dalmatian, and Beagle. When he was a pup, he looked like a wolf-dog.